Local

Privatizing the parks

Zelda Bronstein
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23
Privatizing the parks

I’m not going all crazy on the idea of pretzel stands in Golden Gate Park, or even a lobster-roll place behind the bandshell. I’m kind of against the lease change at Stowe Lake because I hate to see an out-of-town operator take over a local concession (and I like the funky boats, and the popcorn, and the overall 1950s-era quality of the food stand, which — by the way — makes the best soda water anywhere in town, yumm, so extra fizzy and nice ….).


But it’s worth sounding the alarm about the direction that Phil Ginsberg and Mark Buell are taking the Recreation and Park Department. And it’s not just evicting the HANC recycling center.


I realize that the city’s broke, and Rec-park is broke, and if they can’t raise money by selling coffee and lobster rolls they might have to lay off even more recreation directors. I fell the pain. But there’s a dangerous road ahead, and it looks like this:


Once you decide that parks have to pay for themselves, you’ve destroyed the whole notion of public space.


Check out what happened at the Presidio, where a plan by Rep. Nancy Pelosi to tun the park into essentially a private outfit, with the mandate to reach financial self-sufficiency, led to all sorts of problems and set the stage for a debate over privatizing more parks.


This is, of course, part of a larger discussion, but parks are by their very nature supposed to be places that the community — the taxpayers — support and preserve for the good of all. They aren’t supposed to pay for themselves. You’re not supposed to charge admission. Any commercial activity ought to be designed to benefit the users (it’s nice to have a place to buy a bottle of water on a hot day or a snack for your kids) and not to pay the maintenance bills for the facility.


This is what annoys me more than anything else about Gavin Newsom. He talks about vision and sounds like an environmentalist and progressive, but he misses the whole point. You fund public services with tax dollars, not by auctioning them off to the private sector.


At least, you used to.

Let’s play the “local hire” numbers game

Mary Magee
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0

There’s been a lot of discussion at City Hall about the pressing need for mandatory local hire legislation, as opposed to San Francisco’s current “good faith” efforts. And it seems that everyone agrees upon is that something needs to be done, as the Board prepares to vote December 7 on Sup. John Avalos’ local hire proposal, which seeks to ensure that 50 percent of workers hired on city-funded construction projects will be local residents.
The move comes at a time of high unemployment in the recession-hit construction industry, but would kick in as San Francisco stands poised to spend $27 billion on public works projects over the next decade.
‘The city needs to leverage its funding position to ensure that our residents benefit from these investments,” Avalos said at a Dec. 1 committee hearing on his legislation, which would require 25 percent of hours on city-funded construction projects, to be worked by local residents in the first year. This rate would rise 5 percent each year to 50 percent.
It would also require 50 percent of apprentice hours to be worked by local residents in the first year (with out-of-state workers exempt from these requirements).

These requirements currently apply to each individual construction trade (carpenters, painters, laborers, operators, brick masons, plasterers) and not to overall project hours.

The city would pay incentive bonuses to contractors that exceed the requirements.
Contractors who failed to meet the requirements would have the option of paying liquidated damages to the city, or sponsoring apprentices during the project.

But a December 1 report from Ted Egan, the city’s chief economist, estimates the legislation would raise the city’s contracting costs by $9.3 million per year, while creating 350 jobs.
 
Egan breaks down the city’s estimated $9.3 million in contracting and administrative costs into three distinct piles: $2 million in higher bid costs from hiring the unemployed, $4.5 million in higher bid costs from hiring the already unemployed, and $2.8 million in higher costs associated with penalties.

‘This cost represents approximately 1 percent of the city’s $934 million estimated annual spending on covered projects,” Egan noted, adding that the cost to the city will be lower in early years, because unemployment is high now and labor is widely available.

“This is a conservative estimate,” Egan added, “as it assumes no contractor exceeds the target and receives incentive bonuses from the city, and also excludes any contractor productivity losses caused by breaking up core crews.”

