Jobs

Downtown’s dirty tricks

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By Steven T. Jones

So everyone knew that downtown financial interests (such as the Committee on Jobs, Chamber of Commerce, Police Officers Association, the Association of Realtors, BOMA, PG&E, etc., not the mention their enablers at the Chronicle and Examiner) would be spending big money this election to try to buy the Board of Supervisors. And we knew they’d fight dirty, particularly in the swing districts of 1, 3, and 11.

But a couple of revelations from the past 24 hours show that the attacks that are filling mailboxes and the airwaves aren’t simply dirty – they’re dishonest, unethical, and perhaps even illegal. The Fog City Journal stumbled onto a great story that appears to show illegal political collusion between Dist. 11 supervisorial candidate Ahsha Safai (the real estate developer candidate of Mayor Gavin Newsom who refused our request for an endorsement interview and won’t return our phone calls) and the POA.

And the Chronicle reports on the complaint that Dist. 3 candidate David Chiu filed with the Ethics Commission after a television ad falsely claimed that he supports legalizing prostitution, despite his consistent opposition to Prop. K, the ballot measure that would do so. The commercial and several mailers also falsely claim that Dist. 11 candidate John Avalos still works for Sup. Chris Daly, who downtown is trying to make the poster child for all that’s wrong with San Francisco.

Of course, PG&E and downtown’s bagman, attorney Jim Sutton, have already been the subject of the biggest fines that the Ethics Commission has ever levied for illegal campaign behavior. So perhaps they’re content to just keep lying now and worry later about paying fines with their seemingly bottomless reservoirs of cash.

Hand it to him

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Andrea:

A male friend recently told me that he finds it very frustrating when women try to please him in ways other than intercourse. According to him, during hand jobs and blow jobs, men are just thinking, "Get on with it!" He claims to have spoken to lots of other guys about this who agreed with him.

Is this really true? Are there men who feel like this, or is he winding me up? (I suspect that the sample of people he asked wasn’t representative — but it’s been on my mind anyway.) Maybe the skills of his sexual partners haven’t been up to scratch? Or maybe it’s just his problem?

Love,

Whose Prob?

Dear Prob:

His problem. My onetime boyfriend (we got married, and now I don’t get to have a boyfriend anymore) used to use the phrase "That’s not an MP, that’s a YP," though he never used it on me, and that’s a good thing, because it’s really obnoxious. Nevertheless, if this guy were your boyfriend, this would be a YP, too, so let’s be glad he’s just a friend and it’s an HP all the way.

No, I don’t think it’s particularly true, although the category "men" is rather large, and there are individuals and subgroups who do feel that way. Very young men, for instance, will usually have been waiting for years to "get on with it," and they tend to think of intercourse as "the real thing" or "sex" and feel like everything else is, I guess, the fake thing. The sad part is that this conviction often leads to fairly disappointing sex, especially, but not exclusively, for the girls involved, when teenagers trade in the usually gratifying heavy petting and manual and oral for the strictly genital.

Men who know a bit more about what they really like do tend to have a slightly wider repertoire, depending on and responsive to who(m), what, when, where, and why. Sometimes a man just needs a blow job. Sometimes everything is just too wet and soft to get the job done (although men are, admittedly, generally partial to the wet and soft), and only a hand will do the job. Sometimes the visual element (from above while partner kneels, from behind in doggy style) is the important part, with friction and tempo taking the backseat, as it were. In other words, as in all things sexual, it depends. Your friend, by assuming that all men are just like him, is lacking in imagination, and again I say good for you for not having to be his girlfriend.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I’ve been going out with a great man for a year now, and the sex is finally beginning to flourish in kinky and sensual ways. I can orgasm relatively quickly from a variety of methods. The problem is, recently he can’t come from oral or vaginal intercourse. We try different positions, but the only way he can reach orgasm is from his own hand. What is going on here? How can I get him to come with me?

Love,

Woman waiting

Dear WW:

I suggest that you don’t wait as much as file your preference under "fond hopes" and not make too big a deal out of this, since sexual response is not the sort of system that responds well to stress. I’d also caution you not to take it personally, if that’s possible, since assuming you are not doing anything differently, this appears to be an HP and nothing you can affect much one way or the other. I do wonder if perhaps he has started taking an antidepressant or a beta blocker, both common medications with nearly universal sexual side effects, at least at first. If so, give it a while, and if things don’t improve, he can go back to the doctor for a meds adjustment and a general checkup, since there are a lot of conditions, including diabetes, that could be causing this.

If not that or that or that other thing, the usual culprits are aging (possible; you didn’t say), anxiety, and, of course, boredom. Lots of people would rather hear that their partner has a dangerous, progressive disease than that he’s bored, but don’t freak out. If you’re just getting into the fun, kinky part together, it’s unlikely that he’s bored already. He may be worried about something, or fixating on something even kinkier that he’s afraid to ask for but that you might feel like offering if only you knew what it was. And he might simply be aging out of the sorts of stimulation that did it for him before and need rougher handling, which you can certainly provide. Watch what he’s doing with the successful handiwork — where is he stroking, how hard and how fast? Once you know what’s working, you can try re-creating the sensations in a way that gets and keeps you involved. Nobody said you can’t use your hand (or his) during a blow job, right? Or during what the guy in the first letter would insist all men like better anyway?

Love,

Andrea

Got a salacious subject you want Andrea to discuss? Ask her a question!

EXCLUSIVE: Downtown’s slate

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>>CLICK HERE FOR OUR EXCLUSIVE CHART TRACING THE DOWNTOWN AND PG&E CAMPAIGN MONEY (PDF)

Reports filed with the city’s campaign finance database show that six big downtown outfits — the San Francisco Apartment Association, the Building Owners and Managers Association, Plan C, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the Committee on Jobs, and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. — are spending millions to stop progressive candidates and measures and elect a pro-downtown, pro-landlord slate for the Board of Supervisors.

These political action committees (PACs) use their huge war chests in several strategically significant ways.

They make direct monetary contributions to each other, with most paying directly into Plan C, which seems to stand for "Condo Conversion Complex" PAC. Almost $20,000 has moved between these committees in recent months.

They directly fund local candidate and ballot committees, pay for independent billboards, mailers and postage, write ballot arguments, and host fundraisers for their preferred slate. The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) has spent $130,000 to date promoting its candidates.

They use Carmen Chu’s image on $11,500 worth of the No on H mailers. They have funneled $63,000 into the into the Yes on V campaign, which is being used against progressive candidate Eric Mar.

You can follow the money yourself at www.sfgov.org/site/ethics_page.asp?id=74890

But with the next filing deadline set for Oct. 23, and some committees willing to pay late fines, much of what transpires won’t be disclosed until after Nov. 4.

The city maintains an updated list of independent expenditures and electioneering or member communications at www.sfgov.org/site/ethics_page.asp?id=88183.

These show massive amounts of late money being spent to support Sue Lee, Alicia Wang, Joe Alioto, Mike Denunzio, Chu, Eva Royale, and Ahsha Safai and oppose Mar. Stay tuned. And vote early and often.

Economic stimulus, at home

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EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom is planning to announce a local economic stimulus package some time this week. The Board of Supervisors is holding hearings on how the city can help the San Francisco economy. As the presidential candidates thrash around with proposals to address the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, local politicians are hoping to do their part at home.

And that’s a fine idea. Even in this globalized economy, San Francisco can do a lot to protect its residents and businesses from the ongoing disaster. But the best way to do that will require political courage — and a recognition that economic stimulus works best from the bottom up, not the top down.

The most effective way to get a depressed economy going, in other words, is to put money as directly as possible in the hands of the people most likely to spend it. That means the sorts of policies that big business and landlords will want — say, cutting "red tape" and reducing business fees and taxes — isn’t gong to help.

Progressive economists say that on the national level, one of the most effective policies would be a short-term reduction in the payroll tax. Most working people pay 7.5 percent of their wages into the Social Security trust fund, and most businesses match that contribution. Suspend the employee contribution for three months and everyone in the nation instantly gets a significant raise. (The Social Security fund would take a hit, but this is an emergency and that can be fixed later; despite all the gloom and doom, Social Security will be fine for the next half century with just a few minor fixes.)

The idea is that people who get a raise during a recession are likely to spend it, quickly, which pours money into the economy. The same principal can work in San Francisco. Any economic stimulus package will cost money and add to the city’s deficit (unless Newsom and the supervisors are willing to raise taxes to fund it). But some short-term policies could more than pay for themselves by jump-starting local spending.

A few ideas:

• Place a moratorium on all residential evictions. Barack Obama is talking about a short-term freeze on mortgage foreclosures, which makes sense for the nation. But in San Francisco, where most residents are renters, evictions are far more of an economic threat. The mayor and the supervisors could ask the sheriff to refrain from carrying out any eviction actions for a limited period (and potentially cut off funding for eviction actions).

• Create an emergency rent-subsidy fund. Make city cash available to anyone facing eviction because of economic circumstance.

• Reduce Muni fares for a few months. Muni is in many ways a tax on the poor and working class, who have no other travel options. Almost every penny that people spend on transportation would go right back into the economy.

• Suspend the payroll tax on small businesses. Small businesses create most of the jobs in the city; suspending the tax on the smallest businesses (those, say, with payrolls of less than $500,000) would help the most vulnerable and keep the engines of the local economy from failing. Raising the tax on big businesses would, of course, more than pay for this.

• Raise the general assistance payment. Sure, some of that money would be spent on alcohol and drugs, but most would be spent on things like food and clothing.

• Spend more, not less, on the public sector. Government spending creates jobs; government programs saved the United States from the Great Depression. Taxing the wealthy to fund public jobs programs makes excellent economic sense at the city level, too.

Those are just a few ideas. The supervisors should devote their hearings to developing more. But a plan that only helps big business and doesn’t put money in the pockets of the rest of San Franciscans won’t do anything to help the local economy. *

Same-sex marriage good for the economy

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The opponents of same-sex marraige have raised $25 million. That’s amazing: $25 million to stop people from getting married.

But apparently, it’s working. The Newsom ad has been effective, and now No on 8 folks are issuing a wake-up call to their supporters.

In the meantime, I really like the Sonoma State University study that shows how same-sex marriage is good for the economy. Sonoma County alone could see $112 million in benefits.

More jobs, more money into the economy in a depression … and these nut cases are spending $25 million to stop it?

Endorsements 2008: East Bay races and measures

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EAST BAY RACES

Alameda County Superior Court judge, Seat 9

DENNIS HAYASHI


A public interest lawyer with a focus on civil rights, Dennis Hayashi has worked for years with the Asian Law Caucus. He was co-counsel in the historic case that challenged Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing to report to a Japanese internment camp during World War II. He’s run the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing and was a civil rights lawyer in the Clinton administration. He has spent much of his life serving the public interest and would make a fine addition to the bench.

Berkeley mayor

TOM BATES


Tom Bates was a stellar member of the State Assembly once upon a time, and is seen in many quarters as a progressive icon in the East Bay. But he’s been a bit of a disappointment at times as mayor. He’s been dragging his feet on a Berkeley sunshine ordinance, he’s way too friendly with developers, and he helped gut the landmarks-preservation law. He’s supported some terrible candidates (like Gordon Wozniak).

Still, Bates has made some strides on workforce housing and on creating green jobs. He’s fought the University of California over its development plans. And he’s far, far better than his opponent, Shirley Dean.

Dean is even more pro-development than Bates. She’s terrible on tenant issues and won’t be able to work at all with the progressives on the council. We have reservations with Bates, but he’s the better choice.

Berkeley City Council

District 2

DARRYL MOORE


Moore came to the Berkeley City Council with a great track record. We endorsed him for this post in 2004, as did the Green Party. He supports instant-runoff voting and a sunshine ordinance. But he’s been awfully close to the developers and brags that he’s proud to have a high rating from the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. His opponent, John Crowder, isn’t a serious contender, so we’ll go with Moore, with reservations.

District 3

MAX ANDERSON


Max Anderson is one of two real progressives on the council (the other is Kriss Worthington). Anderson, an ex-Marine, was one of the leaders in the battle against Marine recruitment in Berkeley and has been strong on environmental issues, particularly the fight against spraying the light brown apple moth. He deserves another term.

District 4

JESSE ARREGUIN


Dona Spring, who ably represented District 4 and was a strong progressive voice on the council, died in July, leaving a huge gap in Berkeley politics. The best choice to replace her is Jesse Arreguin, who currently works in the office of Councilmember Kriss Worthington.

Arreguin is the chair of the Rent Stabilization Board and has served on the Zoning Appeals Board and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, where he out-organized the moderates and pro-development sorts. He supports sustainable, community-based planning and would be an excellent addition to the council

District 5

SOPHIE HAHN


This is a fairly moderate district, and incumbent Laurie Capitelli is the clear favorite. But Capitelli has been terrible on development issues and is too willing to go along with the mayor on land use. Sophie Hahn, a lawyer, is a bit cautious (she didn’t like the city’s involvement in the Marine recruitment center battle), but she’s a strong environmentalist who’s pushing a more aggressive bicycle policy. And she’s a big supporter of local small businesses and wants to promote a "shop local" program in Berkeley. She’s the better choice.

District 6

PHOEBE ANN SORGEN


Incumbent Betty Olds — one of the most conservative members of the city council — is retiring, and she’s endorsed her council aide, Susan Wengraf, for the seat. It’s not a district that tends to elect progressives, and Wengraf, former president of the moderate (and often pro-landlord) Berkeley Democratic Club, is the odds-on favorite.

We’re supporting Phoebe Ann Sorgen, who is probably more progressive than the district and lacks experience in city politics but who is solid on the issues. A member of the Peace and Justice Commission and the KPFA board, she’s pushing alternative-fuel shuttles between the neighborhoods and is, like Sophie Hahn, a proponent of shop-local policies.

Berkeley School Board

JOHN SELAWSKY


BEATRIZ LEVYA-CUTLER


Incumbent John Selawsky has, by almost every account and by almost any standard, done a great job on the school board. He’s mixed progressive politics with fiscal discipline and helped pull the district out of a financial mess a few years back. He knows how to work with administrators, teachers, and neighbors. He richly deserves another term.

Beatriz Levya-Cutler is a parent of a Berkeley High School student and has run a nonprofit that provides preschool care and supplemental education to Berkeley kids. She has the support of everyone from Tom Bates to Kriss Worthington. We’ll endorse her too.

Berkeley Rent Board

NICOLE DRAKE


JACK HARRISON


JUDY SHELTON


JESSE TOWNLEY


IGOR TREGUB


The Berkeley left doesn’t always agree on everything, but there’s a pretty strong consensus in favor of this five-member slate for the Berkeley Rent Board. The five were nominated at an open convention, all have pledged to support tenant rights, and they will keep the board from losing it’s generally progressive slant.

Oakland City Council, at-large

REBECCA KAPLAN


Rebecca Kaplan, an AC Transit Board member, came in first in the June primary for this seat, well ahead of Kerry Hamill, but she fell short of 50 percent, so the two are in a runoff.

Hamill is the candidate of state Sen.(and East Bay kingmaker) Don Perata. Political committees with links to Perata have poured tens of thousands of dollars into a pro-Hamill campaign, and city council member Ignacio de la Fuente, a Perata ally, is raising money for Hamill too.

Kaplan is independent of the Perata political machine. She’s an energetic progressive with lots of good ideas — and a proven track record in office. While on the AC Transit Board, Kaplan pushed for free bus passes for low-income youths. When she decided she wanted the district to offer all-night transit service from San Francisco, she found a way to work with both her own board and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to iron out the jurisdiction issues and get it done. Her platform calls for affordable housing, rational development, and effective community policing. She’s exactly the kind of candidate Oakland needs, and we’re happy to endorse her.

AC Transit Board of Directors

At large

CHRIS PEEPLES


Chris Peeples was appointed to an open seat in 1997, elected in 1998, and reelected in 2000 and 2004. A longtime advocate for public transit, and AC Transit bus service in particular, Peeples is a widely respected board member who helped secure free transit for lower-income youths and the current low-cost youth passes. Involved in the AC Bus Riders Union, Alliance for AC Transit, Regional Alliance for Transit, Alliance for Sensible Transit, Coalition for a One-Stop Terminal, and many other transit groups, Peeples has served on the Oakland Ethics Commission and is active in the meetings of the Transportation Research Board and the American Public Transportation Association.

Peeples was also involved in the mess that was the Van Hool bus contract, in which AC Transit bought buses from a Belgian company that were poorly designed and had to be changed. Joyce Roy, who is well known in the East Bay for her lawsuit against the Oak to Ninth proposed development and her participation in the ensuing referendum effort, is challenging Peeples because of his support of the Van Hool buses. A retired architect and local public transit advocate, Roy lost the 2004 race for the AC Transit Board, Ward 2, post to current incumbent Greg Harper. But now she is running a stronger race because she has the support of the drivers and passengers, especially the seniors and the disabled, who find these buses uncomfortable and unsafe.

But given Peeples’s long history and generally good record, we’ll endorse him for another term.

Ward 2

GREG HARPER


An East Bay attorney and former Emeryville mayor, Greg Harper was elected in November 2000 and reelected in 2004 to represent Ward 2. Harper appears committed to ridership growth and has become increasingly critical of the district’s attempts to increase fares, not to mention the much maligned decision to purchase Van Hool buses. Harper is in favor of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and has a strong record of listening and being responsive to community concerns. He has said that if Berkeley votes to stop BRT-dedicated lanes, he’d only try to implement BRT in his district, if its makes sense.

East Bay Municipal Utility District

Director, Ward 5

DOUG LINNEY


With the East Bay falling short of targeted water savings, it’s increasingly vital that voters elect environmentally conscious EBMUD directors. Doug Linney fits the bill. First elected in 2002 and reelected in 2004, Linney is a solid progressive. Opposed to reservoir expansion, Linney wants to promote water conservation and is open to groundwater storage and water transfers, but only if no environmental damage is done.

Director, Ward 6

BOB FEINBAUM


Incumbent William Patterson has supported dam and reservoir expansion, groundwater storage, wastewater recycling, and desalinization. He has opposed large water transfers from agricultural districts and rate changes that would promote conservation.

His opponent, Bob Feinbaum, is a solid environmentalist who supports water transfers, opposes desalinization and reservoir expansion, and offers promising and sustainable ideas in terms of managing the drought that include setting fair rates for big users and protecting low-income users. He deserves support.

East Bay Regional Parks District

Director, Ward 1

NORMAN LA FORCE


A longtime environmental advocate, Norman La Force has shown a commitment to expanding and preserving parks and open space and tenacity in balancing the public’s desire for recreational facilities and the need for habitat protection for wildlife. We’re happy to endorse him for this office.

EAST BAY MEASURES

Berkeley Measure FF

Library bonds

YES


Measure FF would authorize $26 million in bonds to improve and bring up to code branch libraries in a city where the branches get heavy use and are a crucial part of the neighborhoods. Vote yes.

Berkeley Measure GG

Emergency medical response tax

YES


A proposed tiny tax on improvements in residential and commercial property would fund emergency medical response and disaster preparedness. Vote yes.

Berkeley Measure HH

Park taxes

YES


A legal technicality, Measure HH allows the city to raise the limit on spending so it can allocate taxes that have already been approved to pay for parks, libraries, and other key services.