Egan acknowledges that most city expenses are associated with inflated contractor bids.
“These will occur because the local supply of skilled trades workers is insufficient to meet the local hiring requirements of the legislation,” he observed. “Contractors will be forced to pay above-the-market wages to workers that already have jobs, and pay the city penalties because resident labor is unavailable in many trades. These costs will be passed on to the city. This excess cost to the city could largely be mitigated by choosing local hiring targets that better reflect local supply.”

“The legislation will increase local employment and associated spending at local businesses, at the cost of higher City contracting costs,” Egan warned. “The legislation creates a net spending and jobs benefit, as written; with recommended mitigations, the positive economic impact can increase, and the cost to the city can decline.”

Egan calculated that estimated costs to the city could be reduced to $2.4 million, if Avalos’ proposed legislation is amended in the following ways:

1.    Replace across-the-board 50 percent mandatory requirements with trade-specific mandates to reflect “supply and demand in each trade.”
Egan argues that across-the-board requirement would lead to higher contracting costs “for several trades where required demand exceeds current supply.”
These impacted occupations include operators, brick masons and plasterers, and represent 50 percent of projected demand for city projects, over the next ten years, Egan said.
“Other occupations, such as carpenters, painters, laborers, and drivers are less impacted and can sustain the scheduled mandate, provided goals are set on an industry-wide and not a project-by-project basis,” Egan stated.

2.    Require a study every two years “to modify requirements and assess progress to a 50 percent mandatory requirement.”
Egan’s report suggests that the city conduct a review for two years, and then set mandatory participation levels for two years for brick masons, block masons, stone masons, cement masons, carpet, floor and tile installers and finishers, concrete finishers and terrazzo workers, construction equipment operators (except paving, surfacing and tamping equipment operators), drywall installers, ceiling tile installers and tapers, electricians, pipe layers, plumbers, pipe fitters and steam fitters, plasterers, stucco masons, roofers and sheet metal workers.
Egan’s proposal is that the city assess the length of time required for each of these trades to develop a pool of qualified resident workers to support a 50 percent local hire mandate, and then, if necessary, propose amendments to the mandatory levels for these trades.

3.    Allow contractors to transfer credit hours
Egan suggests that contractors and sub-contractors could accumulate credit for hiring local residents on non-City funded projects, transfer those accumulated credit hours to other contractors, and apply those credit hours to contracts for covered projects to meet the applicable minimum mandatory hiring requirements, or work off assessed liquidated damages. “Transferred credit hours may only be applied against mandatory hiring requirements for the trade in which they were accumulated,” Egan’s report states.

4.    Eliminate incentive payments
Egan recommends eliminating incentive payments, “since the ability to transfer accumulated credit hours provides a similar, and more efficient, incentive for contractors to exceed targets.”

Egan notes that his analysis assumes that annual public works spending is equal to the 10-year average in the city’s capital plan, which is $3.1 billion.
“60 percent of that will be spent on projects not covered by the legislation, because they are state- or federal-funded,” Egan stated.

He predicts that unemployment in the trades will average 10 percent in the next decade.
“Current unemployment in construction is 20 percent in San Francisco,” Egan said.

Egan argued that allowing contractors that exceed local hire requirements to transfer the additional hours, within a trade, to other contractors “would allow the same local hiring targets to be met on an industry-wide basis, not a project-by-project basis.”

He also recommended eliminating proposed incentive payments.
‘Giving contractors the ability to sell their excess hours creates a private incentive to exceed hiring targets. Contractors which do not meet the local hire requirements will compensate those that do,’ Egan wrote.

But at a Dec. 1 hearing by the Board’s Budget and Finance committee, not everyone agreed with Egan’s findings.

Missing from his “economic costs” equation, some speakers observed, were estimated savings from reduced law enforcement costs and poverty rates, if residents got jobs.
Egan acknowledged that his report does not factor in socio-economic benefits of the plan.
‘It’s a very fair point, but it’s hard to quantify,” Egan told the Guardian.

And while Avalos’ legislation proposes to phase in the local hiring mandate over the course of six years, Egan’s report simply focuses on costs when the city hits 50 percent.