Berkeley Measure II

Redistricting schedule

YES


This noncontroversial measure would give the city an additional year after the decennial census is completed to finish work on drawing new council districts. After the 2000 census, which undercounted urban populations, Berkeley (and other cities) had to fight to get the numbers adjusted, and that pushed the city up against a statutory limit for redistricting. Measure II would allow a bit more flexibility if, once again, the census numbers are hinky.

Berkeley Measure JJ

Medical marijuana zoning

YES


Berkeley law allows for only three medical marijuana clinics, and this wouldn’t change that limit. But Measure JJ would make pot clinics a defined and permitted use under local zoning laws. Since it’s hard — sometimes almost impossible — to find a site for a pot club now, this measure would allow existing clinics to stay in business if they have to move. Vote yes.

Berkeley Measure KK

Repealing bus-only lanes

NO


Yes, there are problems with the bus-only lanes in Berkeley (they don’t connect to the ferries, for example), but the idea is right. Measure KK would mandate voter approval of all new transit lanes; that’s crazy and would make it much harder for the city to create what most planners agree are essential new modes of public transit. Vote no.

Berkeley Measure LL

Landmarks preservation

NO


Developers in Berkeley (and, sad to say, Mayor Tom Bates) see the Landmarks Preservation Commission as an obstacle to development, and they want to limit its powers. This is a referendum on the mayor’s new rules; if you vote no, you preserve the ability of the landmarks board to protect property from development.

Oakland Measure N

School tax

YES


This is a parcel tax to fund Oakland public schools. San Francisco just passed a similar measure, aimed at providing better pay for teachers. Parcel taxes aren’t the most progressive money source — people who own modest homes pay the same per parcel as the owners of posh commercial buildings — but given the lack of funding choices in California today, Measure N is a decent way to pay for better school programs. Vote yes.

Oakland Measure OO

Children and youth services

YES


This is a set-aside to fund children and youth services. We’re always wary about set-asides, but kids are a special case: children can’t vote, and services for young people are often tossed aside in the budget process. San Francisco’s version of this law has worked well. Vote yes.

ALAMEDA COUNTY MEASURES

Measure VV

AC Transit parcel tax

YES


In face of rising fuel costs and cuts in state funding, AC Transit wants to increase local funding to avoid fare increases and service cuts. Measure VV seeks to authorize an annual special parcel tax of $96 per year for 10 years, starting in 2009.

The money is intended for the operation and maintenance of the bus service. Two-thirds voter approval is needed. If passed, a community oversight committee would monitor how the money is being spent.

The measure has the support of the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter and the League of Women Voters.

Measure WW

Extension of existing East Bay Park District bond

YES


The East Bay Regional Park District operates 65 regional parks and more than a thousand miles of trails. It’s an amazing system and a wonderful resource for local residents. But the district needs ongoing sources of money to keep this system in good shape. Measure WW would reauthorize an existing East Bay Park District bond. This means that the owner of a $500,000 home would continue to pay $50 a year for the next 20 years.

One quarter of the monies raised would go to cities, special park and recreation districts, and county service areas. The remaining 75 percent would go toward park acquisitions and capital projects. The bonds constitute a moderate burden on property owners but seem like a small price to ensure access to open space for people of all economic backgrounds. Vote yes.

>>More Guardian Endorsements 2008

Endorsements 2008: San Francisco measures

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SAN FRANCISCO MEASURES

Proposition A

San Francisco General Hospital bonds

YES, YES, YES


This critically needed $887 million bond would be used to rebuild the San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, which is currently not up to seismic safety codes. If the hospital isn’t brought into seismic compliance by 2013, the state has threatened to shut it down.

Proposition A has the support of just about everyone in town: Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, all four state legislators from San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom, former mayors Willie Brown and Frank Jordan, all 11 supervisors, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Service Employees International Union, Local 1021 … the list goes on and on.

And for good reason: SF General is not only the hospital of last resort for many San Franciscans and the linchpin of the entire Healthy San Francisco system. It’s also the only trauma center in the area. Without SF General, trauma patients would have to travel to Palo Alto for the nearest available facility.

Just about the only opposition is coming from the Coalition for Better Housing. This deep-pocketed landlord group is threatening to sink the hospital bond unless it gets concessions on Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier’s legislation that would allow landlords to pass the costs of the $4 billion rebuild of the city’s Hetch Hetchy water, sewage, and power system through to their tenants.

These deplorable tactics should make voters, most of whom are tenants, even more determined to see Prop. A pass. Vote yes.

Proposition B

Affordable housing fund

YES, YES, YES


Housing isn’t just the most contentious issue in San Francisco; it’s the defining issue, the one that will determine whether the city of tomorrow bears any resemblance to the city of today.

San Francisco is on the brink of becoming a city of the rich and only the rich, a bedroom community for Silicon Valley and an urban nest for wealthy retirees. Some 90 percent of current city residents can’t afford the cost of a median-priced house, and working-class people are getting displaced by the day. Tenants are thrown out when their rent-controlled apartments are converted to condos. Young families find they can’t rent or buy a place with enough room for kids and are forced to move to the far suburbs. Seniors and people on fixed incomes find there are virtually no housing choices for them in the market, and many wind up on the streets. Small businesses suffer because their employees can’t afford to live here; the environment suffers because so many San Francisco workers must commute long distances to find affordable housing.

And meanwhile, the city continues to allow developers to build million-dollar condos for the rich.

Proposition B alone won’t solve the problem, but it would be a major first step. The measure would set aside a small percentage of the city’s property-tax revenue — enough to generate about $33 million a year — for affordable housing. It would set a baseline appropriation to defend the money the city currently spends on housing. It would expire in 15 years.

Given the state of the city’s housing crisis, $33 million is a fairly modest sum — but with a guaranteed funding stream, the city can seek matching federal and state funds and leverage that over 15 years into billions of dollars to build housing for everyone from very low-income people to middle-class families.

Prop. B doesn’t raise taxes, and if the two revenue measures on the ballot, Propositions N and Q, pass, there will be more than enough money to fund it without any impact on city services.

The mayor and some other conservative critics say that set-asides such as this one cripple the ability of elected officials to make tough budget choices. But money for affordable housing isn’t a choice anymore in San Francisco; it’s a necessity. If the city can’t take dramatic steps to retain its lower-income and working-class residents, the city as we know it will cease to exist. A city of the rich is not only an appalling concept; it’s simply unsustainable.

The private market alone can’t solve San Francisco’s housing crisis. Vote yes on B.

Proposition C

Ban city employees from commissions

NO


Proposition C would prohibit city employees from serving on boards and commissions. Sponsored by Sup. Jake McGoldrick, it seems to make logical sense — why should a city department head, for example, sit on a policy panel that oversees city departments?

But the flaw in Prop. C is that it excludes all city employees, not just senior managers. We see no reason why, for example, a frontline city gardener or nurse should be barred from ever serving on a board or commission. We’re opposing this now, but we urge the supervisors to come back with a new version that applies only to employees who are exempt from civil service — that is, managers and political appointees.

Proposition D

Financing Pier 70 waterfront district

YES


Pier 70 was once the launching pad for America’s imperial ambitions in the Pacific, but it’s sadly fallen into disrepair, like most Port of San Francisco property. The site’s historic significance and potential for economic development (think Monterey’s Cannery Row) have led port officials and all 11 members of the Board of Supervisors to put forward this proposal to prime the pump with a public infrastructure investment that would be paid back with interest.

The measure would authorize the Board of Supervisors to enter into long-term leases consistent with the forthcoming land use and fiscal plans for the site, and to front the money for development of roads and waterfront parks, refurbishing Union Iron Works, and other infrastructure work, all of which would be paid back through tax revenue generated by development of the dormant site. It’s a good deal. Vote yes.

Proposition E

Recall reform

YES


The recall is an important tool that dates back to the state’s progressive era, but San Francisco’s low signature threshold for removing an officeholder makes it subject to abuse. That’s why the Guardian called for this reform ("Reform the Recall," 6/13/07) last year when downtown interests were funding simultaneous recall efforts (promoted by single-issue interest groups) against three progressive supervisors: Jake McGoldrick, Aaron Peskin, and Chris Daly. The efforts weren’t successful, but they diverted time and energy away from the important work of running the city.

This measure would bring the City Charter into conformity with state law, raising the signature threshold from 10 percent of registered voters to 20 percent in most supervisorial districts, and leaving it at 10 percent for citywide office. The sliding-scale state standard is what most California counties use, offering citizens a way to remove unaccountable representatives without letting a fringe-group recall be used as an extortive threat against elected officials who make difficult decisions that don’t please everyone.

Proposition F

Mayoral election in even-numbered years

YES


This one’s a close call, and there are good arguments on both sides. Sponsored by Sup. Jake McGoldrick, Proposition F would move mayoral elections to the same year as presidential elections. The pros: Increased turnout, which tends to favor progressive candidates, and some savings to the city from the elimination of an off-year election. The cons: The mayor’s race might be eclipsed by the presidential campaigns. In a city where the major daily paper and TV stations have a hard time covering local elections in the best of times, the public could miss out on any real scrutiny of mayoral candidates.

Here’s what convinced us: San Francisco hasn’t elected a true progressive mayor in decades. The system we have isn’t working; it’s worth trying something else.

Proposition G

Retirement system credit for unpaid parental leave

YES


Proposition G brings equity to city employees who started families before July 1, 2003. Currently this group is unable to benefit from a 2002 charter amendment that provides city employees with paid parental leave. Prop. G gives these parents the opportunity to buy back unpaid parental leave and earn retirement credits for that period.

Critics charge that Prop. G changes the underlying premise of the city’s retirement plan and that this attempt to cure a perceived disparity creates a precedent whereby voters could be asked to remedy disparities anytime benefit changes are made. They claim that there are no guarantees Prop. G won’t end up costing the taxpayers money.

But Prop. G, which is supported by the San Francisco Democratic and Republican Parties, the Chamber of Commerce, SEIU Local 1021, the Police Officers Association, and San Francisco Firefighters 798, simply allows city workers to buy back at their own expense some of their missed retirement benefits, thereby creating a fiscally responsible solution to an oversight in the 2003 charter amendment.

Proposition H

Clean Energy Act

YES, YES, YES


Proposition H is long, long overdue. This charter amendment would require the city to study how to efficiently and affordably achieve 51 percent renewable energy by 2017, scaled up to 100 percent by 2040. Should the study find that a publicly owned utility infrastructure would be most effective, it would allow the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) to issue revenue bonds, with approval from the Board of Supervisors, to purchase the necessary lines, poles, and power-generation facilities. The measure includes a green jobs initiative and safeguards benefits and retirement packages for employees who leave Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to work for the SFPUC.

PG&E hates this because it could put the giant private company out of business in San Francisco, and the company has already spent millions of dollars spreading false information about the measure. PG&E says the proposal would cost $4 billion and raise electric bills by $400 a year for residents, but there’s no verifiable proof that these figures are accurate. An analysis done by the Guardian (see "Cleaner and Cheaper," 9/10/08) shows that rates could actually be reduced and the city would still generate excess revenue.

PG&E has also spun issuing revenue bonds without a vote of the people as a bad thing — it’s not. Other city departments already issue revenue bonds without a vote. The solvency of revenue bonds is based on a guaranteed revenue stream — that is, the city would pay back the bonds with the money it makes selling electricity. There’s no cost and no risk to the taxpayers. In fact, unless the city can prove that enough money would be generated to cover the cost of the bond plus interest, the bond won’t fly with investors.

At a time when utility companies are clinging to old technologies or hoping for pie-in-the-sky solutions like "clean coal," this measure is desperately needed and would set a precedent for the country. Environmental leaders like Bill McKibben and Van Jones, who both endorsed the bill, are watching San Francisco closely on this. Prop. H has been endorsed by 8 of the 11 supervisors, Assemblymembers Mark Leno and Fiona Ma, state senator Carole Migden, the Democratic Party, the Green Party, SEIU Local 1021, the Sierra Club, Senior Action Network, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club, and the San Francisco Tenants Union, among many others.

The bulk of the opposition comes from PG&E, which is entirely funding the No on H campaign and paid for 22 of 30 ballot arguments against it. The company also has given money, in one way or another, to all the public officials who oppose this measure, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Sups. Michela Alioto-Pier, Carmen Chu, and Sean Elsbernd.

Prop. H pits a utility that can’t meet the state’s modest renewable-energy goals and runs a nuclear power plant against every environmental group and leader in town. Vote yes.

Proposition I

Independent ratepayer advocate

NO


At face value, this measure isn’t bad, but it’s superfluous. It’s a charter amendment that would establish an independent ratepayer advocate, appointed by the city administrator and tasked with advising the SFPUC on all things related to utility rates and revenue. Passing Prop. H would do that too.

Proposition I was put on the ballot by Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier as a way to save face after her ardent opposition to the city’s plan to build two peaker power plants, in which she made impassioned pleas for more renewable energy and more energy oversight. (She opposes Prop. H, which would create both.) During the debate over the peaker power plants, Alioto-Pier introduced a variety of bills, including this one. There isn’t any visible campaign or opposition to it, but there’s no need for it. Vote yes on H, and no on I.

Proposition J

Historic preservation commission

YES


There’s something in this measure for everyone to like, both the developers who seek to alter historic buildings and the preservationists who often oppose them. It adopts the best practices of other major US cities and updates 40-year-old rules that govern the Landmark Preservation Advisory Board.

Proposition J, sponsored by Sup. Aaron Peskin, would replace that nine-member board with a seven-member commission that would have a bit more authority and whose members would be preservation experts appointed by the mayor, approved by the board, and serving fixed terms to avoid political pressures. It would set review standards that vary by project type, allowing streamlined staff-level approval for small projects and direct appeals to the Board of Supervisors for big, controversial proposals.

This was a collaborative proposal with buy-in from all stakeholders, and it’s formally opposed only by the Small Property Owners of San Francisco, an extremist property rights group. Vote yes.

Proposition K

Decriminalizing sex work

YES


We’re not big fans of vice laws; generally speaking, we’ve always believed that drugs, gambling, and prostitution ought to be legalized, tightly regulated, and heavily taxed. Proposition K doesn’t go that far — all it does is make enforcement of the prostitution laws a low priority for the San Francisco Police Department. It would effectively cut off funding for prostitution busts — but would require the cops to pursue cases involving violent crime against sex workers.

The opponents of this measure talk about women who are coerced into sex work, particularly immigrants who are smuggled into the country and forced into the trade. That’s a serious problem in San Francisco. But the sex workers who put this measure on the ballot argue that taking the profession out of the shadows would actually help the police crack down on sex trafficking.

In fact, a significant part of the crime problem created by sex work involves crimes against the workers — violent and abusive pimps, atrocious working conditions, thefts and beatings by johns who face no consequences because the sex workers face arrest if they go to the police.

The current system clearly isn’t working. Vote yes on K.

Proposition L

Funding the Community Justice Center

NO


This measure is an unnecessary and wasteful political gimmick by Mayor Newsom and his downtown allies. Newsom has long pushed the Community Justice Center (CJC) as a panacea for quality-of-life crimes in the Tenderloin and surrounding areas, where the new court would ostensibly offer defendants immediate access to social service programs in lieu of incarceration. Some members of the Board of Supervisors resisted the idea, noting that it singles out poor people and that the services it purports to offer have been decimated by budget shortfalls. Nonetheless, after restoring deep cuts in services proposed by the mayor, the board decided to go ahead and fund the CJC.

But the mayor needed an issue to grandstand on this election, so he placed this measure on the ballot. All Proposition L would do is fund the center at $2.75 million for its first year of operations, rather than the approved $2.62 million. We’d prefer to see all that money go to social services rather than an unnecessary new courtroom, but it doesn’t — the court is already funded. In the meantime, Prop. L would lock in CJC program details and prevent problems from being fixed by administrators or supervisors once the program is up and running. Even if you like the CJC, there’s no reason to make it inflexible simply so Newsom can keep ownership of it. Vote no.

Proposition M

Tenants’ rights

YES


Proposition M would amend the city’s rent-control law to prohibit landlords from harassing tenants. It would allow tenants to seek rent reductions if they’re being harassed.

Proponents — including the SF Tenants Union, the Housing Rights Committee, St. Peter’s Housing Committee, the Community Tenants Association, the Affordable Housing Alliance, the Eviction Defense Collaborative, and the Tenderloin Housing Clinic — argue that affordable, rent-controlled housing is being lost because landlords are allowed to drive long-term tenants from their rent-controlled homes. Citing the antics of one of San Francisco’s biggest landlords, CitiApartments, the tenant activists complain about repeated invasions of privacy, constant buyout offers, and baseless bogus eviction notices.

Because no language currently exists in the rent ordinance to define and protect tenants from harassment, landlords with well-documented histories of abuse have been able to act with impunity. Vote Yes on M.

Proposition N

Real property transfer tax

YES, YES, YES


Prop. N is one of a pair of measures designed to close loopholes in the city tax code and bring some badly needed new revenue into San Francisco’s coffers. The proposal, by Sup. Aaron Peskin, would increase to 1.5 percent the transfer tax on the sale of property worth more than $5 million. It would generate about $30 million a year.

Prop. N would mostly affect large commercial property sales; although San Francisco housing is expensive, very few homes sell for $5 million (and the people buying and selling the handful of ultra-luxury residences can well afford the extra tax). It’s a progressive tax — the impact will fall overwhelmingly on very wealthy people and big business — and this change is long overdue. Vote yes.

Proposition O

Emergency response fee

YES, YES, YES


With dozens of state and local measures on the ballot this year, Proposition O is not getting much notice — but it’s a big deal. If it doesn’t pass, the city could lose more than $80 million a year. With the economy tanking and the city already running structural deficits and cutting essential services, that kind of hit to the budget would be catastrophic. That’s why the mayor, all 11 supervisors, and both the Republican and Democratic Parties support Prop. O.

The text of the measure is confusing and difficult to penetrate because it deals mainly with legal semantics. It’s on the ballot because of arcane legal issues that might make it hard for the city to enforce an existing fee in the future.

But here’s the bottom line: Prop. O would not raise taxes or increase the fees most people already pay. It would simply replace what was a modest "fee" of a couple of bucks a month to fund 911 services with an identical "tax" for the same amount, while also updating the technical definition of what constitutes a phone line from a now defunct 1970s-era statute. The only people who might wind up paying any new costs are commercial users of voice-over-internet services.

It’s very simple. If Prop. O passes, the vast majority of us won’t pay anything extra and the city won’t have to make $80 to $85 million more in cuts to things like health care, crime prevention, and street maintenance. That sounds like a pretty good deal to us. Vote yes.

Proposition P

Transportation Authority changes

NO, NO, NO


Mayor Gavin Newsom is hoping voters will be fooled by his argument that Proposition P, which would change the size and composition of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, would lead to more efficiency and accountability.

But as Prop. P’s opponents — including all 11 supervisors, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, and the Sierra Club — point out, the measure would put billions of taxpayer dollars in the hands of political appointees, thus removing independent oversight of local transportation projects.

The Board of Supervisors, which currently serves as the governing body of the small but powerful, voter-created Transportation Authority, has done a good job of acting as a watchdog for local sales-tax revenues earmarked for transportation projects and administering state and federal transportation funding for new projects. The way things stand, the mayor effectively controls Muni, and the board effectively controls the Transportation Authority, providing a tried and tested system of checks and balances that gives all 11 districts equal representation. There is no good reason to upset this apple cart. Vote No on P.