Egan said he could have broken down his report into a phased-in, year by year, basis.
“But it gives the impression of greater certainty,” Egan said, noting that it’s not clear how much the city is going to spend on construction next year. “So, given what we’re planning to spend over the next 10 years, here’s an average estimate,” he explained.

I asked Egan about his report’s claim that there is a 20 percent unemployment rate in the construction industry in San Francisco, given that other city officials, including Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. John Avalos, have cited a 40 percent rate.

“The 2009 census figures came out in November and it said that 20 percent of San Francisco residents who are in construction say they are unemployed,” Egan said.

He acknowledged that the 40 percent unemployment rate that Newsom and Avalos cited likely refers to unemployment among folks who work in San Francisco’s construction industry, but live outside the city, where housing prices are cheaper.

Asked if his office was recommending that the local hire percentage start at 20 percent, as some building trades requested during the Budget Committee hearing on Avalos’ proposal Egan indicated this was not the case.
“We don’t see a problem in year one,” Egan explained. “There are a lot of unemployed people in year one that are available, so that target is not hard to meet.

The main problem, to Egan’s mind, was not the mandatory 50 percent local hiring goal, per se, but the requirement that it be achieved by every individual trade.
“That’s why we recommend doing a process every two years to take a look at how good a job individual trades are doing, and then set targets based on the rates of producing a supply of qualified workers,” he said.

“Some won’t take seven years to achieve a 50 percent rate, but others could take much longer,” Egan explained. ‘Otherwise, contractors, will have to raise bids so they can afford to pull qualified workers off other contracts. That would lead to shuffling people around, and the city paying for it, without new people being trained.”

So, that’s where the conversation seems to be headed going into Tuesday’s Board meeting, with the building trades still pushing for amendments, and Avalos, the chief sponsor of the legislation, reportedly trying to win support from Sup. Bevan Dufty, so that he can pass veto-proof legislation before the end of the month. Stay tuned.

Appetite: Coffee’s new shining star? It’s Ma’velous

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Appetite: Coffee’s new shining star? It’s Ma’velous

Cheesy puns aside, Ma’velous is truly that. Kudos to Phillip Ma and his new coffee and wine bar, which I’d be ecstatic to have in my own neighborhood. This coffee haven on Market Street (near Civic Center) is worth heading out of your way for. No, there is nothing else like it, even in a city of fabulous coffee.

The space is blessedly unique with graffiti artwork, pressed tin ceilings, retro-modern reclaimed furniture, textured floors, nooks with chairs, a couch, tables. The setting inspires but the coffee elevates.

Bean choices included beloveds like Intelligentsia and Ecco but also rare Tim Wendelboe from Norway. Wendelboe’s coffee is huge in Norway and this is the about the only place to get it in the States.

The preparation options are where it gets truly exciting for any coffee geek or the curious. You might want a Kyoto iced coffee or to have it prepared via siphon, V60, Beehouse pour over, French press, or Chemex. Then there’s their custom-made La Marzocco espresso machine. The staff is well-trained to create coffee in all forms.

A favorite already is an exquisite espresso made with Tim Wendelboe beans. I’m delighted by a “palette tasting bar” where you can sample coffees prepared three ways or three different brews. Their hot chocolate, made with local TCHO chocolate, is initially airily dark, becoming more rich and silky as you near the bottom of the cup.

Ma’velous is a shining new star in the coffee firmament, thankfully doing it differently than other greats in town. I love it so much I want to be a regular.

Ma’velous
1408 Market, SF
www.maveloussf.com

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

Newsom and downtown groups court Cohen

Sasha Cuttler
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18
Newsom and downtown groups court Cohen

A rogue’s gallery of downtown power brokers and moderate politicians is lining up to give D10 supervisor-elect Malia Cohen money during a fundraiser at Democratic Party money man Wade Randlett’s house tonight (Wed/1). And while the group may be trying to buy the support of a candidate they didn’t support in the election, Cohen and some of her progressive supporters say she’s been open to developing relationships across the ideological spectrum.

“Fear not,” Cohen told us when we raised an eyebrow at the host committee, and she noted that most of those on the list didn’t endorse her candidacy. “It is a fundraiser event, and now that I’m a newly elected supervisor, I look forward to meeting everyone.”

The guest list includes Mayor Gavin Newsom, former Mayor Willie Brown, Sup. Sean Elsbernd, Assembly member Fiona Ma, Building Owners and Managers Association director Ken Cleaveland, lobbyist Sam Lauter, Brook Turner with Coalition for Better Housing, Kevin Westlye of Golden Gate Restaurant Association, Janan New of San Francisco Apartment Association, as well as building trades head Michael Theriault and Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Labor Council.

“That’s not my perception of it,” Randlett – who used to run the downtown political organization SFSOS – told us when we asked about downtown’s attempt to buy influence with a candidate who finished the campaign about $20,000 in debt. He also rejected the characterization that it was a high-roller event, noting that prices initially listed at $100-$500 have since been lowered to $50. “Anyone who wants to attend at any price is welcome,” he said.

“I think it’s smart of their part, because they didn’t support her in the election, to try to give her money in the end,” said Gabriel Haaland of SEIU Local 1021, which did endorse Cohen. “It remains to be seen where she’s going to land [politically], but it seems clear what this group is attempting to do, to influence her votes.”

Cohen also received endorsements from the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, its Chair Aaron Peskin, and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who says he isn’t concerned about the Randlett fundraiser. “I understand that she has been celebrating with people from across the ideological spectrum,” Chiu said.

Indeed, Cohen said she is anxious to get to know representatives of San Francisco constituencies across the spectrum, borrowing a line from Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American women elected to Congress, in calling herself “unbought and unbossed.” Cohen said, “I will do a great job representing everyone. I will protect the interests of District 10 residents.”

Randlett, who flamed out with SFSOS before reviving his standing as a top-tier Democratic Party fundraiser by being an early backer of Barack Obama’s presidential bid, told us that was a connection he shares with Cohen. “The only reason I supported Malia from the beginning and am hosting the event for her is that like me she was there for Barack from Springfield through election night, never wavered in her support for him, and continues to stick by him now, when fair weather friends are carping from the sidelines,” Randlett told us.

Paulson told us that Cohen asked him to co-host a fundraiser with Newsom – who Cohen once worked for although he didn’t support her in this election – and that he didn’t see the complete roster until a couple days ago. “I am surprised there was this list,” Paulson said of the groups that regularly oppose progressive candidates and legislation.

But Haaland said that labor and the left will also be reaching out to Cohen, whose lack of a strong ideological grounding and representation of a district slated for the city’s most ambitious redevelopment plans will make her a pivotal vote on the new board. “We have to do our best to reach out to her as well,” Haaland said.

 

Playlist

Andrew Lam
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0
Playlist

JANE BIRKIN

Di Doo Dah

(Light in the Attic)

Arriving in the wake of Light in the Attic’s reissue of the masterful L’Histoire de Melody Nelson, this, Birkin’s first proper — if such a word can be applied to anything involving Serge Gainsbourg — solo album, is a series of light delights. Jean-Claude Vannier trades his characteristic dark orchestration for a string sound that is agile and brighter. On the title track, Birkin revels — in a melancholy way — in her tomboyish characteristics, setting the stage for more pun-filled escapades in androgynous amorousness. Elsewhere, she’s a hitchhiker, a sidewalk cruiser, a hotel trick, a girl on a motorcycle, and other fantasy figurines. The most audacious song is “Les capotes anglaises,” which begins with her blowing up condoms and letting them float off a balcony. The special treat is “Le décadanse,” not so much a failed attempt at creating a dance craze as a successful erotic mockery of dance crazes. There, Gainsbourg appears for another classic duet.