Proposition Q

Modifying the payroll tax

YES, YES, YES


Proposition Q would close a major loophole that allows big law firms, architecture firms, medical partnerships, and other lucrative outfits to avoid paying the city’s main business tax. San Francisco collects money from businesses largely through a 1.5 percent tax on payroll. It’s not a perfect system, and we’d like to see a more progressive tax (why should big and small companies pay the same percentage tax?). But even the current system has a giant problem that costs the city millions of dollars a year.

The law applies to the money companies pay their employees. But in a fair number of professional operations, the highest-paid people are considered "partners" and their income is considered profit-sharing, not pay. So the city’s biggest law firms, where partners take home hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in compensation, pay no city tax on that money.

Prop. Q would close that loophole and treat partnership income as taxable payroll. It would also exempt small businesses (with payrolls of less than $250,000 a year) from any tax at all.

The proposal would bring at least $10 million a year into the city and stop certain types of businesses from ducking their share of the tax burden. Vote yes.

Proposition R

Naming sewage plant after Bush

NO


This one has tremendous emotional and humor appeal. It would officially rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. That would put San Francisco in the position of creating the first official memorial to the worst president of our time — and his name would be on a sewage plant.

The problem — not to be killjoys — is that sewage treatment is actually a pretty important environmental concern, and the Oceanside plant is a pretty good sewage treatment plant. It’s insulting to the plant, and the people who work there, to put the name of an environmental villain on the door.

Let’s name something awful after Bush. Vote no on Prop. R.

Proposition S

Budget set-aside policy

NO


This measure is yet another meaningless gimmick that has more to do with Mayor Newsom’s political ambitions than good governance.

For the record, we generally don’t like budget set-aside measures, which can unnecessarily encumber financial planning and restrict elected officials from setting budget priorities. But in this no-new-taxes political era, set-asides are sometimes the only way to guarantee that important priorities get funding from the static revenue pool. Newsom agrees — and has supported set-asides for schools, libraries, and other popular priorities.

Now he claims to want to rein that in, although all this measure would do is state whether a proposal identifies a funding source or violates a couple of other unenforceable standards. Vote no.

Proposition T

Free and low-cost substance abuse treatment

YES


Proposition T would require the Department of Public Health (DPH) to make medical and residential substance abuse treatment available for low-income and homeless people who request it. DPH already offers treatment and does it well, but there’s a wait list 500 people long — and when addicts finally admit they need help and show up for treatment, the last thing the city should do is send them away and make them wait.

Prop. T would expand the program to fill that unmet need. The controller estimates an annual cost to the General Fund of $7 million to $13 million, but proponents say the upfront cost would lead to significant savings later. For every dollar spent on treatment, the city saves as much as $13 because clinical treatment for addictive disorders is cheaper than visits to the emergency room, where many low-income and homeless people end up when their untreated problems reach critical levels.

This ordinance was put on the ballot by Sups. Daly, McGoldrick, Mirkarimi, and Peskin, and has no visible opposition, although some proponents frame it as a way to achieve what the Community Justice Center only promises. Vote yes.

Proposition U

Defunding the Iraq War

YES


Proposition U is a declaration of policy designed to send a message to the city’s congressional representatives that San Francisco disproves of any further funding of the war in Iraq, excepting whatever money is required to bring the troops home safely.

The progressive block of supervisors put this on the ballot, and according to their proponent argument in the Voter Information Pamphlet, the Iraq War has cost California $68 billion and San Francisco $1.8 billion. The Republican Party is the lone voice against this measure. Vote yes.

Proposition V

Bringing back JROTC

NO, NO, NO


The San Francisco school board last year voted to end its Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, which was the right move. A military-recruitment program — and make no mistake, that’s exactly what JROTC is — has no place in the San Francisco public schools. The board could have done a better job finding a replacement program, but there are plenty of options out there.

In the meantime, a group of JROTC backers placed Proposition V on the ballot.

The measure would have no legal authority; it would just be a statement of policy. Supporters say they hope it will pressure the school board to restore the program. In reality, this is a downtown- and Republican-led effort to hurt progressive candidates in swing districts where JROTC might be popular. Vote no.

>>More Endorsements 2008

Endorsements 2008: San Francisco races

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SAN FRANCISCO RACES

Board of Supervisors

District 1

ERIC MAR


The incumbent District 1 supervisor, Jake McGoldrick, likes to joke that he holds his seat only because Eric Mar’s house burned down eight years ago. Back then Mar, who has had a stellar career on the school board, decided to wait before seeking higher office.

But now McGoldrick — overall a good supervisor who was wrong on a few key votes — is termed out, and progressive San Francisco is pretty much unanimous in supporting Mar as his successor.

Mar, a soft-spoken San Francisco State University teacher, was a strong critic of former school superintendent Arlene Ackerman and a leader in the battle to get the somewhat dictatorial and autocratic administrator out of the district. He’s been a key part of the progressive majority that’s made substantial progress in improving the San Francisco public schools.

He’s a perfect candidate for District 1. He has strong ties to the district and its heavily Asian population. He’s a sensible progressive with solid stands on the key issues and a proven ability to get things done. He supports the affordable housing measure, Proposition B; the Clean Energy Act, Proposition H; and the major new revenue measures. He’s sensitive to tenant issues, understands the need for a profound new approach to affordable housing, and wants to solve the city’s structural budget problems with new revenue, not just cuts.

His chief opponent, Sue Lee, who works for the Chamber of Commerce, doesn’t support Prop. H and won’t even commit to supporting district elections. She ducked a lot of our questions and was either intentionally vague or really has no idea what she would do as a supervisor. She’s no choice for the district, and we found no other credible candidates worthy of our endorsement. Vote for Eric Mar.

District 3

1. DAVID CHIU


2. DENISE MCCARTHY


3. TONY GANTNER


The danger in this district is Joe Alioto. He’s smooth, he’s slick, he’s well funded — and he would be a disaster for San Francisco. Make no mistake about it, Alioto is the candidate of downtown — and thanks to his famous name and wads of big-business cash, he’s a serious contender.

Two progressive candidates have a chance at winning this seat and keeping Alioto off the board. David Chiu is a member of the Small Business Commission (SBC) and the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) and is a former civil rights lawyer who now manages a company that sells campaign software. Denise McCarthy ran the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center for 25 years and spent 7 years on the Port Commission.

Tony Gantner, a retired lawyer, is also in the race, although he is running well behind the others in the polls.

We have concerns about all the candidates. Chiu has a solid progressive record as a commissioner and committee member: He was one of only two SBC members who supported the living-wage ordinance and Sup. Tom Ammiano’s city health care plan. He backed Sup. Aaron Peskin, his political mentor, for chair of the DCCC. He backs Prop. H, supports the two revenue measures and the affordable-housing fund, and wants to give local small businesses a leg up in winning city contracts. He has some creative ideas about housing, including a community stabilization fee on new development.

He’s also a partner in a company that received $143,000 last year from PG&E and that has worked with Republicans and some nasty business interests.

Chiu says he doesn’t get to call all the shots at Grassroots Enterprises, which he cofounded. He describes the firm as a software-licensing operation, which isn’t exactly true — the company’s own Web site brags about its ability to offer broad-based political consulting and communication services.

But Chiu vowed to resign from the company if elected, and given his strong record on progressive issues, we’re willing to take a chance on him.

McCarthy has a long history in the neighborhood, and we like her community perspective. She supports Prop. H and the affordable-housing measure. She’s a little weak on key issues like the city budget — she told us she "hadn’t been fully briefed," although the budget is a public document and the debate over closing a massive structural deficit ought to be a central part of any supervisorial campaign. And while she said there "have to be some new taxes," she was very vague on where new revenue would come from and what specifically she would be willing to cut. She supported Gavin Newsom for mayor in 2003 and told us she doesn’t think that was a bad decision. It was. But she has by far the strongest community ties of any candidate in District 3. She’s accessible (even listing her home phone number in her campaign material), and after her years on the Port Commission, she understands land-use issues.

Gantner has been a supporter of the Clean Energy Act from the start and showed up for the early organizing meetings. He has the support of the Sierra Club and San Francisco Tomorrow and talks a lot about neighborhood beatification. But we’re a little nervous about his law-and-order positions, particularly his desire to crack down on fairs and festivals and his strong insistence that club promoters are responsible for all the problems on the streets.

But in the end, Chiu, McCarthy, and Gantner are all acceptable candidates, and Joe Alioto is not. Fill your slate with these three.

District 4

DAVE FERGUSON


What a mess.

We acknowledge that this is one of the more conservative districts in the city. But the incumbent, Carmen Chu, and her main opponent, Ron Dudum, are terrible disappointments.

It’s possible to be a principled conservative in San Francisco and still win progressive respect. We often disagreed over the years with Quentin Kopp, the former supervisor, state senator, and judge, but we never doubted his independence, sincerity, or political skills. Sean Elsbernd, who represents District 7, is wrong on most of the key issues, but he presents intelligent arguments, is willing to listen, and isn’t simply a blind loyalist of the mayor.

Chu has none of those redeeming qualities. She ducks questions, waffles on issues, and shows that she’s willing to do whatever the powerful interests want. When PG&E needed a front person to carry the torch against the Clean Energy Act, Chu was all too willing: she gave the corrupt utility permission to use her name and face on campaign flyers, signed on to a statement written by PG&E’s political flak, and permanently disgraced herself. She says that most of the problems in the city budget should be addressed with cuts, particularly cuts in public health and public works, but she was unable to offer any specifics. She refused to support the measure increasing the transfer tax on property sales of more than $5 million, saying that she didn’t want to create "a disincentive to those sales taking place." We asked her if she had ever disagreed with Newsom, who appointed her, and she could point to only two examples: she opposed his efforts to limit cigarette sales in pharmacies, and she opposed Saturday road closures in Golden Gate Park. In other words, the only times she doesn’t march in lockstep with the mayor is when Newsom actually does something somewhat progressive. We can’t possibly endorse her.

Dudum, who ran a small business and tried for this office two years ago, continues to baffle us. He won’t take a position on anything. Actually, that’s not true — he’s opposed to the Clean Energy Act. Other than that, it’s impossible to figure out where he stands on anything or what he would do to address any of the city’s problems. (An example: When we asked him what to do about the illegal second units that have proliferated in the district, he said he’d solve the problem in two years. How? He couldn’t say.) We like Dudum’s small-business sentiments and his independence, but until he’s willing to take some stands and offer some solutions, we can’t support him.

Which leaves Dave Ferguson.

Ferguson is a public school teacher with little political experience. He’s a landlord, and not terribly good on tenant issues (he said he supported rent control when he was a renter, but now that he owns a four-unit building, he’s changed his mind). But he supports Prop. H, supports Prop. B, supports the revenue measures, and has a neighborhood sensibility. Ferguson is a long shot, but he’s the only candidate who made anything approaching a case for our endorsement.

District 5

ROSS MIRKARIMI


Mirkarimi won this seat four years ago after a heated race in a crowded field, and he’s quickly emerged as one of the city’s most promising progressive leaders. He understands that a district supervisor needs to take on tough citywide issues (he’s the lead author of the Clean Energy Act and won a surprisingly tough battle to ban plastic bags in big supermarkets) as well as dealing with neighborhood concerns. Mirkarimi helped soften a terrible plan for developing the old UC Extension site and fought hard to save John Swett School from closure.

But the area in which he’s most distinguished himself is preventing violent crime — something progressives have traditionally had trouble with. Four years ago, District 5 was plagued with terrible violence: murders took place with impunity, the police seemed unable to respond, and the African American community was both furious and terrified. Mirkarimi took the problem on with energy and creativity, demanding (and winning, despite mayoral vetoes) police foot patrols and community policing. Thanks to his leadership, violent crime is down significantly in the district — and the left in San Francisco has started to develop a progressive agenda for the crime problem.

He has no serious opposition, and richly deserves reelection.

District 7

SEAN ELSBERND


We rarely see eye to eye with the District 7 incumbent. He’s on the wrong side of most of the key votes on the board. He’s opposing the affordable housing measure, Prop. B. He’s opposed to the Clean Energy Act, Prop. H. It’s annoying to see someone who presents himself as a neighborhood supervisor siding with PG&E and downtown over and over again.

But Elsbernd is smart and consistent. He’s a fiscal conservative with enough integrity that he isn’t always a call-up vote for the mayor. He’s accessible to his constituents and willing to engage with people who disagree with him. The progressives on the board don’t like the way he votes — but they respect his intelligence and credibility.

Unlike many of the candidates this year, Elsbernd seems to understand the basic structural problem with the city budget, and he realizes that the deficit can’t be reduced just with spending cuts. He’s never going to be a progressive vote, but this conservative district could do worse.

District 9

1. DAVID CAMPOS


2. ERIC QUEZADA


3. MARK SANCHEZ


The race to succeed Tom Ammiano, who served this district with distinction and is now headed for the State Legislature, is a case study in the advantages of district elections and ranked-choice voting. Three strong progressive candidates are running, and the Mission–Bernal Heights area would be well served by any of them. So far, the candidates have behaved well, mostly talking about their own strengths and not trashing their opponents.

The choice was tough for us — we like David Campos, Eric Quezada, and Mark Sanchez, and we’d be pleased to see any of them in City Hall. It’s the kind of problem we wish other districts faced: District 9 will almost certainly wind up with one of these three stellar candidates. All three are Latinos with a strong commitment to immigrant rights. All three have strong ties to the neighborhoods. Two are openly gay, and one is a parent. All three have endorsements from strong progressive political leaders and groups. All three have significant political and policy experience and have proven themselves accessible and accountable.

And since it’s almost inconceivable that any of the three will collect more than half of the first-place votes, the second-place and third-place tallies will be critical.

Campos, a member of the Police Commission and former school district general counsel, arrived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant at 14. He made it to Stanford University and Harvard Law School and has worked as a deputy city attorney (who helped the city sue PG&E) and as a school district lawyer. He’s been a progressive on the Police Commission, pushing for better citizen oversight and professional police practices. To his credit, he’s stood up to (and often infuriated) the Police Officers’ Association, which is often a foe of reform.

Campos doesn’t have extensive background in land-use issues, but he has good instincts. He told us he’s convinced that developers can be forced to provide as much as 50 percent affordable housing, and he thinks the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan lacks adequate low-cost units. He supports the revenue measures on the ballot and wants to see big business paying a fair share of the tax burden. He argues persuasively that crime has to become a progressive issue, and focuses on root causes rather than punitive programs. Campos has shown political courage in key votes — he supported Theresa Sparks for Police Commission president, a move that caused Louise Renne, the other contender, to storm out of the room in a fit of cursing. He backed Aaron Peskin for Democratic Party chair despite immense pressure to go with his personal friend Scott Weiner. Ammiano argues that Campos has the right qualities to serve on the board — particularly the ability to get six votes for legislation — and we agree.

Eric Quezada has spent his entire adult life fighting gentrification and displacement in the Mission. He’s worked at nonprofit affordable-housing providers, currently runs a homeless program, and was a cofounder of the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition. Although he’s never held public office, he has far more experience with the pivotal issues of housing and land use than the other two progressive candidates.

Quezada has the support of Sup. Chris Daly (although he doesn’t have Daly’s temper; he’s a soft-spoken person more prone to civil discussion than fiery rhetoric). If elected, he would carry on Daly’s tradition of using his office not just for legislation but also as an organizing center for progressive movements. He’s not as experienced in budget issues and was a little vague about how to solve the city’s structural deficit, but he would also make an excellent supervisor.

Mark Sanchez, the only Green Party member of the three, is a grade-school teacher who has done a tremendous job as president of the San Francisco school board. He’s helped turn that panel from a fractious and often paralyzed political mess into a strong, functioning operation that just hired a top-notch new superintendent. He vows to continue as an education advocate on the Board of Supervisors.

He told us he thinks he can be effective by building coalitions; he already has a good working relationship with Newsom. He’s managed a $500 million budget and has good ideas on both the revenue and the spending side — he thinks too much money goes to programs like golf courses, the symphony, and the opera, whose clients can afford to cover more of the cost themselves. He wants a downtown congestion fee and would turn Market Street into a pedestrian mall. Like Campos, he would need some education on land-use issues (and we’re distressed that he supports Newsom’s Community Justice Center), but he has all the right political instincts. He has the strong support of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi. We would be pleased to see him on the Board of Supervisors.

We’ve ranked our choices in the order we think best reflects the needs of the district and the city. But we also recognize that the progressive community is split here (SEIU Local 1021 endorsed all three, with no ranking), and we have nothing bad to say about any of these three contenders. The important thing is that one of them win; vote for Campos, Quezada, and Sanchez — in that order, or in whatever order makes sense for you. Just vote for all three.

District 11

1. JOHN AVALOS


2. RANDY KNOX


3. JULIO RAMOS


This is one of those swing districts where either a progressive or a moderate could win. The incumbent, Gerardo Sandoval, who had good moments and not-so-good moments but was generally in the progressive camp, is termed out and running for judge.

The strongest and best candidate to succeed him is John Avalos. There are two other credible contenders, Randy Knox and Julio Ramos — and one serious disaster, Ahsha Safai.

Avalos has a long history of public-interest work. He’s worked for Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, for the Justice for Janitors campaign, and as an aide to Sup. Chris Daly. Since Daly has served on the Budget Committee, and at one point chaired it, Avalos has far more familiarity with the city budget than any of the other candidates. He understands that the city needs major structural reforms in how revenue is collected, and he’s full of new revenue ideas. Among other things, he suggests that the city work with San Mateo County to create a regional park district that could get state funds (and could turn McLaren Park into a destination spot).

He has a good perspective on crime (he supports community policing along with more police accountability) and wants to put resources into outreach for kids who are at risk for gang activity. He was the staff person who wrote Daly’s 2006 violence prevention plan. He wants to see more affordable housing and fewer luxury condos in the eastern neighborhoods and supports a congestion fee for downtown. With his experience both at City Hall and in community-based organizations, Avalos is the clear choice for this seat.

Randy Knox, a criminal defense lawyer and former member of the Board of Appeals, describes himself as "the other progressive candidate." He supports Prop. H and the affordable-housing fund. He links the crime problem to the fact that the police don’t have strong ties to the community, and wants to look for financial incentives to encourage cops to live in the city. He wants to roll back parking meter rates and reduce the cost of parking tickets in the neighborhoods, which is a populist stand — but that money goes to Muni, and he’s not sure how to replace it. He does support a downtown congestion fee.

Knox wasn’t exactly an anti-developer stalwart on the Board of Appeals, but we’ll endorse him in the second slot.

Julio Ramos has been one of the better members of a terrible community college board. He’s occasionally spoken up against corruption and has been mostly allied with the board’s progressive minority. He wants to build teacher and student housing on the reservoir adjacent to City College. He suggests that the city create mortgage assistance programs and help people who are facing foreclosure. He suggests raising the hotel tax to bring in more money. He supports public power and worked at the California Public Utilities Commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, where he tangled with PG&E.

We’re backing three candidates in this district in part because it’s critical that Safai, the candidate of Mayor Newsom, downtown, and the landlords, doesn’t get elected. Safai (who refused to meet with our editorial board) is cynically using JROTC as a wedge against the progressives, even though the Board of Supervisors does not have, and will never have, a role in deciding the future of that program. He needs to be defeated, and the best way to do that is to vote for Avalos, Knox, and Ramos.