 

DÂM-FUNK

Adolescent Funk

(Stones Throw)

The album’s name is apt, as these tracks, recorded between 1988 and 1992, capture Dâm-Funk’s sound and outlook in a teenage stage of sonic bumptiousness and lyrical lustiness. The content is spelled out in the titles: songs like “I Like Your Big Azz (Girl),” “Sexy Lady,” and “When I’m With U I Think of Her,” are a world away from the mystic leanings of more recent Dâm-Funk tracks like “Mirrors.” Equally direct are the album’s musings on existence, such as “I Love My Life.” The sound owes a debt to — or is a youthful outgrowth of — the early 1980s electro funk of Prince, Mandre, and others. Dâm-Funk has been honing his use of analog keyboards for a long time — when it comes to Korgs and Casios, he’s no new kid on the block, though he was back when these songs were captured on tape. The homecoming-dance cover art, selected by Peanut Butter Wolf from Dâm’s photo albums, captures the vintage feel perfectly.

 

THE FLYING LIZARDS

The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards

(Staubgold)

Flying Lizards are best known for creating possibly the cheapest British chart-topper in history, a pots-and-pans 1979 cover of “Money (That’s What I Want),” distinguished by Deborah Evans’ hilarious deadpan vocal. As the title hints, Evans isn’t present on The Secret Dub Life of the Flying Lizards, nor are any other traditional vocalists — instead, main Lizard David Cunningham remixes 1978 source material by Jah Lloyd. The catch was that Cunningham only had a mono master tape to work with, rather than the plethora of tracks usually associated with dub. A lost gem from the early days of reggae-punk fusions and collisions, this album — with loops built from tape-splicing — reveals the dub underpinnings of Cunningham’s brash and innovative work on “Money.” An irreverent vanguard producer, he uses ping-pong balls to create ricochet effects on one track, just as “Money” seems to throw everything but the kitchen sink at listeners.

 

GIRLS

Broken Dreams Club EP

(True Panther Sounds)

One of the things that makes Girls so special is Christopher Owens’ ability to write so directly about the unavoidable aspects of life without falling into cliché. So it is on “Heartbreaker,” which begins with the observation, “When I look in the mirror/ I’m not as young as I used to be/ I’m not quite as beautiful as when you were next to me.” A newer addition to Girls’ nascent greatness, as displayed on this six-song collection, is their facility at traversing various genres while always sounding like themselves. The reggae and early rock ‘n’ roll fusion “Oh So Fortunate One,” the bossa nova touches of “Heartbreaker,” and the country lament of the superb title track (complete with pedal steel) sound like … Girls. While the sonic palette shifts from song to song — and sometimes within them — more than one composition evokes the anthemic balladry of their 2009 debut album’s “Hellhole Ratrace.” That’s no small achievement. The outlook, though, is less hopeful and more disillusioned. Who knows what the future holds.

 

GOLD PANDA

Lucky Shiner

(Ghostly International)

There should probably be a moratorium placed on the use of the word panda in group names, but the man known as Gold Panda can be forgiven, based on the sheer zinging energy of this album, which has nothing in common with any Beach Boys-flavored Animal Collective endeavors. One of Gold Panda’s trademarks is a sharply-edited, sped-up approach to vocal samples that makes Kanye West’s sound like screw. Instrumental tracks such as “Vanilla Minus,” “Snow & Taxis,” and the incandescent “Marriage” call the crackling warmth of the Field to mind, but their energy is more hyper, their outlook much more colorful. “Same Dream China” takes the glassy percussion of Pantha Du Prince’s “Stick to My Side” into out there realms — it’s one of a few tracks that maneuvers across a high wire just above exotica and Orientalism. A late contender for techno album of the year.

 

THE MANTLES

Pink Information

(Mexican Summer)

San Francisco’s the Mantles deliver great straightforward rock ‘n’ roll. Dressed in a cover by local artist Michelle Blade, this EP picks up where their debut album left off, as guitarist-singer Michael Olivares leads the charge with vocals that somehow manage to sneer and snarl and seem amiable at the same time. “Situations” is actually kind of harsh, taking a scenester or gold-digger to task for his or her shallow and failure-fated state of being. “Lily Never Married” is more reflective, a portrait of a spinster that opens into thoughts about family within a changing world. “Waiting Out the Storm” finds the group trying on its epic journey boots, and they fit just fine.

 

BRIAN MCBRIDE

The Effective Disconnect

(Kranky)

A disturbing subject yields mournful tone poems on this album by Stars of the Lid’s McBride, which collects elements of his soundtrack for Vanishing of the Bees, a 2009 documentary on colony collapse disorder. (Mercifully, voice over by Ellen Page is left off the album.) There’s no flight-of-the-bumblebee whimsy in McBride’s musical testimony to the spirit of the beehive. In the liner notes, he writes that filmmakers George Langworthy and Maryam Henein suggested he focus on “the gloriousness of the bees, the endurance and hardships of traditional beekeepers, pesticides, and the holistic nature of non-industrial agriculture.” These elements aren’t always clearly distinguished, but they are present in a manner that avoids cliché.

 

ARTHUR RUSSELL AND THE FLYING HEARTS FEATURING ALLEN GINSBERG

Ballad of the Lights

(Presspop Music)

“Ballad of the Lights” was performed by a friend at the late Arthur Russell’s funeral, which is as strong a proof as any that it is an important entry within his vast and diverse songbook. This two-song 10-inch vinyl release couples it with another recording from Russell’s many studio collaborations with Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg’s recitals within “Ballad of the Lights” almost come off superfluous, except that they set the glory of the song’s resurrection-like structure in greater relief. The B-side, “Pacific High Studio Mantras,” is a Buddhist chant accompanied by instrumentation, and perhaps not intended for commercial release. (Ginsberg himself hinged back and forth about whether it should presented in this fashion.) Bob Dylan even figured briefly within Ginsberg’s and Russell’s endeavors, but with so few of them available, it’s hard to discern whether “Ballad of the Lights” is their best work. That it’s pretty great is clear, even if coupled with portraits by Archer Prewitt that play into the more cloying aspects of viewing artists as icons.

 

THE SOFT MOON

The Soft Moon

(Captured Tracks)

It’s no surprise that the debut album by Bay Area musician Luis Vasquez is dark and densely claustrophobic — nor is it a surprise that it’s excellent. It kicks off with one highlight from his earlier EPs, “Breathe the Fire,” where his whispered vocal — dancing over doom-laden bass and guitar worthy of Pornography-era Cure — manifests maximum sinuous menace. The death dance of “Circles” is more Sister of Mercy-like, but really, Vasquez transcends well-known goth and more obscure dark wave poses and influences through sheer intensity of focus. “Sewer Sickness” might be the album’s darkest and most compelling black pit, as Vasquez’s susurrant vocals take on the quality of a malevolent primal incantation.

 

SOLAR BEARS

She Was Coloured In

(Planet Mu)

Like Gold Panda, Solar Bears counter a dodgy name by delivering solid tunes. She Was Coloured In is more melodic than most recordings on Planet Mu. “Children of the Times” mixes Johnny Marr-caliber guitar shimmer with a Vocoder chorus that is sure to evoke comparisons to Air. Likewise, the title composition places Air-y elements up against Aphex Twin-like ambience. Enjoyably ham-fisted prog keyboard flourishes dive in and out of techno terrain on the title track. The chord changes and underpinnings of “Head Supernova” evoke Angelo Badalamenti’s scores for David Lynch. The riddle of Solar Bears is whether all these touchstones or influences add up to an act with its own identity or — perhaps no less an achievement in 2010 — a generically beautiful album.

 

JIM SULLIVAN

UFO

(Light in the Attic)

When an excellent songwriter disappears, his or her voice remains. There is proof of this in the recent issuing of Connie Converse’s priceless previously-private recordings, and now in this reissue of the 1969 debut album by Jim Sullivan, a ten-song collection that fuses orchestral ornamentation and plainspoken brevity. Sullivan vanished into the New Mexico desert one day in 1975, but his musical legacy is being revived, and rightfully so, as the best moments here are reminiscent of better-known contemporaries such as Fred Neil and Tim Hardin. All the doomed young men: there’s something eerie about the funereal string intro of the opening track “Jerome,” yet Sullivan’s music also possesses vitality and good cheer. Best of all is “UFO,” a graceful piece of baroque pop (and quintessential example of a California paranormal mindset), adorned with echo-laden effects that Malibu kinfolk and relative survivor Linda Perhacs might appreciate.