Board of Education

SANDRA FEWER


NORMAN YEE


BARBARA LOPEZ


KIMBERLY WICOFF


Two of the stalwart progressive leaders on the San Francisco School Board — Mark Sanchez and Eric Mar — are stepping down to run for supervisor. That’s a huge loss, since Mar and Sanchez were instrumental in getting rid of the autocratic Arlene Ackerman, replacing her with a strong new leader and ending years of acrimony on the board. The schools are improving dramatically — this year, for the first time in ages, enrollment in kindergarten actually went up. It’s important that the progressive policies Mar and Sanchez promoted continue.

Sandra Fewer is almost everyone’s first choice for the board. A parent who sent three kids to the San Francisco public schools, she’s done an almost unbelievable amount of volunteer work, serving as a PTA president for 12 terms. She currently works as education policy director at Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth. She knows the district, she knows the community, she’s full of energy and ideas, and she has the support of seven members of the Board of Supervisors and five of the seven current school board members.

Fewer supports the new superintendent and agrees that the public schools are getting better, but she’s not afraid to point out the problems and failures: She notes that other districts with less money are doing better. She wants to make the enrollment process more accessible to working parents and told us that race ought to be used as a factor in enrollment if that will help desegregate the schools and address the achievement gap. She’s against JROTC in the schools.

We’re a little concerned that Fewer talks about using district real estate as a revenue source — selling public property is always a bad idea. But she’s a great candidate and we’re happy to endorse her.

Norman Yee, the only incumbent we’re endorsing, has been something of a mediator and a calming influence on an often-contentious board. He helped push for the 2006 facilities bond and the parcel tax to improve teacher pay. He’s helped raise $1 million from foundations for prekindergarten programs. He suggests that the district take the radical (and probably necessary) step of suing the state to demand adequate funding for education. Although he was under considerable pressure to support JROTC, he stood with the progressives to end the military program. He deserves another term.

Barbara "Bobbi" Lopez got into the race late and has been playing catch-up. She’s missed some key endorsements and has problems with accessibility. But she impressed us with her energy and her work with low-income parents. A former legal support worker at La Raza Centro Legal, she’s now an organizer at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, working with immigrant parents. She’s fought to get subsidized Muni fares for SFUSD students. Her focus is on parent involvement — and while everyone talks about bringing parents, particularly low-income and immigrant parents, more directly into the education process, Lopez has direct experience in the area.

Kimberly Wicoff has a Stanford MBA, and you can tell — she talks in a sort of business-speak with lots of reference to "outcomes." She has no kids. But she’s currently working with a nonprofit that helps low-income families in Visitacion Valley and Hunters Point, and we liked her clearheaded approach to the achievement gap. Wicoff is a fan of what she calls community schools; she thinks a "great school in every neighborhood" can go a long way to solving the lingering issues around the enrollment process. That’s a bit of an ambitious goal, and we’re concerned about any move toward neighborhood schools that leads to resegregation. But Wicoff, who has the support of both Mark Sanchez and Mayor Newsom, brings a fresh problem-solving approach that we found appealing. And unlike Newsom, she’s against JROTC.

Jill Wynns, who has been on the board since 1992, has had a distinguished career, and we will never forget her leadership in the battle against privatizing public schools. But she was a supporter of former superintendent Ackerman even when Ackerman was trampling on open-government laws and intimidating students, parents, and staff critics, and she supports JROTC. It’s time for some new blood.

Rachel Norton, a parent and an advocate for special-education kids, has run an appealing campaign, but her support for the save-JROTC ballot measure disqualified her for our endorsement.

As a footnote: H. Brown, a blogger who can be a bit politically unhinged, has no business on the school board and we’re not really sure why he’s running. But he offered an interesting idea that has some merit: he suggests that the city offer free Muni passes and free parking to anyone who will volunteer to mentor an at-risk SFUSD student. Why not?

Community College Board

MILTON MARKS


CHRIS JACKSON


BRUCE WOLFE


There are four seats up for the seven-member panel that oversees the San Francisco Community College District, and we could only find three who merit endorsement. That’s a sad statement: City College is a local treasure, and it’s been badly run for years. The last chancellor, Phil Day, left under a cloud of corruption; under his administration, money was diverted from public coffers into a political campaign. The current board took bond money that the voters had earmarked for a performing arts center and shifted it to a gym — then found out that there wasn’t enough money in the operating budget to maintain the lavish facility. It’s a mess out there, and it needs to be cleaned up.

Fortunately, there are three strong candidates, and if they all win, the reformers will have a majority on the board.

Milton Marks is the only incumbent we’re supporting. He’s been one of the few board members willing to criticize the administration. He supports a sunshine policy for the district and believes the board needs to hold the chancellor accountable (that ought to be a basic principle of district governance, but at City College, it isn’t). He wants to push closer relations with the school board. He actually pays attention to the college budget and tries to make sure the money is spent the right way. He is pushing to reform the budget process to allow more openness and accountability.

Chris Jackson, a policy analyst at the San Francisco Labor Council, is full of energy and ideas. He wants to create an outreach center for City College at the public high schools. He also understands that the college district has done a terrible job working with neighborhoods and is calling for a comprehensive planning process. He understands the problems with the gym and the way the board shuffles money around, and he is committed to a more transparent budget process.

Jackson is also pushing to better use City College for workforce development, particularly in the biotech field, where a lot of the city’s new jobs will be created.

Jackson was president of the Associated Students at San Francisco State University, has been a member of the Youth Commission, and worked with Young Workers United on the city’s minimum-wage law. His experience, energy, and ideas make him an ideal candidate.

Bruce Wolfe attended City College after a workplace injury and served on the Associate Students Council. He knows both the good (City College has one of the best disability service programs in the state) and the bad (the school keeps issuing bonds to build facilities but doesn’t have the staff to keep them running). As a former member of the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, Wolfe is a strong advocate for open government, something desperately needed at the college district. He told us he thinks the college should agree to abide by the San Francisco Planning Code and is calling for a permanent inspector general to monitor administration practices and spending. He wants City College to start building housing for students. He has direct experience with the district and great ideas for improving it, and we’re happy to endorse him.

Incumbents Rodel Rodis and Natalie Berg are running for reelection; both have been a key part of the problem at City College, and we can’t endorse either of them. Steve Ngo, a civil rights lawyer, has the support of the Democratic Party, but we weren’t impressed by his candidacy. And he told us he opposes the Clean Energy Act.

Vote for Marks, Jackson, and Wolfe.

BART Board of Directors

With rising gasoline prices, congested roadways, and global warming, it’s now more important than ever to have an engaged and knowledgeable BART board that is willing to reform a system that effectively has San Francisco users subsidizing everyone else. That means developing a fare structure in which short trips within San Francisco or the East Bay urban centers are cheaper and longer trips are a bit more expensive. BART should also do away with free parking, which favors suburban drivers (who tend to be wealthier) over urban cyclists and pedestrians. San Francisco’s aging stations should then get the accessibility and amenity improvements they need—and at some point the board can even fund the late-night service that is long overdue. There are two candidates most capable of meeting these challenges:

District 7

LYNETTE SWEET


This district straddles San Francisco and the East Bay, and it’s crucial that San Francisco—which controls just three of the nine seats—retain its representative here. We would like to see Lynette Sweet more forcefully represent the interests of riders from San Francisco and support needed reforms such as civilian oversight of BART police. But she has a strong history of public service in San Francisco (having served on San Francisco’s taxi and redevelopment commissions before joining the BART board in 2003), and we’ll endorse her.

District 9

TOM RADULOVICH


Tom Radulovich is someone we’d love to clone and have run for every seat on the BART board, and perhaps every other transportation agency in the Bay Area. He’s smart and progressive, and he works hard to understand the complex problems facing our regional transportation system and then to develop and advocate for creative solutions. As executive director of the nonprofit Livable City, Radulovich is a leader of San Francisco’s alternative transportation brain trust, widely respected for walking the walk (and biking the bike—he doesn’t own a car) and setting an example for how to live and grow in the sustainable way this city and country needs.

>>More Guardian Endorsements 2008

No satisfaction

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› andrea@altsexcolumn.com

Dear Readers:

In a recent column, I mock-lamented the lack of a better expression than "tit for tat" to describe the writer’s situation and received not one but two gently chiding notes assuring me that there was indeed another phrase commonly used to express the concept of rote reciprocity. This one was kind of cute:

Dear Andrea:

If not a better, then at least a non-punning expression for "tit for tat" is "quid pro quo." I eagerly await a male reader’s letter complaining of erectile dysfunction and marred by a dangling participle.

Love,

Funny Reader

And now back to our previously scheduled tedious marital concern.

Love,

Andrea

Dear Andrea:

I recently broke it off with my boyfriend of three years. The thing is, I was married the whole time. I never meant to fall in love with my boyfriend. I met him in a forum I found to talk about my marital problems. He was doing the same, though he got divorced more than a year ago. Before I met him, I was somewhat dissatisfied with the lack of sex and affection in my marriage, but accepted it as my lot in life. I figured my husband was a good man every other way, so I could put up with those problems. With the BF, though, I experienced intense passion, love, and attention. Now that we’ve broken up, it feels like I went from the hot tub into a cold pool.

I want affection. I want my husband to hug me, hold me … to care. I’ve asked him numerous times, but the only way he listens is if I threaten to leave. I guess what I’m asking is, how can I make my husband listen?

Love,

No Satisfaction

Dear No:

Yes. Um. It all depends on what you want him to hear. I’m willing to bet that if you murmured, "Oh, by the way, honey, I’ve been cheating on you for three years every chance I get, and I’m really sad now because I broke up with my cheating-partner, who was much better than you in bed and out, so won’t you please hold me?," he’d listen. Seriously. I’m almost positive.

Look, it may be that your husband was stingy with the demonstration of affection. That can be hurtful, even harmful. It is well within one’s rights to request more demo (more affection is probably another story), but it doesn’t work to treat another person as a sort of affection vending machine: you put in, I don’t know, time, dinners, and blow jobs, and they crank out the sweet words and spontaneous hugs and kisses?

I think more to the point here, though, is that it’s entirely possible that ship has sailed. He may have been insufficiently demonstrative (or actually insufficiently affectionate, who can tell?) due to his own innate temperament or some sort of damage. Your marriage may originally have been short on sex due to low libido (his, apparently) or bad habits or lack of spark. I can’t help guessing, though, that in the intervening three years (at least), you were emotionally (and sometimes physically) absent yourself, and this cannot have escaped his attention. There is a reason why divorce suits on the grounds of infidelity used to cite "alienation of affection." I have to assume your recent behavior has turned a bad situation worse and very likely made the marriage unsalvageable. Sorry!

No, really, I am. How committed, though, could you really have been to salvaging it? I am a big fan of Internet forums, and I don’t make the mistake that others, less familiar with the concept of chat, might make of thinking that you went there expressly to attract someone new, someone who might really "understand you." If you’d been looking for a date, you could have skipped the chitchat and gone straight to Match.com. You certainly did nothing to avoid attracting and then cleaving unto another dude, though, did you? Don’t you think, as a married woman who was concerned about the state of her marriage (or really, just a married woman, period), that was … unwise?

Gallivanting off with Boyfriend and then complaining, once it’s over, that your husband is just as apparently uninterested in you as before and wondering how do you fix him is not cricket. It isn’t fair to your husband to use him as a somewhat unsatisfactory second-stringer, and worse (at least for you), I don’t think it’s going to work. I think the next time you get mad at him for his inherent or reactive cold-fishiness, you are going to slip up and, instead of merely threatening to leave him, crow that you did, in fact, leave him for three years and he never noticed. And that will be that. I think, since you have nothing good to say for him beyond "he’s a good man and I figured I just had to put up with him," you ought to let him go. Surely being unsatisfied and miserable is not your lot in life, any more than being treated as a combination encumbrance and convenience ought to be his, poor guy.

Love,

Andrea

Got a salacious subject you want Andrea to discuss? Ask her a question!

Back to Oakland?

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› jesse@sfbg.com

Big money is flowing into an Oakland City Council campaign, fueling rumors that state Senate President Don Perata might be preparing for a Willie Brown–style move from Sacramento kingpin to Bay Area mayor.

Perata’s former chief of staff Kerry Hamill is vying for the city’s at-large council seat, running against AC Transit board member Rebecca Kaplan. Two independent expenditure committees with possible links to Perata are laying out tens of thousands of dollars on Hamill’s behalf. Sources say Perata has been fundraising for his ex-staffer, as has Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, a longtime Perata loyalist. And it appears one of De La Fuente’s efforts to raise cash may have skirted the boundaries of state law.

The stakes for De La Fuente are definitely high. Hamill’s election would help him retain his role as president of the closely divided council. But the scuttlebutt around Oakland is that a successful Hamill candidacy could have bigger implications. It might just pave the way for something many local observers see as inevitable: a Perata run for mayor.

Current Mayor Ron Dellums is reeling from a spike in violent crime, huge budget deficits, and a detached leadership style, all of which is fueling a nascent recall movement. Perata will be termed out of state office this year and has made no secret of his interest in Oakland’s top job, despite allegedly being the target of an ongoing political corruption investigation by the FBI. Having a powerful colleague like Hamill on the council, while keeping De La Fuente in control of the body, could make a run for mayor attractive to Perata (who didn’t return our calls for comment).

"He’s going to run. Everybody knows he’s going to run," Oakland City Attorney John Russo told the Guardian, adding that the flurry of campaigning for Hamill is "absolutely a signal" of Perata’s mayoral ambitions. "That group of people [Perata and his allies] clearly see their interests lying with Kerry."

Reached for comment, Hamill said, "Don’s supporting me because I’m the best candidate…. Whether it is for selfish reasons like making sure the right people for him are on the council or not, I believe he is supporting me because he likes my work."

OUTSIDE INFLUENCE


If you live in Oakland or have spent any time there recently, chances are you’ve seen the pro-Hamill campaign signs promising "Safe Neighborhoods Now" affixed to fences and lampposts all over town. Oakland mailboxes have been stuffed with flyers backing Hamill’s candidacy. The signs and some of the other materials position Hamill in opposition to Dellums more than Kaplan, with one mail piece hammering the current mayor for his handling of the city’s recent crime wave.

Hamill’s campaign did not produce the signs or much of the literature championing her. Instead, two newly formed independent expenditure committees doled out more than $87,000 on her behalf in the first half of this year alone. The groups are not required to disclose their recent spending until Oct. 6, but given the volume of material being generated, there is little doubt their combined outlays will top $100,000 for the year. Hamill told us that outside groups are also aiding her opponent Kaplan, though she did not name them. Our examination of campaign records found that the California Nurses Association paid $24,535 for a pro-Kaplan mailer in May.

"That’s definitely a lot of money," Alameda County supervisor Keith Carson told us, referring to the spending in support of Hamill. "It certainly raises your antenna. In any campaign when you have two separate entrants putting resources in, you pause and ask, ‘What’s behind it?’<0x2009>"

On the surface the two groups backing Hamill appear unconnected. But recent media reports and a Guardian examination of campaign finance records reveal several ties between both organizations and Hamill’s old boss, Perata.

The first group, which calls itself Californians for Good Jobs, Clean Streets, and Outstanding Schools, displays clear Perata associations. The group’s treasurer is Mark Capitolo, who used to be Perata’s director of communications. Many of its donors consistently give to Perata’s numerous political action committees. And its campaign documents list a Sacramento phone number that, as the East Bay Express reported in May, belongs to Perata’s chief political strategist, Sandra Polka.

Polka and employees of her consulting business appear to be deeply involved in the senator’s affairs. When we called Perata’s Sacramento office seeking comment for this story, we were told to contact Paul Hefner, who works for Polka’s firm. Polka, Hefner, De La Fuente, Capitolo, and Californians for Good Jobs president, Hilda Martinez, did not return our calls for comment.

Perata’s links to the second group, known as Oakland Jobs PAC, are not as immediately apparent, and one person involved with the group denied that the legislator is aiding their cause. But an inspection of disclosure forms did yield evidence of the legislator’s potential influence. In mid-May, Oakland Jobs received its first $10,000 from another political action committee known as Vote Matters. As the Contra Costa Times reported, Vote Matters spent more than $175,000 earlier this year trying to pass Proposition 93, which would have allowed Perata and other termed-out state politicians to remain in office. Perata strongly supported the measure, which did not pass.

Robert Apodaca, who called himself a "personal friend" of Perata’s, informed the Guardian that he recommended that Vote Matters provide the money to Oakland Jobs. Apodaca is director of marketing for the architecture and planning firm MVE and Associates, which designed the huge Oak to Ninth Project along the Oakland waterfront. Perata passed key legislation that allowed the project to move forward, though it has yet to be built. Oakland Jobs donor Signature Properties is one of the project’s lead developers and, according to the East Bay Express, Oakland Jobs’ treasurer Sean Welch has worked for Signature Properties in the past. Signature Properties has also been a donor to Perata’s political committees, as have several other Oakland Jobs contributors.

In addition to his work for MVE and what he deemed his "unpaid advisor" relationship with Vote Matters, Apodaca is listed as a paid campaign consultant for a now-defunct committee called the "California Latino Leadership Fund" (CLLF). CLLF employed Polka as well as Apodaca in 2006 and 2007. Polka is now working on behalf of the other committee backing Hamill this year, Californians for Good Jobs, Safe Streets, and Outstanding Jobs.

DEVELOPERS’ DEEP POCKETS


Apodaca told us he could not remember why he pushed for Vote Matters, which normally supports state candidates and initiatives, to give money to a local committee like Oakland Jobs. But he was certain that Perata played no part in it. "He’s not involved in [the committee’s decisions]. He’s not even in the room."

But a well-placed East Bay source told us Perata was in the room with Oakland Jobs–affiliated figures while money was being sought to support Hamill. The source, who asked not to be identified, said Perata was part of a breakfast meeting several months ago at the downtown offices of the Oakland law firm of Wendel, Rosen, Black and Dean, at which De La Fuente asked a group of prominent developers to give large sums of money to an independent expenditure committee that would back Hamill.

The source could not recall if the committee was named by De La Fuente or anyone else at the meeting. But according to the source, pro-development activist Greg McConnell was there. McConnell told us he is involved in running Oakland Jobs. His business, the McConnell Group, has received funding from the group. The source also said representatives from Signature Properties and developer Forest Hill, another Oakland Jobs donor, were in attendance and that De La Fuente expressed an interest in raising "over a hundred grand" for the race.

A second source confirmed that Perata was at the meeting in question but did not recall De La Fuente asking for the funds, though the second source did say De La Fuente has subsequently called seeking money for Hamill’s campaign.

Reached for comment, McConnell asserted that Perata is not involved with Oakland Jobs. He said a morning meeting did take place at the Wendel, Rosen firm "a couple of weeks ago," during which Perata asked the developers in attendance to contribute directly to Hamill’s campaign. But according to McConnell, Perata left the room before De La Fuente made a pitch to fund independent expenditures. Direct contributions to candidates are limited to $600 per donor in Oakland. Independent groups like Oakland Jobs are not subject to those restrictions.

‘NOT KOSHER’


In addition to learning of De La Fuente’s alleged fundraising pitch at a recent developers’ meeting, the Guardian has obtained a letter from De La Fuente to potential Hamill donors asking them to attend a $600-a-head event Oct. 2. Nothing in the letter itself, dated Sept. 16, appears to violate any campaign finance rules. But it is printed on what appears to be official City of Oakland letterhead, complete with the official seal. That could mean trouble for De La Fuente.