 

WILD NOTHING

Golden Haze EP

(Captured Tracks)

Captured Tracks is home to some of the most beautiful guitar sounds being made today, thanks to Beach Fossils and this group, who see no shame in sheer ’80s-ness. Wild Nothing hail from California, but England meets Australia (and gets along with it better than usual) on “Your Rabbit Feet,” as Slowdive-gone-fast guitar radiates around a vocal that’s equal parts Morrissey and Robert Forster in its offhand debonair delivery. “Take Me In” has another immediate, whirligig guitar melody, and a chorus as big as 100,000 violins. Gorgeous stuff.

What the Dickens

Andrew Lam
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5
What the Dickens

caitlin@sfbg.com

DAYS OF YORE For some, the holidays mean a frenzied stagger through the mall or a return to the cocoon of familial love. Others simply curl into a fetal position and try to block out consumerism’s bland canned tinkle of bells.

But for many in the Bay Area, the holidays mean donning some crinoline, a corset, or a snappy cravat and traipsing about a maze of freshly built village streets — engaging perfect strangers with a faux Victorian British accent. Such is life at the Great Dickens Christmas Fair, a nine-day event celebrating its 32nd year of “‘Appy Christmas, guv’nuh!”

In a foul, holiday-incurred blackness of a hangover, I was learning about the intricacies of epochal mass delusion in the Dickens family parlor — a party of cucumber sandwiches and polite conversation in a cozy corner of the Cow Palace, where the fair is set. Kevin Patterson, a beaming dandy of a man, greeted me with a blast of British cheer, although we quickly settled back into Californian when my somewhat reduced energy level and clumsy manhandling of a porcelain teacup became apparent.

Patterson’s parents started the fair, inspired by the sartorial glee of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. “It was a natural shift from Queen Elizabeth and Shakespeare to Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens,” he tells me. Three generations of his family are now involved in its production, including his children and wife, Leslie. He says a fair of this kind exists nowhere else, not even in merry olde England.

I’m trying to figure out what makes a person want to be a part of such an involved pantomime. The three acres of Dickensian playground are host to more than 800 performers. There are the can-can girls flashing their bloomers at Mad Sal’s dockside alehouse, Father Christmas, homeless drunks, even the queen herself, who promenades past us to the loud delight of the waitstaff inside the family parlor.

The cast also includes a shriveled Scrooge (who is flown over from England specifically to play the role), dogs, and small children. Here and there dart 10-year-old boys delivering telegrams. Everyone is speaking in some approximation of Victorian dialect, and most seem reluctant to break through their shamming — we run into a belligerent William Sykes, apparently prior to being deported to Australia on charges of manslaughter, in one of the fair’s five (!) bars at one point and are nearly put off our spiced mead by his growlings.

It’s all about the season, Patterson explains. He tells me that the Victorian era, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, was when many of the traditions we celebrate today came about. “It was a simpler time.”

Perhaps, but not if you base your impressions of, say, the costume guidelines for the hundreds of cheery participants (easily seen on the fair’s website), or the dialect instructions, or the weekly e-mail missives that gently remind players that cell phones were not a feature of 1800s England and are not to be brandished, even if it is to take a photo of the live corset models or — gasp! — Dickens himself. “Authenticity is important. Most people in our cast care so much about doing it right,” says Patterson.

The rules of conduct are so expansive that classes are offered at a nearby high school in the weeks leading up to the fair for those hoping to brush up on their speech, improvisation skills (all the better to create the “environmental theater” effect Patterson IS looking for) as well as how to make your own clothing. Most people in those days had to, you know.

But the casual visitor to the Great Dickens Christmas Fair need not adhere to all these strictures, though I did feel très gauche in my jeans and hooded sweatshirt. We spent most of our time in the “unsavory” parts of town where custom dictates glottal stops for words with double t’s, and “anyfink” instead of “anything.” You find the filthiest drunks thereabouts, not to mention the boozy pub songs of Mad Sal’s, and a boudoir photography booth to show off your new spendy corsetry from Hayes Valley’s Dark Garden.