"That’s not kosher," Mark Morodomi, the supervising deputy in the Oakland city attorney’s office, told us. State law prohibits the use of government resources for political campaigning. Before coming to Oakland, Morodomi spent 10 years at the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s campaign-finance watchdog.

A line in small type on the bottom of the letter reads, "Not printed or mailed at public expense." Morodomi said the phrase "comes close" to making the use of city letterhead permissible, but he added, "It doesn’t inoculate him. Magic language doesn’t automatically make it okay … those words have to be true."

According to Morodomi, if any part of generating and disseminating the missive involved taxpayer-funded resources — from printing costs to paper, envelopes, or stamps — De La Fuente would be in violation of the law. Using Oakland’s official seal could also be problematic.

Hamill dismissed concerns that the invitation tested the limits of the law: "I’ve been around for 20 years, and I’ve seen council members use that kind of stationary for fundraisers all the time."

But City Attorney Russo, Morodomi’s boss, that even if the letter turns out to be technically legal because no public resources were used, he is uncomfortable with De La Fuente’s decision to mix fundraising with official city documentation: "It’s not great form. You have to be really mindful as to how it would appear."

Guardian interns Katie Baker and Anna Rendall contributed to this report.

Project Censored

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› amanda@sfbg.com

The daily dispatches and nightly newscasts of the mainstream media regularly cover terrorism, but rarely discuss how the fear of attacks is used to manipulate the public and set policy. That’s the common thread of many unreported stories last year, according to an analysis by Project Censored.

Since 1976, Sonoma State University has released an annual survey of the top 25 stories the mainstream media failed to report or reported poorly. Culled from worldwide alternative news sources, vetted by students and faculty, and ranked by judges, the stories were not necessarily overtly censored. But their controversial subjects, challenges to the status quo, or general under-the-radar subject matter might have kept them from the front pages. Project Censored recounts them, accompanied by media analysis, in a book of the same name published annually by Seven Stories Press.

"This year, war and civil liberties stood out," Peter Phillips, project director since 1996, said of the top stories. "They’re closely related and part of the War on Terror that has been the dominant theme of Project Censored for seven years, since 9/11."

Whether it’s preventing what one piece of legislation calls "homegrown terrorism" by federally funding the study of radicalism, using vague concerns about security to quietly expand NAFTA, or refusing to count the number of Iraqi civilians killed in the war, the threat of terrorism is being used to silence people and expand power.

"The war on terror is a sort of mind terror," said Nancy Snow, one of the project’s 24 judges and an associate professor of public diplomacy at the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Snow — who has taught classes on war, media, and propaganda — elaborated: "You can’t declare war on terror. It’s a tactic used by groups to gain publicity and it will remain with us. But it’s unlikely that [the number of terrorist acts] will spike. It spikes in the minds of people."

She pointed out that the number of terrorist attacks has dropped worldwide since 2003. Some use the absence of fresh attacks as evidence that the so-called war on terror is working. But a RAND Corporation study for the Department of Defense released in August said the war on terror hasn’t effectively undermined Al Qaeda. It suggested the phrase be replaced with the less loaded term "counterterrorism."

Both Phillips and Snow agree that comprehensive, contextual reporting is missing from most of the coverage. "That’s one of my criticisms of the media," Snow said. "They spotlight issues and don’t look at the entire landscape."

This year the landscape of Project Censored itself is expanding. After talking with educators who bemoan the ongoing decline of news quality and want to help, Phillips launched the Truth Emergency Project, in which Sonoma State partners with 23 other universities. All will host classes for students to search out untold stories, vet them for accuracy, and submit them for consideration to Project Censored.

"There’s a renaissance of independent media," Phillips said. He thinks bloggers and citizen journalists are filling crucial roles left vacant by staff cutbacks throughout the mainstream media. And, he said, it’s time for universities, educators, and media experts to step in and help. "It’s not just reforming the media, but supporting them in as many ways as they need, like validating stories by fact-checking."

The Truth Emergency Project will also host a news service that aggregates the top 12 independent media sources and posts them on one page. "So you can get an RSS feed from all the major independent news sources we trust," he said. Discerning newshounds can find reporting from the BBC, Democracy Now!, and Inter Press Service (IPS) in one spot. "The whole criteria," he said, "is no corporate media."

Carl Jensen, who started Project Censored in 1976, said the expansion is a new and necessary phase. "It answers the question I was always challenged with: how do you know this is the truth? Having 24 campuses reviewing all the stories and raising questions really provides a good answer. These stories will be vetted more than Sarah Palin."

Phillips said he hopes to expand to 100 schools within the year, and would like the project to bring more attention to the dire need for public support for high quality news reporting. "I think it’s going to require government subsidies and nonprofit organizations doing community media projects," he said. "It’s more than just reforming at the FCC level. It’s building independent media from the ground up."

Phillips likens it to the boom in microbrewed beer and the spread of independently-owned pubs: "If we can have a renaissance in beer-making, following established purity standards, then we can do it with our media, too." But for now, we have Project Censored, whose top 10 underreported stories for 2008 are:

1. HOW MANY IRAQIS HAVE DIED?


Nobody knows exactly how many lives the Iraq War has claimed. But even more astounding is that so few journalists have mentioned the issue or cited the top estimate: 1.2 million.

During August and September 2007, Opinion Research Business, a British polling group, surveyed 2,414 adults in 15 of 18 Iraqi provinces and found that more than 20 percent had experienced at least one war-related death since March 2003. Using common statistical study methods, it determined that as many as 1.2 million people had been killed since the war began.

The US military, claiming it keeps no count, still employs civilian death data as a marker of progress. For example, in a Sept. 10, 2007, report to Congress, Gen. David Petraeus said, "Civilian deaths of all categories, less natural causes, have also declined considerably, by over 45 percent Iraq-wide since the height of the sectarian violence in December."

But whose number was he using? Estimates range wildly and are based on a variety of sources, including hospital, morgue, and media reports, as well as in-person surveys.

In October 2006, the British medical journal Lancet published a Johns Hopkins University study vetted by four independent sources that counted 655,000 dead, based on interviews with 1,849 households. It updated a similar study from 2004 that counted 100,000 dead. The Associated Press called it "controversial."

The AP began its own count in 2005 and by 2006 said that at least 37,547 Iraqis had lost their lives due to war-related violence, but called it a minimum estimate at best and didn’t include insurgent deaths.

Iraq Body Count, a group of US and UK citizens who aggregate numbers from media reports on civilian deaths, puts the figure between 87,000 and 95,000. In January 2008, the World Health Organization and the Iraqi government did door-to-door surveys of nearly 10,000 households and put the number of dead at 151,000.

The 1.2 million figure is out there, too, which is higher than the Rwandan genocide death toll and closing in on the 1.7 million who perished in Cambodia’s killing fields. It raises questions about the real number of deaths from US aerial bombings and house raids, and challenges the common assumption that this is a war in which Iraqis are killing Iraqis.

Justifying the higher number, Michael Schwartz, writing on the blog AfterDowningStreet.org, pointed to a fact reported by the Brookings Institute that US troops have, over the past four years, conducted about 100 house raids a day — a number that has recently increased with assistance from Iraqi soldiers.

Brutality during these house searches has been documented by returning soldiers, Iraqi civilians, and independent journalists (See #9 below). Schwartz suggests the aggressive "element of surprise" tactics employed by soldiers is likely resulting in several thousands of deaths a day that either go unreported or are categorized as insurgent casualties.

The spin is having its intended effect: a February 2007 AP poll showed Americans gave a median estimate of 9,890 Iraqi deaths as a result of the war, a number far below that cited in any credible study.

Sources: "Is the United States killing 10,000 Iraqis every month? Or is it more?" Michael Schwartz, After Downing Street.org, July 6, 2007; "Iraq death toll rivals Rwanda Genocide, Cambodian killing fields," Joshua Holland, AlterNet, Sept. 17, 2007; "Iraq conflict has killed a million: survey," Luke Baker, Reuters, Jan. 30, 2008; "Iraq: Not our country to return to," Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service, March 3, 2008.

2. NAFTA ON STEROIDS


Coupling the perennial issue of security with Wall Street’s measures of prosperity, the leaders of the three North American nations convened the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The White House–led initiative — launched at a March 23, 2005, meeting of President Bush, Mexico’s then-president Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin — joins beefed-up commerce with coordinated military operations to promote what it calls "borderless unity."

Critics call it "NAFTA on steroids." However, unlike NAFTA, the SPP was formed in secret, without public input.

"The SPP is not a law, or a treaty, or even a signed agreement," Laura Carlsen wrote in a report for the Center for International Policy. "All these would require public debate and participation of Congress, both of which the SPP has scrupulously avoided."

Instead the SPP has a special workgroup: the North American Competitiveness Council. It’s a coalition of private companies that are, according to the SPP Web site, "adding high-level business input [that] will assist governments in enhancing North America’s competitive position and engage the private sector as partners in finding solutions."

The NACC includes the Chevron Corporation, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, Lockheed Martin Corporation, Merck & Co. Inc., New York Life Insurance Co., Procter & Gamble Co., and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

"Where are the environmental council, the labor council, and the citizen’s council in this process?" Carlsen asked.

A look at NAFTA’s unpopularity among citizens in all three nations is evidence of why its expansion would need to be disguised. "It’s a scheme to create a borderless North American Union under US control without barriers to trade and capital flows for corporate giants, mainly US ones," wrote Steven Lendman in Global Research. "It’s also to insure America gets free and unlimited access to Canadian and Mexican resources, mainly oil, and in the case of Canada, water as well."

Sources: "Deep Integration," Laura Carlsen, Center for International Policy, May 30, 2007; "The Militarization and Annexation of North America," Stephen Lendman, Global Research, July 19, 2007; "The North American Union," Constance Fogal, Global Research, Aug. 2, 2007.

3. INFRAGARD GUARDS ITSELF


The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have effectively deputized 23,000 members of the business community, asking them to tip off the feds in exchange for preferential treatment in the event of a crisis. "The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does — and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials," Matthew Rothschild wrote in the March 2008 issue of The Progressive.

InfraGard was created in 1996 in Cleveland as part of an FBI probe into cyberthreats. Yet after 9/11, membership jumped from 1,700 to more than 23,000, and now includes 350 of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies. Members typically have a stake in one of several crucial infrastructure industries, including agriculture, banking, defense, energy, food, telecommunications, law enforcement, and transportation. The group’s 86 chapters coordinate with 56 FBI field offices nationwide.

While FBI Director Robert Mueller has said he considers this segment of the private sector "the first line of defense," the American Civil Liberties Union issued a grave warning about the potential for abuse. "There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations — some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers — into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI," it cautioned in an August 2004 report.

"The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment," Jay Stanley, public education director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty program, told Rothschild.

And they are privileged: a DHS spokesperson told Rothschild that InfraGard members receive special training and readiness exercises. They’re also privy to protected information that is usually shielded from disclosure under the trade secrets provision of the Freedom of Information Act.

The information they have may be of critical importance to the general public, but first it goes to the privileged membership — sometimes before it’s released to elected officials. As Rothschild related in his story, on Nov. 1, 2001, the FBI sent an alert to InfraGard members about a potential threat to bridges in California. Barry Davis, who worked for Morgan Stanley, received the information and relayed it to his brother Gray, then governor of California, who released it to the public.

Steve Maviglio, Davis’s press secretary at the time, told Rothschild, "The governor got a lot of grief for releasing the information. In his defense, he said, ‘I was on the phone with my brother, who is an investment banker. And if he knows, why shouldn’t the public know?’<0x2009>"

Source: "The FBI deputizes business," Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, Feb. 7, 2008.

4. ILEA: TRAINING GROUND FOR ILLEGAL WARS?


The School of the Americas earned an unsavory reputation in Latin America after many graduates of the Fort Benning, Ga., facility turned into counterinsurgency death squad leaders. So the International Law Enforcement Academy recently installed by the Unites States in El Salvador — which looks, acts, and smells like the SOA — is also drawing scorn.

The school, which opened in June 2005 before the Salvadoran National Assembly approved it, has a satellite operation in Peru and is funded with $3.6 million from the US Treasury and staffed with instructors from the DEA, ICE, and FBI. It’s tasked with training 1,500 police officers, judges, prosecutors, and other law enforcement agents in counterterrorism techniques per year. It’s stated purpose is to make Latin America "safe for foreign investment" by "providing regional security and economic stability and combating crime."

ILEAs aren’t new, but past schools located in Hungary, Thailand, Botswana, and Roswell, N.M., haven’t been terribly controversial. Yet Salvadoran human rights organizers take issue with the fact that, in true SOA fashion, the ILEA releases neither information about its curriculum nor a list of students and graduates. Additionally, the way the school slipped into existence without public oversight has raised ire.

As Wes Enzinna noted in a North American Congress on Latin America report, when the US decided it wanted a training ground in Latin America, El Salvador was not the first choice. In 2002 US officials selected Costa Rica as host — a country that doesn’t even have an army. The local government signed on and the plan made headlines. But when citizens learned about it, they revolted and demanded the government change the agreement. The US bailed for a more discreet second attempt in El Salvador.

"Members of the US Congress were not briefed about the academy, nor was the main opposition party in El Salvador, the Farabundo Martí-National Liberation Front (FMLN)," Enzinna wrote. "But once the news media reported that the two countries had signed an official agreement in September, activists in El Salvador demanded to see the text of the document." Though they tried to garner enough opposition to kill the agreement, the National Assembly narrowly ratified it.

Now, after more than three years in operation, critics point out that Salvadoran police, who account for 25 percent of the graduates, have become more violent. A May 2007 report by Tutela Legal implicated Salvadoran National Police (PNC) officers in eight death squad–style assassinations in 2006.

El Salvador’s ILEA recently received another $2 million in US funding through the congressionally approved Mérida Initiative — but still refuses to adopt a more transparent curriculum and administration, despite partnering with a well-known human rights leader. Enzinna’s FOIA requests for course materials were rejected by the government, so no one knows exactly what the school is teaching, or to whom.

Sources: "Exporting US ‘Criminal Justice’ to Latin America," "Community in Solidarity with the people of El Salvador," Upside Down World, June 14, 2007; "Another SOA?" Wes Enzinna, NACLA Report on the Americas, March/April 2008; "ILEA funding approved by Salvadoran right wing legislators," CISPES, March 15, 2007; "Is George Bush restarting Latin America’s ‘dirty wars?’<0x2009>" Benjamin Dangl, AlterNet, Aug. 31, 2007.

5. SEIZING PROTEST


Protesting war could get you into big trouble, according to a critical read of two executive orders recently signed by President Bush. The first, issued July 17, 2007, and titled, "Blocking property of certain persons who threaten stabilization efforts in Iraq," allows the feds to seize assets from anyone who "directly or indirectly" poses a risk to the US war in Iraq. And, citing the modern technological ease of transferring funds and assets, the order states that no prior notice is necessary before the raid.

On Aug. 1, Bush signed another order, similar but directed toward anyone undermining the "sovereignty of Lebanon or its democratic processes and institutions." In this case, the Secretary of the Treasury can seize the assets of anyone perceived as posing a risk of violence, as well as the assets of their spouses and dependents, and bans them from receiving any humanitarian aid.

Critics say the orders bypass the right to due process and the vague language makes manipulation and abuse possible. Protesting the war could be perceived as undermining or threatening US efforts in Iraq. "This is so sweeping, it’s staggering," said Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration official in the Justice Department who editorialized against it in the Washington Times. "It expands beyond terrorism, beyond seeking to use violence or the threat of violence to cower or intimidate a population."

Sources: "Bush executive order: Criminalizing the antiwar movement," Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, July 2007; "Bush’s executive order even worse than the one on Iraq," Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive, Aug. 2007.

6. RADICALS = TERRORISTS


On Oct. 23, 2007, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed — by a vote of 404-6 — the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act," designed to root out the causes of radicalization in Americans.

With an estimated four-year cost of $22 million, the act establishes a 10-member National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism, as well as a university-based Center of Excellence "to examine the social, criminal, political, psychological, and economic roots of domestic terrorism," according to a press release from the bill’s author, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Los Angeles).

During debate on the bill, Harman said, "Free speech, espousing even very radical beliefs, is protected by our Constitution. But violent behavior is not."

Jessica Lee, writing in the Indypendent, a newspaper put out by the New York Independent Media Center, pointed out that in a later press release Harman stated: "the National Commission [will] propose to both Congress and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael] Chertoff initiatives to intercede before radicalized individuals turn violent."

Which could be when they’re speaking, writing, and organizing in ways that are protected by the First Amendment. This redefines civil disobedience as terrorism, say civil rights experts, and the wording is too vague. For example, the definition of "violent radicalization" is "the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change."

"What is an extremist belief system? Who defines this? These are broad definitions that encompass so much…. It is criminalizing thought and ideology," said Alejandro Queral, executive director of the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center in Portland, Ore.

Though the ACLU recommended some changes that were adopted, it continued to criticize the bill. Harman, in a response letter, said free speech is still free and stood by the need to curb ideologically-based violence.

The story didn’t make it onto the CNN ticker, but enough independent sources reported on it that the equivalent Senate Bill 1959 has since stalled. After introducing the bill, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.), later joined forces with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) on a report criticizing the Internet as a tool for violent Islamic extremism.

Despite an outcry from civil liberties groups, days after the report was released Lieberman demanded that YouTube remove a number of Islamist propaganda videos. YouTube canned some that broke their rules regarding violence and hate speech, but resisted censoring others. The ensuing battle caught the attention of the New York Times, and on May 25 it editorialized against Lieberman and S 1959.

Sources: "Bringing the war on terrorism home," Jessica Lee, Indypendent, Nov. 16, 2007; "Examining the Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act," Lindsay Beyerstein, In These Times, Nov. 2007; "The Violent Radicalization Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007," Matt Renner, Truthout, Nov. 20, 2007

7. SLAVERY’S RUNNER-UP


Every year, about 121,000 people legally enter the United States to work with H-2 visas, a program legislators are touting as part of future immigration reform. But Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) called this guest worker program "the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery."

The Southern Poverty Law Center likened it to "modern day indentured servitude." They interviewed thousands of guest workers and reviewed legal cases for a report released in March 2007, in which authors Mary Bauer and Sarah Reynolds wrote, "Unlike US citizens, guest workers do not enjoy the most fundamental protection of a competitive labor market — the ability to change jobs if they are mistreated. Instead, they are bound to the employers who ‘import’ them. If guest workers complain about abuses, they face deportation, blacklisting, or other retaliation."

When visas expire, workers must leave the country, hardly making this the path to permanent citizenship legislators are looking for. The H-2 program mimics the controversial bracero program, established through a joint agreement between Mexico and the United States in 1942 that brought 4.5 million workers over the border during the 22 years it was in effect.

Many legal protections were written into the program, but in most cases they existed only on paper in a language unreadable to employees. In 1964 the program was shuttered amid scores of human rights abuses and complaints that it undermined petitions for higher wages from US workers. Soon after, United Farm Workers organized, which César Chávez said would have been impossible if the bracero program still existed.

Years later, it essentially still does. The H-2A program, which accounted for 32,000 agricultural workers in 2005, has many of the same protections — and many of the same abuses. Even worse is the H-2B program, used by 89,000 non-agricultural workers annually. Created by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, none of the safeguards of the H-2A visa are legally required for H-2B workers.

Still, Mexicans are literally lining up for H-2B status, the stark details of which were reported by Felicia Mello in The Nation. Furthermore, thousands of illegal immigrants are employed throughout the country, providing cheap, unprotected labor and further undermining the scant provisions of the laws. Labor contractors who connect immigrants with employers are stuffing their pockets with cash, while the workers return home with very little money.

The Southern Poverty Law Center outlined a list of comprehensive changes needed in the program, concluding, "For too long, our country has benefited from the labor provided by guest workers but has failed to provide a fair system that respects their human rights and upholds the most basic values of our democracy. The time has come for Congress to overhaul our shamefully abusive guest worker system."

Sources: "Close to Slavery," Mary Bauer and Sarah Reynolds, Southern Poverty Law Center, March 2007; "Coming to America," Felicia Mello, The Nation, June 25, 2007; "Trafficking racket," Chidanand Rajghatta, Times of India, March 10, 2008.

8. BUSH CHANGES THE RULES


The Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice has been issuing classified legal opinions about surveillance for years. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) had access to the DOJ opinions on presidential power and had three declassified to show how the judicial branch has, in a bizarre and chilling way, assisted President Bush in circumventing its own power.

According to the three memos:

"There is no constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms of a previous executive order. Rather than violate an executive order, the President has instead modified or waived it";

"The President, exercising his constitutional authority under Article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful exercise of the President’s authority under Article II," and

"The Department of Justice is bound by the President’s legal determinations."

Or, as Whitehouse rephrased in a Dec. 7, 2007, Senate speech: "I don’t have to follow my own rules, and I don’t have to tell you when I’m breaking them. I get to determine what my own powers are. The Department of Justice doesn’t tell me what the law is. I tell the Department of Justice what the law is."

The issue arose within the context of the Protect America Act, which expands government surveillance powers and gives telecom companies legal immunity for helping. Whitehouse called it "a second-rate piece of legislation passed in a stampede in August at the behest of the Bush administration."

He pointed out that the act does not prohibit spying on Americans overseas — with the exception of an executive order that permits surveillance only of Americans whom the Attorney General determines to be "agents of a foreign power."

"In other words, the only thing standing between Americans traveling overseas and government wiretap is an executive order," Whitehouse said in an April 12 speech. "An order this president, under the first legal theory I cited, claims he has no legal obligation to obey."

Whitehouse, a former US Attorney, legal counsel to Rhode Island’s governor, and Rhode Island Attorney General who took office in 2006, went on to point out that Marbury vs. Madison, written by Chief Justice John Marshall in 1803, established that it is "emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is."

Sources: "In FISA Speech, Whitehouse sharply criticizes Bush Administration’s assertion of executive power," Sheldon Whitehouse, Dec. 7, 2007; "Down the Rabbit Hole," Marcy Wheeler, The Guardian (UK), Dec. 26, 2007.

9. SOLDIERS SPEAK OUT


Hearing soldiers recount their war experiences is the closest many people come to understanding the real horror, pain, and confusion of combat. One would think that might make compelling copy or powerful footage for a news outlet. But in March, when more than 300 veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan convened for four days of public testimony on the war, they were largely ignored by the media.

Winter Soldier was designed to give soldiers a public forum to air some of the atrocities they witnessed. Originally convened by Vietnam Vets Against the War in January 1971, more than 100 Vietnam veterans and 16 civilians described their war experiences, including rapes, torture, brutalities, and killing of non-combatants. The testimony was entered into the Congressional Record, filmed, and shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

Iraq Veterans Against the War hosted the 2008 reprise of the 1971 hearings. Aaron Glantz, writing in One World, recalled testimony from former Marine Cpl. Jason Washburn, who said, "his commanders encouraged lawless behavior. ‘We were encouraged to bring ‘drop weapons,’ or shovels. In case we accidentally shot a civilian, we could drop the weapon on the body and pretend they were an insurgent.’<0x2009>"

An investigation by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian in The Nation that included interviews with 50 Iraq war veterans also revealed an overwhelming lack of training and resources, and a general disregard for the traditional rules of war.

Though most major news outlets sent staff to cover New York’s Fashion Week, few made it to Silver Spring, Md. for the Winter Soldier hearings. Fortunately, KPFA and Pacifica Radio broadcast the testimonies live and, in an update to the story, said they were "deluged with phone calls, e-mails, and blog posts from service members, veterans, and military families thanking us for breaking a cultural norm of silence about the reality of war." Testimonies can still be heard at www.ivaw.org.

Sources: "Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan eyewitness accounts of the occupation," Iraq Veterans Against the War, March 13-16, 2008; "War comes home," Aaron Glantz, Aimee Allison, and Esther Manilla, Pacifica Radio, March 14-16, 2008; "US Soldiers testify about war crimes," Aaron Glantz, One World, March 19, 2008; "The Other War," Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, The Nation, July 30, 2007.

10. APA HELPS CIA TORTURE


Psychologists have been assisting the CIA and US military with interrogation and torture of Guantánamo detainees — which the American Psychological Association has said is fine, despite objections from many of its 148,000 members.

A 10-member APA task force convened on the divisive issue in July 2005 and found that assistance from psychologists was making the interrogations safe and the group deferred to US standards on torture over international human-rights organizations’ definitions.

The task force was criticized by APA members for deliberating in secret, and later it was revealed that six of the 10 participants had ties to the armed services. Not only that, but as Katherine Eban reported in Vanity Fair, "Psychologists, working in secrecy, had actually designed the tactics and trained interrogators in them while on contract to the CIA."

In particular, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, neither of whom are APA members, honed a classified military training program known as SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape] that teaches soldiers how to tough out torture if captured by enemies. "Mitchell and Jessen reverse-engineered the tactics inflicted on SERE trainees for use on detainees in the global war on terror," Eban wrote.

And, as Mark Benjamin noted in a Salon article, employing SERE training — which is designed to replicate torture tactics that don’t abide by Geneva Convention standards — refutes past administration assertions that current CIA torture techniques are safe and legal. "Soldiers undergoing SERE training are subject to forced nudity, stress positions, lengthy isolation, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, exhaustion from exercise, and the use of water to create a sensation of suffocation," Benjamin wrote.

Eban’s story outlined how SERE tactics were spun as "science" despite a lack of data and the critique that building rapport works better than blows to the head. Specifically, he said, it’s been misreported that CIA torture techniques got Al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah to talk, when it was actually FBI rapport-building. In spite of this, SERE techniques became standards in interrogation manuals that eventually made their way to US officers guarding Abu Ghraib.

Ongoing uproar within the APA resulted in a petition to make an official policy limiting psychologists’ involvement in interrogations. On Sept. 17, a majority of 15,000 voting members approved a resolution stating that psychologists may not work in settings where "persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the US Constitution (where appropriate), unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights."

Sources: "The CIA’s torture teachers," Mark Benjamin, Salon, June 21, 2007; "Rorschach and awe," Katherine Eban, Vanity Fair, July 17, 2007.

OTHER STORIES IN THE TOP 25


11. El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror

12. Bush Profiteers Collect Billions from No Child Left Behind

13. Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq

14. Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste

15. Worldwide Slavery

16. Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights

17. UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights

18. Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers

19. Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction

20. Marijuana Arrests Set New Record

21. NATO Considers "First Strike" Nuclear Option

22. CARE Rejects US Food Aid

23. FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs

24. Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror

25. Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

Read them all at projectcensored.org

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CENSORED IN SAN FRANCISCO

Good stories are going untold everywhere, but Project Censored can’t cover it all. The project focuses on national an international news, but in a place politically, environmentally, and socially charged as the Bay Area, there’s plenty going on that major media sources ignore, underplay, black out, or misreport.

We called local activists, politicians, freelance journalists, and media experts to come up with a list of a few Bay Area censored stories. Post a comment and add your own!

>> The truth about Prop. H: Pacific Gas and Electric Company has been spending millions to tell lies about the Clean Energy Act, Proposition H. But the mainstream press has done nothing to counter that misinformation.

>> The dirty secret of the secrecy law: Vioutf8g San Francisco’s local public records law, the Sunshine Ordinance, carries no penalty, so city agencies do it at will. The failure of the district attorney and Ethics Commission to enforce the law has undermined open-government efforts.

>> The military red herring: The real politics of the JROTC ballot measure have little to do with this particular program. Downtown and the Republican party are using the measure as a wedge issue against progressives

>> The mayor’s war on affordable housing: Mayor Gavin Newsom, who touts his record on homelessness, has actually opposed every major affordable-housing measure proposed by the Board of Supervisors in the last five years. And since Newsom became mayor the city homeless population has increased — but shelter closings have cost the city 400 beds.

>> The hidden cost of attacking immigrants: The San Francisco Chronicle and Mayor Gavin Newsom have been demanding a crackdown on undocumented immigrants in the name of law enforcement – but the move has made immigrants less likely to cooperate with the police and thus is hindering criminal-justice

Holy Smokes, McCain “suspends campaign”!

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McCain is right that the country is facing a historic economic crisis, but canceling his debate with Obama on Friday?
He says it’s time for both parties to come together to solve the economic crisis, but it sounds like he has cold feet.

Don’t know about you, but I was figuring that the debate would be a chance for the candidates to tell us more about their thoughts on the issue, at a time when the American public desperately needs insights and guidance.

Obama is reported to still want to hold the debate, and a statement is expected from his campaign shortly. Meanwhile, here’s what Obama is saying about the financial meltdown:

“The era of greed and irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has created a financial crisis as profound as any we have faced since the Great Depression.

Congress and the President are debating a bailout of our financial institutions with a price tag of $700 billion or more in taxpayer dollars. We cannot underestimate our responsibility in taking such an enormous step.

Whatever shape our recovery plan takes, it must be guided by core principles of fairness, balance, and responsibility to one another.

Please sign on to show your support for an economic recovery plan based on the following:

• No Golden Parachutes — Taxpayer dollars should not be used to reward the irresponsible Wall Street executives who helmed this disaster.

• Main Street, Not Just Wall Street — Any bailout plan must include a payback strategy for taxpayers who are footing the bill and aid to innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

• Bipartisan Oversight — The staggering amount of taxpayer money involved demands a bipartisan board to ensure accountability and oversight.

The failed economic policies and the same corrupt culture that led us into this mess will not help get us out of it. We need to get to work immediately on reforming the broken government — and the broken politics — that allowed this crisis to happen in the first place.

And we have to understand that a recovery package is just the beginning. We have a plan that will guarantee our long-term prosperity — including tax cuts for 95 percent of families, an economic stimulus package that creates millions of new jobs and leads us towards energy independence, and health care that is affordable to every American.

It won’t be easy. The kind of change we’re looking for never is.

But if we work together and stand by these principles, we can get through this crisis and emerge a stronger nation.”

An economic locavore policy

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EDITORIAL Local food is all the rage in San Francisco these days. The locavores and the slow-food people held a conference at Fort Mason a couple of weeks ago that drew huge crowds. Mayor Gavin Newsom is on board, and he loves to talk about creating a sustainable San Francisco. There are people in town who talk about energy independence, who talk about shopping locally, about building a city where people can live and work without using private cars.

We’re all for it — but in the wake of the wrenching meltdown in the financial markets, San Francisco needs to take a broad approach to the city economy. It’s time to develop a comprehensive plan to turn San Franciscans (and their government, businesses, and institutions) into economic locavores.

There are three basic reasons why the housing, credit, and financial markets are in the worst crisis since the Great Depression. The first two are related: The complexity of the financial instruments and securities being traded has increased so dramatically that even the heads of big investment banks didn’t know exactly what they were buying and selling. And the regulatory system under the George W. Bush administration has been unable and unwilling to keep up.

There’s not a lot San Franciscans can do locally to fix either of those problems (other than work to elect Barack Obama in November).

But the third factor in the current crisis is the globalization of money — and that’s something San Francisco can address.

For years, most famously in Seattle in 1999, protesters in this country have clashed with major institutions like the World Trade Organization over globalization issues. For the most part, they’ve focused on trade — on America losing jobs to low-wage companies, on big American chain stores selling goods made in third-world sweatshops, and on American money going to multinational corporations that prey on impoverished people and foul the environment. All of those are crucial issues — but so is the globalization of finance, which has received less attention.

And we’re not just talking about the stock market. The money San Franciscans deposit every day in local banks, the payments on mortgages and credit cards, the insurance premiums … all that cash goes into a financial system that instead of reinvesting in communities is buying and selling complex international securities like credit default swaps and derivatives. The traders and top executives who make these markets get colossal paychecks and bonuses — and most of us get nothing. Now that the whole house of cards is starting to topple, the small businesses and the people who need credit to buy cars or washing machines or bicycles or a house — the ordinary residents of cities like San Francisco — are the biggest losers.

The plan the White House has put forward is one of the grossest examples of corporate welfare in a generation — and even the Democrats in Congress are hesitant to oppose it.

But if San Francisco is serious about building a sustainable city, the mayor and the supervisors ought to start working, now, to create a citywide policy for economic localism. Among the elements:

•Banks that do business with the city should be required to set aside a significant amount of their loan portfolio for local small-business and housing loans. (The Treasurer’s Office can start with Bank of America, which currently holds the city’s deposit and payroll accounts.) The Community Reinvestment Act is far too weak and rarely enforced; San Francisco, with the leverage of a $6 billion city budget, can do much better.

•Most city contracts go to companies outside of San Francisco. Local businesses need to get a strong preference.

•The San Francisco controller needs to start looking at the city’s balance of trade — what do we import, what do we export, and how can we use more local products?

•The city needs to use tax policy to encourage local enterprise and discourage the out-of-town chains that use San Francisco as a strip mine.

There’s much more on the agenda, and there are plenty of people with good ideas. The crisis will define our political era; the city ought to be moving now to be in the lead.

A planning primer for the supes

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EDITORIAL The Eastern Neighborhoods Plan, which comes before the Board of Supervisors this month, is more than a set of rezoning and fee proposals. It’s a blueprint for how San Francisco sees its future as a city. When the supervisors are done with it, the plan will either preserve and expand the city’s affordable housing stock and protect blue-collar jobs, or it will usher in a vastly expanded land rush for developers who will wipe out small businesses that employ local residents and build tens of thousands of high-end condos for rich single people who work in Silicon Valley.

The stakes couldn’t be higher — and not just for the Mission, Potrero Hill, South of Market, and Dogpatch districts, but for the entire city. Because if the supervisors can’t get this right, the pattern will be set for development that will profoundly change the demographics (and politics) of this city.

The language the board will wrestle with is complicated, but the fundamental concepts are simple. And that’s where the discussion needs to start. For example:

• Affordable housing can’t be a token concession; it has to be the heart of the plan. The city’s own general plan states that 64 percent of all new housing built in San Francisco should be made available at below market rates. That’s because the vast majority of the people who need housing in this city earn far less money that it takes to buy a market-rate unit. Even with the nationwide housing slump, new condos in the city start at $500,000 for a tiny studio or one-bedroom unit; places big enough for families cost a lot more. Even families with two wage earners who have decent, unionized jobs (like teachers, firefighters, and bus drivers) can’t afford the lowest-end market-rate homes.

Most discussions of affordable housing seem to start with the premise that forcing developers to set aside maybe 25 percent of their units for below-market sale is some sort of a victory. That’s nonsense. If 25 percent of the units in the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan are affordable, that means 75 percent will go to very rich people — and a city in which 75 percent of the population is rich while most of the people who work in the city’s major industries can’t afford to live in town is not a sustainable city.

The supervisors should set affordable housing at 64 percent — that is, compliance with the general plan — as a bottom-line goal. Any aspect of the plan that doesn’t advance that goal needs to be examined and changed. If the evidence shows that to be an impossible standard, let’s negotiate down from there instead of taking the city’s anemic affordability levels and trying to bump them a few points up.

For example, the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition has suggested that any height or density bonuses should be used for 100 percent affordable housing. Sup. Tom Ammiano is carrying that amendment to the plan, and it needs to be approved.

• Developers have to pay to build new neighborhoods. You can’t just toss 40,000 new housing units into the eastern neighborhoods and expect to have a decent community. Neighborhoods needs parks and schools and bus lines — and the area targeted for this level of development has nowhere near the level of infrastructure it needs to handle the proposed housing influx.

So the developers who want to make money building housing also have to pony up for the public works and amenities that will make the plan viable. City officials estimate that the area needs $400 million worth of new infrastructure. The development fees currently proposed would cover less than half that. The ratio just doesn’t work: either the money is set aside — up front — to pay for neighborhood services and improvements, or the supervisors should reject the entire plan.

• Blue-collar jobs can’t be sacrificed for more millionaires. The Planning Department admits that the current proposal will destroy hundreds of jobs in what’s known as production, distribution, and repair — jobs that offer decent wages for people who don’t have an advanced education. The city desperately needs those jobs. If the plan envisions new industries to replace the PDR facilities, those industries have to offer similar employment opportunities.

Residents of the eastern neighborhoods aren’t opposed to new development. But everyone in town ought to be fighting a developer giveaway that brings the city nothing.

Jam econo

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› duncan@sfbg.com

Look, I can’t tell you, OK? It’s not that I don’t want to, but when I tell someone it’s "off the record," it’s off the record. It’s not like divulging the day job of Nicole Laurenne, super-saucy singer and Farfisa player for the Love Me Nots, would be some kind of huge, Valerie Plame–style leak, but I refuse to be the Scooter Libby here. Let’s just say she wants to keep her professional and garage-rock lives separate. Brain surgeon? Test pilot? Miniskirted, go-go-booted commando, doing the swim behind enemy lines? "Just tell them I’m a spy. I work for the CIA," Laurenne says during a phone interview from her office in stifling Phoenix, Ariz., or, perhaps, from her secret lair in the caldera of an extinct volcano.

Whatever it is she does, let’s just say Laurenne and the rest of her black-and-white-garbed, pin-sharp quartet aren’t quitting their day jobs any time soon. Not because the band doesn’t pack enough full-throated, ’60s soul, Mosrite fuzz, and hip-shaking, back-alley R&B stomp to rock the door off the proverbial garage — because they do, in spades. This is clearly evidenced by their 2007 debut, In Black & White, and their newly dropped Detroit, both produced in a chicken slaughterhouse-turned-recording studio in the Motor City by Jim Diamond (the White Stripes, the Romantics, the Charms) and both on Love Me Nots’ Atomic a Go Go imprint. "Our day jobs pay for everything," Laurenne tells me. "We’re very careful to work around them. We decided a long time ago we didn’t want to live in a van for a month and play on Tuesdays in Wichita." This allows them to practice an approach that more seasoned touring bands like Les Savy Fav have turned to after decades of midweek dates in nowhere towns: the tour as surgical strike. "We’ll go out to the East Coast and do New Jersey on Thursday and New York on Friday and Boston on Saturday and fly home on Sunday," she says.

I can hear it already: "Man, that’s not punk rock. Where’s the DIY? I’m revoking their indie street cred." Sell out? Hardly. The Love Me Nots are an example of a new paradigm, or at least a rare one: they actually put the horse before the cart. While grinding away in various Phoenix garage outfits over the years — with the exception of their new bass player, Kyle Rose Stokes, a 26-year-old grad student, they’re all in their 30s — the Love Me Nots realized they had to make money so they could do it right from the get-go: they release their own music on their own label, do the distribution, copyrighting, publishing, artwork — not to mention writing songs, rehearsing, and playing gigs. They may not be gluing together 7-inch sleeves, but they’ve got more in common with the DIY ethos of bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag and the labels they created, Dischord and SST, than trustafarians trying to scam street cred by sprinkling a steady diet of ramen with cocaine binges, hoping to float to hipster heaven on the sparkly fart of the first A&R douchebag who recognizes their Casiotone genius.

"You’ve got to give ’em what they want," Laurenne advises an unnamed "little girl" as Detroit nears its crescendo, before adding, "without losing what you’ve got." And while it’s delivered as romantic advice, it sums up the band’s outlook: deliver the goods, on your own terms, in your own time. You can have the career, and the band, and the love life — Laurenne and guitarist Michael Johnny Walker recently got engaged — and not have to slack off on any element of being alive. It is, however, somewhat of a balancing act. "We try to avoid doing stuff that’s too connected," the vocalist says when I asked her if the band’s been asked to play Christmas parties. "We definitely don’t mind people who enjoy that style of music coming out and enjoying it. They certainly need their own release. And, honestly, a lot of people in this type of suit world have other, non-suit interests too, and I think they feel validated, like, ‘Oh, I guess it’s OK to be a sort of renaissance person. You can pursue your own interests, and it’s not shameful anymore.’<0x2009>"

Perhaps it’s my brief stint in the dirty, amoral trenches of mind control, er … "advertising," that immediately leads me to a tag line: "The Love Me Nots: Making It Safe for the Squares to Dance," I tell Laurenne. "That’s your next T-shirt."

THE LOVE ME NOTS

With the Hi-Nobles and the Laundronauts

Fri/12, 9 p.m., $8

Annie’s Social Club

917 Folsom, SF

www.anniessocialclub.com

Moment of truth

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› news@sfbg.com

The controversial and long-awaited Eastern Neighborhoods Community Plan — which includes a thicket of thorny planning and financing issues that will largely determine San Francisco’s socioeconomic future — has finally arrived before the Board of Supervisors.

Neither developers nor community activists are happy with the plan approved Aug. 7 by the Planning Commission, which sets zoning, policies, and funding levels for new development in the Mission District, eastern SoMa, Potrero Hill, and the Central Waterfront.

Developers objected to the fee levels and affordable-housing requirements, saying they would discourage growth, but the compromise plan of less than $16 per square foot in development fees (which vary widely, depending on many factors) and a maximum 20 percent affordable-housing requirement have left public needs severely underfunded. San Francisco Planning Department estimates indicate the fee structure will yield only about $150 million for the area’s $400 million in infrastructure needs.

“The plan right now is not balanced in favor of diversity and real neighborhood needs,” said Sup. Tom Ammiano, who plans to introduce a long list of amendments to the plan in conjunction with Sup. Sophie Maxwell and neighborhood groups that include the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, the South of Market Citizen Action Network (SOMCAN), and the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association.

On the other side of the equation, the Residential Builders Association and other developers say the city will end up with little development activity if they ask for too much, and they’re threatening legal action if the city pushes too hard. “Our members certainly aren’t happy, and the industry isn’t happy,” RBA president Sean Keighran told the Guardian, saying the plan allows for too little development. “Many of our members are meeting with attorneys and considering their options.”

The Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee will begin working through the myriad conflicts Sept. 15 with a series of at least four hearings running through Sept. 23, when the plan could head for the full board. But given the complex political dynamics at play — and the fate of Proposition B, the affordable housing set-aside measure that could help narrow the funding shortfall — key parts of the plan could be delayed until at least January, when the new board is seated, making the stakes of this November’s election even higher.

Political priorities will determine the plan’s emphasis, and the balance of power on the board now seems to favor increasing the amount of affordable housing that will be required in the eastern neighborhoods, home to much of San Francisco’s remaining working class. The supervisors also are leaning toward asking developers to pay more for parks and other infrastructure needs.

Planning Department staffer Steve Wertheim said the goal has been to “make the fees as feasible as possible” for developers and “to find a sweet spot” that will satisfy developers as well as community activists. While he said the commission “was as aggressive as possible with the tools we had available, we would have to subsidize every house if we want [more] affordable housing.”

Planners say they are constrained by city studies indicating that developers won’t build if required to offer more than 20 percent of their housing units below market rates. “As a resident of San Francisco, I would love to see housing cheaper. But we can’t make affordable housing requirements so high that we end up getting no housing at all,” Wertheim said. “We’ve done as much as we can, but the whole city has to commit.”

Indeed, the plan’s funding shortfall raises citywide questions. Tony Kelly, president of Potrero Boosters, said the unspoken assumption in the Eastern Neighborhood Plan is that voters will need to approve Prop. B: “This plan is a big argument for the housing fund.” Either the proposition passes or San Francisco simply becomes steadily less affordable for working families.

Keighran thinks there’s been too much focus on affordable housing. “This one goal should not take priority over the other goals,” Keighran said. “We feel we’re being asked for so many different things from so many different people.”

Yet the activists argue that San Francisco will lose its working class and families if the market alone is allowed to determine what kind of housing is built. The city’s own general plan states that 64 percent of new housing should be affordable. The activists are urging the supervisors to prioritize community needs over developer profits.

“It’s a huge, sprawling plan that has a lot of detail, and the details we wanted to see aren’t there,” said Nick Pagoulatos, coordinator of the MAC. “In terms of the housing, it’s a complete disaster for our housing needs…. The housing we’re seeing is the same old housing we’ve always seen in our neighborhoods, which is mostly market-rate housing.”

Given the amount of light industrial land in the plan area that would be zoned for housing — enough for an estimated 7,500 new units — Pagoulatos said the community has gotten very little. The Planning Department estimates that less than 30 percent of the housing developed under the plan will be considered affordable — less than half of what the city needs — and even getting to that level will require more funding, perhaps by creating new redevelopment districts.

Among other problems in the plan, Pagoulatos said there isn’t nearly enough land set aside for the fully affordable projects that nonprofit entities seek to build with city affordable-housing funds. “If we don’t get that, then we didn’t get anything for all the concessions that we’ve made,” he said.

While the plan now includes modest new affordable housing and community benefits requirements for developers who want to exceed the plan’s height and density limits, activists say the community isn’t getting enough for offering this carrot. They propose to require that 100 percent of the units exceeding current entitlements be affordable.

“Our main concern is there isn’t enough affordable housing in the plan,” said Chris Durazo, community planning director for SOMCAN. “We want the Board of Supervisors to get involved and take this seriously. They need to understand how this community is growing. The families here now should be able to remain here.”

SOMCAN formally appealed the Planning Commission’s approval of the plan’s environmental impact report, which didn’t include detailed traffic studies that must eventually be completed. “We’re appealing it based on them punting the traffic and transportation plan,” Durazo said.

Kelly said that was emblematic of the cursory approach planners have taken toward sizing up and providing for the needs of residents in the affected neighborhoods. “This whole plan is going to move forward with less than half the money for neighborhood improvements they say are necessary,” Kelly said. He notes that the population of the 94107 ZIP code could double under the plan, which makes no provisions for increasing transit services for that higher population or securing new land for parks.

“The gap in affordable housing and the loss of light industrial jobs is matched by a lack of funding for community improvements,” said Kelly, who said his association focuses on that latter issue but is supportive of community groups that focus on housing and jobs.

In fact, there has been an unprecedented level of community organizing and collaboration among groups of all political stripes around this plan, work that is expected to pay off more at the board level than at the commission level.

“Because the board and the commission are two very different political bodies, others may come out that weren’t at the commission hearings,” said Wertheim, noting that developers were well-represented at the commission level. “But the one thing I’ve learned from this whole process is not to be surprised.”

Keighran seemed to sense the changing dynamics. “Planning takes methodical procedural work,” he said. “Politicians are not best suited to doing planning.”

But the activists say this plan should be a reflection of the city’s values, not simply a product of discussions between developers and planners. Yet they understand that politics can cut both ways, particularly during an election season.

“Of course we need more housing, but building $6 million condos isn’t the answer,” said Marc Salomon of the Western SoMa Task Force, which broke away from the Eastern Neighborhoods planning process — a process he criticizes. “It’s not about housing people, it’s about investment. It’s ‘How do we give the developers what they want and give the natives the bare minimum, or just enough that they don’t burn down City Hall?'<0x2009>”

Salomon fears the Eastern Neighborhoods will continue to suffer from political pandering. “The [supervisors] are all looking for their next move,” Salomon said. “The discourse has moved so far to the right that you can’t be against market-rate housing. And what they’re doing is developing market-rate housing to suit developers, and at the same time purging this city of progressives.”

Take Lowe’s off the table

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EDITORIAL The battle over a proposed Home Depot store on Bayshore Boulevard several years ago dominated politics for a while in two supervisorial districts and became a nasty battle over race, jobs, small business, and community development priorities that spread citywide. In the end, with Sup. Aaron Peskin providing the swing vote, the Board of Supervisors approved the giant chain store.

And then — as giant out-of-town chains will do — Home Depot abruptly pulled the plug last spring. After all the tumult and the shouting, the bitterness and bad feelings, the big-box retailer decided it really didn’t want a store in southeast San Francisco.

Since then Sups. Tom Ammiano (who opposed Home Depot) and Sophie Maxwell (who supported it) have met and worked together to create a development plan that makes sense for the big empty lot on Bayshore. The two supervisors involved community leaders and tried to create a public process that would prevent the kind of fight the neighborhoods faced over Home Depot.

It was a hopeful sign — until now. Because the owners of the lot — the Goodman family, which once ran Goodman Lumber there — have come forward with a new proposal that’s almost exactly the same as the old one. This time, it’s Lowe’s Home Improvement.

If the supervisors, the mayor, and the community learned anything from the past few years, it’s that big-box chains can’t be trusted and aren’t an appropriate base for community and economic development in San Francisco. The mayor and the supervisors should make it clear now, before we go through another long, ugly battle, that big-box isn’t part of the future of Bayshore Boulevard.

Big chain stores defy all the basic premises of progressive urban planning. They exist and operate on a car-driven suburban model, with large parking lots that attract drivers. They add traffic and pollution to local streets and are inconsistent with the city’s attempts to be a greener, more sustainable community. They pay low wages (in fact, Lowe’s is the subject of a class-action suit in 11 states charging that the chain makes its employees work overtime without pay). The money they make leaves the community immediately, offering little in local economic benefits. And they destroy neighborhood-serving small businesses.

They are, by their nature, monocrop economic entities — when the entire future of an area depends on one so-called anchor store, then the community is vulnerable to decisions made elsewhere. Home Depot could have opened, then been closed after a year. Lowe’s could do the same.

The Eastern Neighborhoods plan envisions a huge new influx of housing into the area, and city planners admit the result will be a loss of blue-collar jobs. So the city can’t let the Bayshore site sit empty for years while some North Carolina–based megaretailer decides the neighborhood’s fate. And the last thing the Bayview, the Mission, and Bernal Heights need is another drawn-out conflict over a home improvement store.

The Mayor’s Office ought to be working with Ammiano and Maxwell to come up with an alternative plan for the area (solar energy? local home improvement stores?) that creates decent jobs, generates tax revenue — and remains true to a sustainable economic and environmental vision for the city. Step one is to take Lowe’s off the table.

RNC: Protest Amy Goodman/Journalist arrests

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Coming to work this morning, I listened with outrage to the Thom Hartmann radio program on Air America (960AM) and his chilling interview with Amy Goodman, who detailed her arrest with her Democracy Now/Pacifica Radio/KPFA crew at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Here are the details of this important story the mainstream media is paying scant attention to. And what you can do about it. Watch for protests from the Society of Professional Journalists and other journalism and free press organizations.


Free Press Action Alert:

Yesterday, police in St. Paul arrested several journalists, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention.

Stand Up for Independent Journalism

Amy Goodman and others were released last night, but the story is not over.

We need you to cosign our public letter demanding that press intimidation cease immediately, and that all charges be dropped. It will be delivered immediately to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, the RNC Host Committee and the local prosecuting attorneys. We need 10,000 signatures in the next 24 hours, so please take action now:

Sign the Letter: Drop All Charges Against Journalists

In addition to these arrests, police with firearms drawn raided a meeting of the video journalists’ group I-Witness and arrested independent media, bloggers and videomakers. We’re also receiving late-breaking reports of other arrests.

By signing this letter, you’re sending a powerful message: Officials must rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.

Reporting by independent journalists is vital to a functioning democracy. Americans must have access to diverse sources of information to hold their leaders accountable. Journalists must be free to do their jobs without intimidation.

Please Take Action by Signing this Letter

Don’t wait. We need a free press now more than ever. Tell your friends and take action now!

Thank you,

Josh Silver
Executive Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

1. Watch the video of Goodman’s arrest.

2. See other journalists being arrested as reported by UpTake.

3. News of the AP arrest.

4. Learn more about the arrest of an ABC News producer during the Democratic Convention in Denver.

5. Watch the video of the police raid of I-Witness journalists (Caution: strong language).

American Dreamer: Notes from Underground

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TheRoad.jpg
Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.

By Kid Beyond

Wednesday afternoon: the nominating speeches. They’re playing against type. Third-youngest delegate Jordan Apollo Pazell, from a 720-person town in Utah, seconds Hillary’s nomination on behalf of his two great- grandmothers — both still alive and in Utah, both born before women had the right to vote. Nominating Obama is Michael Wilson, a young Iraq War vet and lifelong Republican.

Speaker after speaker, the talking points are the same. The failing economy. Health care. A swift exit from Iraq. A more nuanced foreign policy. Clean energy, and clean energy jobs. Restoring the American Dream — prosperity through hard work.

Extra! Hearst blacks out the word progressive

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“Ultra liberal?” “Far left political factions”? In San Francisco? Hearst, Mayoral Press Secretary Nathan Ballard, and an “ultra liberal” supervisorial candidate from the Excelsior District comment on this astounding election development

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Audrey Cooper, assistant metro editor of the Chronicle/Hearst, has admitted that the Chronicle “has decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions.” (See my previous blog).

Does this mean that supporters of the Clean Energy Initiative are suddenly and unexpectedly given the derogatory terms “ultra liberal” and “far left.” Does this mean Aaron Peskin and a majority of the board of supervisors? Assemblyman Mark Leno? Former PUC General manager Susan Leal? Former Mayor Art Agnos? A majority of the Democratic County Central Committee? A batch of supervisorial candidates? Labor leaders? The Sierra Club?

Here’s the email Cooper sent me this afternoon responding to questions from the Bruce blog and the Guardian. Cooper, let us stipulate upfront, has one of the toughest jobs going, trying to explain why Hearst suddenly banned the word progressive in the middle of a PG&E offensive against the Clean Energy Act. More: Hearst banned the word progressive in one of the world’s most progressive cities, in a city that spawned the famous progressive Hiram Johnson and his successful fight against the Southern Pacific Railroad, and on the newspaper founded by a publisher who called himself at one time a progressive and ran for mayor of New York on a platform of municipal ownership of utilities. In San Francisco, Hearst campaigned vigorously on a pro-Hetch Hetchy public power, anti-PG&E platform until he reversed himself in the late 1920s because of a PG&E loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. Hearst’s pro-PG&E, anti-public power position has remained in effect to this day. (See previous Bruce blogs, Guardian stories, and David Nasaw’s authoritative biography, “The Chief.”)

Cooper wrote:

“Hi Bruce.
I’m Wyatt Buchanan’s editor — he passed your e-mail along to me. Sorry that it took me a day to get back to you. In general, feel free to ask anything about our coverage. I’ll always answer as quickly as I can (that is, when it’s an issue I have control over).

I’ve also sent versions of this explanation to others who have inquired. (I’m only telling you that in case you get a similar e-mail forwarded to you — it’s just easier for me to explain it the same way to everyone.)

In short, just because a label is embraced by a political group does not mean it’s the best way to report a story. As you’ve probably noticed, we generally eschew political labels when possible. In some stories (such as the fight for the DCCC and Board of Supes), this is not as easily done. In those cases, we choose adjectives we think are as politically neutral as possible.

We decided to stop using the word ‘progressive’ to describe the more liberal of San Francisco’s political factions because it is a politically loaded term that doesn’t mean much to our readers. And while ‘progressive’ may be the preferred term of some politicians — and, of course, they are free to use it to describe themselves — it doesn’t describe where they sit on the traditional political spectrum.

We believe using adjectives such as ‘far left’ and ‘ultra liberal’ more accurately describe city politicians and policies in that broader context.

Thanks for your time. Feel free to call me if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Audrey”

Reliable sources told us that the mayor’s campaign had complained to the Chronicle about the use of the word progressive and that means Eric Jaye, who runs the Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign at the same time he works for PG&E as a paid consultant to PG&E.

Cooper and Nathan Ballard, the mayor’s press secretary denied this. Cooper said:

“Also, I should tell you that we did not make this change in response or after complaints from anyone in the mayor’s office. The mayor’s office does not dictate what words we use.

“Nobody from the mayor’s office has ever contacted me about this issue as far as I can honestly remember. And I can’t recall them saying anything about it over the last two weeks, either.”

Ballard said:

“Personally I’ve never really complained to the Chronicle about this subject. It just wasn’t very high on my to-do list. In fact I don’t recall ever having any conversations about this topic with anyone from the Chronicle until after Heather Knight’s article about the far-left takeover of the DCCC ran.

“I have to admit that I’m pleased to learn from you that the Chronicle will no longer be using the term ‘progressive’ to describe politicians who aren’t. It always struck me as Orwellian doublespeak to describe somebody who wants to legalize sex trafficking and force lobbyists to wear badges as ‘progressive.'”

Executive Editor Tim Redmond responded to Ballard:

“Well, it’s true that the progressives of the early part of the century tended to be against prostitution and drugs and were prohibitionists, a description that I don’t think would accurately describe, say, Aaron Peskin. But over time the term has evolved, and most progressives today are at least open to the idea that sex work should be legalized. Almost all progressives support the legalization of marijuana (and I think Mayor Newsom does, too.)

“I don’t think far-left even remotely describes people like Peskin, whose economic views are pretty close to the mainstream of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Jake McGoldrick clearly isn’t ‘far left.’ I’m not sure even Tom Ammiano could accurately be called ‘far left.’

“I say this as someone who has been called all sorts of names, including Communist, because I advocate higher taxes on the rich and government spending on social services for the poor. At one time, that was pretty much the mainstream opinion of the Democratic Party.

“So who in SF government do you really believe is ‘far left?'”

Ballard responded back to Tim:

“Tim, do us all a favor and count me out of this dorm-room style debate. I never really cared that much whether the Chronicle called these guys progressives, just like I never really cared that much that CW Post calls them Grape Nuts even though they are neither grapes nor nuts.”

George Avalos, a supervisorial candidate in the Excelsior District, also asked Cooper about her designation and sent us her answer and then his comment to her answer. Question: how did Avalos and other progressive candidates in other districts suddenly become “ultra left” and part of a “far left faction?”

Subject: Dude, the preferred nomenclature is . . .

Dear Audrey:

“Thank you for your reply. I was throwing in a little humor here, albeit obscure — a reference to the Big Lebowski.

“Having said that I do believe the Chron’s use of ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left’ is completely biased. After all, who’s the arbiter here about what ‘ultra left’ and ‘far left are?’ What standard are you using and where did it come from? Seems pretty made up to me. Very rarely or better yet, never do I hear progressives talk about themselves in these terms. The Chron’s making it up out of whole cloth.

“It’s unbelievable, that you would even try to justify your use of this language.

“Lastly, if any term is completely meaningless it’s ‘moderate.’ I don’t recall there being a moderate political movement or ideology. A Classical Greek philosophy maybe, but not a political movement like the Progressive Movement. Progressives established labor laws, the women’s right to vote and regulations of our workplaces and food production.

I don’t believe Moderates can claim any such movement or transformation of our government institutions. If there’s something they can champion it’s ameliorating the effects of change or fighting against perennial progressive issues such as single payer health care, taxing high profits and rent control.

Thank you for your response. I really appreciate your sharing with me the Chronicle’s rationale, however shakey it may be.

Sincerely,

John Avalos”

B3 sums up this historic announcement:

So there you have it: a timely snapshot of Hearst double standard ethics: Let Willie Brown do a featured political column on Sunday without disclosing that he is a paid PG&E lobbyist ($200,000 last year alone). Brand all clean energy politicians opposed by PG&E as “ultra liberals” and “far left factions.” And for God’s sake, don’t cover the election in an honest and professional manner and tell us who PG&E is buying off. (See Amanda Witherell story, “PG&E’s blank check, who’s the utility buying off Start with Newsom, Feinstein, and Willie Brown.”) Question: so what will Hearst call the politicians who PG&E buys off? We call Willie PG&E’s Secret Agent Man.

B3, who insists to Cooper he is still a Rock Rapids (Iowa) liberal, and she says she will not challenge it.

Raphael’s “Way”

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Who can turn the Dogfather’s head with a tune, bring a melody to Mary J. Blige’s lips, and get Stevie Wonder out of bed in the wee hours? Raphael Saadiq, that’s who. And with good reason: the Oakland-born-and-raised vocalist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer not only found substantial fame back in the day singing alongside bro Dwayne Wiggins and cousin Timothy Christian in Tony! Toni! Toné!, he’s kept his chops honed over the years by lending his ear for stellar R&B and soul. He’s produced Joss Stone, 2Pac, the Roots, John Legend, Kelis, Mos Def, D’Angelo, and the Isley Brothers, among others. He’s collaborated with a who’s who of pop putf8um, including Blige, Snoop Dogg, Whitney Houston, the Bee Gees, Ludacris, and John Mellencamp.

Damn. Little wonder a legend like Wonder will rouse himself at short notice to assist on Saadiq’s fab, hip-shaking old-school soul disc, The Way I See It (Columbia). The way Saadiq, né Charlie Ray Wiggins, tells it — over the phone during a late-morn breakfast in Los Angeles — his protege CJ had just finished singing his part on the sinuous, ready-made hit "Never Give You Up," when he announced, midtrack, "I’d like to invite Stevie Wonder to my album." So Saadiq decided to call Wonder and ask for a harmonica solo: "[Wonder’s] usually traveling around the country, and he asked, ‘When do you need me?’ I said, ‘An hour.’ He goes, ‘An hour?’ And he showed up an hour and a half later at one at night."

Easy for him to ask since Saadiq had already worked with the rock ‘n’ soul icon and Beyoncé on a Luther Vandross tribute, but it’s clearly Saadiq’s down-to-earth charm, disarming ease, and all-too-evident talent that keeps those friendships alive. Oh yes, and Wonder is "his Taurean brother" — born May 13 to Saadiq’s May 14.

That casual vibe runs throughout Saadiq’s immaculately assembled, long-awaited followup to 2004’s Ray Ray (Pookie). "For the most part, I kind of played everything myself on the whole album, but I bumped into certain people," he says. He plucked Rocio Mendoza, the sensuous lead vocalist for "Calling," from his favorite LA breakfast spot and gave her a star turn. Stone — to whom Saadiq has been linked romantically, though he demurs, "We’re just friends" — also guests, on the creamy, dreamy, string-stung mélange "Just One Kiss." But star turns aside, what fully emerges from Way is its sweet, sweet soul songs — living, breathing throwbacks to ’60s Motown, as fleshed-out and vital as anything by current soul revivalists like Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson, and Duffy, and crafted by a luminary of the genre’s last resurrection. The cover image of Way, with a besuited, Marvin Gaye–like Saadiq, for instance, was taken two years ago at Oakland’s Sweets Ballroom.

The new album — out Sept. 16 on the heels of Saadiq’s Sept. 11 appearance at KMEL’s House of Soul show at Ruby Skye — began to come together two years ago. "Being away from home so long, on an island [the Bahamas, where he was producing Stone] — the next thing you know, you look down, and the album is done," Saadiq drawls. "But I’ve always heard music like that, since I was seven years old. Some of the first music that ever really opened me up was that music, so it wasn’t a stretch for me."

The R&B vet can also step back and break down why a new gen has gravitated toward old-school bounce. "For artists it’s coming back because a lot of DJs spin a lot of vinyl, and that’s all they’re really listening to," he explains. Nonetheless, he continues, "it never really went away. It’s the only thing that don’t leave the shelf. It’s always been in my player." And that’s the player without and within: "I hear music all day and all night," Saadiq says. "I hear music in my dreams." To get the songs out of his head, he says, "You go through the chords and progressions, play drums. I jump on all the instruments until I hear something I like."

Such mental agility — and such a work ethic — must come from his now-70-something guitar-player father, speculates Saadiq. "He was working two or three jobs since he was 10," says the songwriter, who regularly gets back to East Oakland to see family. "Now he owns some buildings, and he’s always trying to work on them and be helpful to tenants. He’ll say, ‘I gotta get back to Oakland, so I can take out the garbage,’ and I’ll say, ‘What garbage? Are you crazy!?’ He’s a different kind of guy." It goes without question that his pops must be able to relate to Way‘s sound? "It’s music," Saadiq comes back, "that anyone who lives under the sky can relate to right now."

RAPHAEL SAADIQ

Wed/20, 8 p.m., $22

Bimbo’s 365 Club

1025 Columbus, SF

www.bimbos365club.com

Critical sass

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ISBN REAL This month, a collection of Daniel Mendelsohn’s essays on books, plays, and films is being published. How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken (Harper, 480 pages, $26.95) is excellent. But it lacks something I can’t help wanting from the criticism I read, no matter how often some denunciation tries to shame the desire out of me. One of Mendelsohn’s pieces even takes novelist and literary critic Dale Peck’s 2005 review collection, Hatchet Jobs (New Press, 240 pages, $14.95) to task for indulging in the very thing I look for: bitchiness.

According to Mendelsohn, Peck’s analysis of any book cedes too much space to his caustic persona. Mendelsohn suspects that "what’s really going on here isn’t so much criticism as a kind of performance."

This is a common complaint. As standard as it’s become for critics to coat their reviews in personality, extravagantly painting their territory with barbed humor and a couple catalogs’ worth of references, there’s no scarcity of resistance to that practice, either. Just last week, on Mark Sarvas’ blog The Elegant Variation (www.marksarvas.blogs.com), writer Benjamin Percy expanded on Sarvas’ disgust over an excessively autobiographical review of Julia Reed’s memoir, The House on First Street (Ecco, 208 pages, $23.95) in the Aug. 3 The New York Times Book Review. Percy suggested a causal connection between the swell of infantile pop punditry on cable news channels and "those critics who spotlight their voice, their life, upstaging the assigned book."

Within How Beautiful It Is, Mendelsohn quotes Peck’s response to the controversy surrounding his critical flaying of Rick Moody a few years ago. Here we-go-’round-the criticism-bush: in turn, Peck’s quote mentions Heidi Julavits’ highly-regarded piece about the future of literary culture from the March 2003 maiden issue of The Believer. There, Julavits appeals to book critics to cool it already with the self-serving wisecracks. In fact, she mentions Mendelsohn as an exemplar of considered evaluation free from the static of the vitriol that’s come into fashion.

Julavits’ major beef was with the sadism of the bitchy critic, and in large part, that’s the same problem Mendelsohn has with Peck’s reviews. I have a lot of inner ethical debates queued up before I ever address, let alone endorse, the matter of the clever takedown. What I am willing to dispute right here, right now, is the puzzling belief that caustic criticism is not just ethically but also artistically deficient.

It’s one thing to frown upon a mean-spirited performance that gets away from the reviewed work as well as the rhythm of its own structure. I could even grudgingly comprehend were a canonical critic like Dorothy Parker called out for wandering too far into the realm of bilious stand-up comedy. (So much for wicked stand-up criticism as only a current trend). Regarding Peck, Mendelsohn is not wrong to point out the ungainliness of his grabs at attention. I can appreciate the argument that one’s limited reserve of creative energy should be spent in the service of creation and not destruction, particularly in the assessment of writers who don’t deserve the baroque angst their crappy books inspire.

But is there really no understanding that the affected horror of the cranky critic is a ritualized template for evaluation, and one that is as valid — when done well — as any other? If there isn’t, we’re all in trouble.

Feed our elders well

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Conventional wisdom is that it costs more to eat well, but Alameda County Meals on Wheels has found real value in switching from processed foods to the kind of fresh, local, sustainable fare being touted at the upcoming Slow Food Nation conference, which begins Aug. 29 in San Francisco.

Bay Area Community Services (BACS), the nonprofit that manages Meals on Wheels, has been struggling with a perennial budget deficit, rising fuel and food costs, and a waiting list of 200 seniors eager to join the program.

Even though the easy, heat-and-serve method is the national model for feeding large amounts of people cheaply, BACS was finding that trying to supply 1,200 people a day with meals in their homes and at 21 different congregate sites through a contract with a food processing company just wasn’t working.

"Our solution to the problem was a social enterprise kitchen," Jenny Huston told the Guardian. The 20-year veteran chef and educator is director of Culinary Social Enterprise at BACS. She and her boss, executive director Kent Ellsworth, took the program in a new direction. They went "farm to table," meaning they stopped serving frozen food and started serving meals made with fresh meat, dairy, fruits, and vegetables, and they did it by establishing a culinary arts training program with a curriculum based on the day-to-day work of preparing the Meals on Wheels fare from scratch.

"If you have a structural deficit, why are you spending more money on food?" Huston pondered, asking herself the question many critics might raise. "Sure," she said, "processed stuff is much cheaper, but you’re not seeing the full cost."

What is that full cost? That’s a hot topic for the Slow Food Nation forums, such as how far an avocado travels to become guacamole in Maine. Beyond aligning meals with produce that’s locally available, Huston and Ellsworth are attuned to what happens to a community when its most vulnerable populations — children, seniors, and the disabled — stop eating well.

"Good foods are not the privilege of people who have money. It’s the right of everybody," Ellsworth told the Guardian. "When we buy wholesale, local, and fresh, we get a better product for a good price. It’s the right way to do business."

But raw ingredients require more kitchen work. By partnering with a number of organizations, including the Pleasant Valley Adult School and Oakland Adult and Career Education Program, BACS was able to find budding cooks though a free, 12-week job training program.

They also connected with Community Alliance for Family Farms, a network of local growers and distributors who could provide up to 350 pounds of each raw ingredient a day. Just a few months into the new program, a typical Meals on Wheels lunch now includes all local milk, 10 percent local meat, and 19 percent local produce — and it’s made from scratch by workers who are learning enough food preparation skills to qualify for entry-level kitchen jobs.

And they’re doing it for just pennies more a day. "Our food cost has only gone up five cents per meal since we’ve gone farm to table," Huston said. Yet donations since April have increased 25 percent — about $20,000 — meaning that people who were once asked to give a dollar or two for their lunches are voluntarily giving more for better food.

Though the Meals on Wheels budget gap hasn’t disappeared, Huston likens it to the first few months of any business, when turning a profit is elusive. They’re hoping to expand catering services and market the meals to other day and residential programs.

At the Aug. 14 graduation dinner, Ellsworth announced that a foundation had approved a $200,000 program investment loan to purchase new equipment, remodel their kitchen, and grow the school. It was welcome news for the first class of five cooks. Reflecting on the experience, Geri Haas said, "It was really nice going there, knowing I was relied upon to provide fresh food for our elders."

Orlando De’Aguero, another graduate, announced that he got a job with a local organic food preparation company, eliciting cheers from the gathering of friends, family, and fellow classmates. He said, "I wouldn’t have traded the three months I had here for anything at a culinary school."

Dreams of Obama

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› news@sfbg.com

Barack Obama, it is true, is a transformational leader. But he needs a transformational movement to become a transformational president.

He is transformational not only by his charisma and brilliance, but by embodying the possibility of an African American being chosen president in the generation following the civil rights movement. Whether he wins or loses, the vast movement inspired by Obama will become the next generation of American social activists.

For many Americans, the possibility of Obama is a deeply personal one. I mean here the mythic Obama who exists in our imaginations, not the literal Obama whose centrist positions will disappoint many progressives.

Myths are all-important, as Obama writes in Dreams from My Father (Three Rivers Press, 2004). Fifty years ago, the mythic Obama existed only as an aspiration, an ideal, in a country where interracial love was taboo and interracial marriage was largely banned. As Obama himself declared on the night of the Iowa primary, "Some said this night would never come."

The early civil rights movement, the jazz musicians, and the Beat poets dreamed up this mythic Obama before the literal Obama could materialize. His African father and white countercultural mother dared to dream and love him into existence, incarnate him, at the creative moment of the historic march on Washington. Only the overthrow of Jim Crow segregation opened space for the dream to rise politically.

In one of his best oratorical moments, Obama summons the spirit of social movements built from the bottom up, from the Revolutionary War to the abolitionist crusade, to the women’s suffrage cause, to the eight-hour day and the rights of labor, ending with the time of his birth when the walls came down in Selma and Montgomery, Ala., and Delano. As he repeats this mantra of movements thousands of times to millions of Americans, a new cultural understanding becomes possible. This is the foundation of a new American story that is badly needed.

Obama’s emerging narrative also includes but supercedes the other major explanation of American specialness, the narrative of the "melting pot," by noting that whatever "melting" did occur was always in the face of massive and entrenched opposition from the privileged.

John McCain represents a very different aspect of the American story. His inability to limit the adventurist appetite for war is the most dangerous element of the McCain, and the Republican, worldview. It is paralleled, of course, by their inability to limit the corporate appetite for an unregulated market economy. In combination, the brew is an economy directed to the needs of the country club rich, the oil companies, and military contractors. A form of crony capitalism slouches forward in place of either competitive markets or state regulation.

Yet McCain has a good chance, the best chance among Republicans, of winning in November. He appeals to those whose idea of the future is more of the past, buying time against the inevitable. And McCain is running against Obama, who threatens our institutions and culture simply by representing the unexpected and unauthorized future.

My prediction: if he continues on course, Obama will win the popular vote by a few percentage points in November, but will be at serious risk in the Electoral College. The institution, rooted in the original slavery compromise, may be a barrier too great to overcome.

The priority for Obama supporters has to be mobilization of new, undecided, and independent voters in up-for-grabs states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, while expanding the Electoral College delegates in places like New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and possibly Virginia.

There are many outside the Obama movement who assert that the candidate is "not progressive enough," that Obama will be co-opted as a new face for American interventionism, that in any event real change cannot be achieved from the top down. These criticisms are correct. But in the end, they miss the larger point.

Most of us want President Obama to withdraw troops from Iraq more rapidly than the 16 months promised by his campaign. But it is important that Obama’s position is shared by Iraq’s prime minister and the vast majority of both our peoples. The Iraqi regime, pressured by its own people, has rejected the White House and McCain’s refusal to adopt a timetable.

The real problem with Obama’s position on Iraq is his adherence to the outmoded Baker-Hamilton proposal to leave thousands of American troops behind for training, advising and ill-defined "counterterrorism" operations. Obama should be pressured to reconsider this recipe for a low visibility counterinsurgency quagmire.

On Iran, Obama has usefully emphasized diplomacy as the only path to manage the bilateral crisis and assure the possibility of orderly withdrawal from Iraq. He should be pressed to resist any escalation.

On Afghanistan, Obama has proposed transferring 10,000 American combat troops from Iraq, which means out of the frying pan, into the fire. On Pakistan, and the possibility of a ground invasion by Afghan and US troops, this could be Obama’s Bay of Pigs, a debacle.

On Israel-Palestine, he will pursue diplomacy more aggressively, but little more. Altogether, the counterinsurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are likely to become a spreading global quagmire and a human-rights nightmare, nullifying the funding prospects for health care reform or other domestic initiatives.

In Latin America, Obama has been out of step and out of touch with the winds of democratic change sweeping the continent. His commitment to fulfilling the United Nations anti-poverty goals, or to eradicating sweatshops through a global living wage, is underwhelming and — given his anti-terrorism wars —will be underfinanced.

And so on. The man will disappoint as well as inspire.

Once again, then, why support him by knocking on doors, sending money, monitoring polling places, and getting our hopes up? There are three reasons that stand out in my mind. First, American progressives, radicals, and populists need to be part of the vast Obama coalition, not perceived as negative do-nothings in the minds of the young people and African Americans at the center of the organized campaign.

It is not a "lesser evil" for anyone of my generation’s background to send an African American Democrat to the White House. Pressure from Obama supporters is more effective than pressure from critics who don’t care much if he wins and won’t lift a finger to help him. Second, his court appointments will keep us from a right-wing lock on social, economic, and civil liberties issues during our lifetime. Third, it should be no problem to vote for Obama and picket his White House when justified.

Obama himself says he has solid progressive roots but that he intends to campaign and govern from the center. It is a challenge to rise up, organize, and reshape the center, and build a climate of public opinion so intense that it becomes necessary to redeploy from military quagmires, take on the unregulated corporations and uncontrolled global warming, and devote resources to domestic priorities like health care, the green economy, and inner-city jobs for youth.

What is missing in the current equation is not a capable and enlightened centrist but a progressive social movement on a scale like those of the past.

The refrain is familiar. Without the militant abolitionists, including the Underground Railroad and John Brown, there would have been no pressure on President Lincoln to end slavery. Without the radicals of the 1930s, there would have been no pressure on President Franklin Roosevelt, and therefore no New Deal, no Wagner Act, no Social Security.

The creative tension between large social movements and enlightened Machiavellian leaders is the historical model that has produced the most important reforms in the course of American history.

Mainstream political leaders will not move to the left of their own base. There are no shortcuts to radical change without a powerful and effective constituency organized from the bottom up. The next chapter in Obama’s new American story remains to be written, perhaps by the most visionary of his own supporters.

Progressives need to unite for Obama, but also unite — organically at least, and not in a top-down way — on issues like peace, the environment, the economy, media reform, campaign finance, and equality like never before. The growing conflict today is between democracy and empire, and the battle fronts are many and often confusing. Even the Bush years have failed to unite American progressives as effectively as occurred during Vietnam. There is no reason to expect a President McCain to unify anything more than our manic depression.

But there is the improbable hope that the movement set ablaze by the Obama campaign will be enough to elect Obama and a more progressive Congress in November, creating an explosion of rising expectations for social movements — here and around the world — that President Obama will be compelled to meet in 2009.

That is a moment to live and fight for.

Tom Hayden is a longtime political activist and former California legislator. This article was commissioned by the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies, of which the Guardian is a member, and is being carried in newspapers across the country this week.

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