Not to mention an absinthe bar (pouring some local brews), hair-braiding salons, an explorer’s club, steampunk wonder shows, tarot readers, meat pies, crafts galore — and the happenstance magic of coming across a bunch of Dickensians spontaneously acting out some scene of yore-ness, not because they’re being watched by a gawking family but because they really, really like playing out life in Victorian England.

In one such scene, two women were strumming mandolins on the floor, their tiny ankle boots peeking out from voluminous skirts. Around them a perfectly period audience looked on from chairs set against the walls. Even in my slightly dehydrated, deflated state, I could enjoy their dedication to this homey weirdness.

“It’s our family holiday. We look forward to celebrating it every year,” twinkles Patterson, as I bid adieu to the posh environs of the family parlor. Charles Dickens himself sees me out onto the fake street outside, thanking me for attending his fair.

GREAT DICKENS CHRISTMAS FAIR

Sat/4–Sun/5, Dec.11–12, Dec.18–19;

11 a.m.–7 p.m., $12–$25

Cow Palace

2600 Geneva, SF

1-800-510-1558

www.dickensfair.com

 

Ho-ho-horror

Andrew Lam
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0
Ho-ho-horror

arts@sfbg.com

FILM There is probably nowhere in the Christian-majority world where it’s as OK to wax hum-buggy about Christmas and all it entails as San Francisco. Allergies to carols (admit it, they’re horrible), frantically enabled shopaholicism, and forced contact with those people you moved here to get away from are all tolerated, even encouraged here.

In the rakishly Grinch-like spirit such sentiments allow, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is observing “the season” with “Go to Hell for the Holidays: Horror in December.” This series might just as easily have been titled “Grievous Bodily Harm” since it serves up a six-program lineup of film and video features whose common thread is excess of a highly splattery kind. Included are a few variably antiqued golden oldies, as well as newer titles unlikely to get local commercial runs anytime soon (if ever). Some are fun, some deliberately unpleasant, and a couple manage to be both. All provide a sort of palliative effect for those seeking refuge from the suffocation of wholesome holiday cheer.

Because Jesus probably would, let’s approach “Hell”‘s contents tactfully, in ascending order of assault on any delicate sensibilities. The sole double bill on offer is also hands-down winner in terms of camp value, providing unintentional laughs in bulk for every intended scare. In fact, these two underseen gems of bright and shining awfulness comprise one of the more genius programming matches of 2010.

First up is the barely describable, let alone explicable, 1985’s Night Train to Terror, which alongside They Saved Hitler’s Brain (1968), Al Adamson’s ouevre, and a handful of other oddities personifies that most secret, least natural of genres: the Frankensteinian film. By which we don’t mean anything directly related to Mary Shelley, but rather movies crudely, grotesquely composed of parts harvested from other movies abandoned as dead.

Few are as triumphantly, energetically, and entertainingly arbitrary as Night Train, which stitches together bits of three features variably orphaned by legal trouble, runaway funding, aborted shooting, or all the above. Linking them — or desperately trying to — are scenes in which “Mr. Satan” and a white-bearded God gamble in a private car for the souls of their fellow train passengers. The latter are an ensemble of ultra-perky “New Wave” youth in Flashdance (1983) garb singing and kinda dancing in a neverending MTV video for synthpop non-hit “Dance With Me.”

Familiar B-flick faces like John Phillip Law and Cameron Mitchell surface sporadically in the wildly condensed “case histories” our biblical antagonists debate, drawn from individual films otherwise known as Cataclysm, Carnival of Fools, and Scream Your Head Off. That this bastard 1985 anthology was assembled, let alone actually shown in theaters, restores your faith in predictable mankind’s ability to occasionally touch the truly, inspirationally senseless.

This feeling one could apply to virtually anything by the late Doris Wishman, whose decades of bottom-rung exploitation work left miraculously intact an approach to such basics as continuity, camera coverage, and synch sound so primitive it achieves a sort of abstract impressionism. Her 1983 A Night to Dismember was stab at the slasher genre after almost a quarter century selling softcore sex. She brought to it exactly the same WTF aesthetic and narrative perversity she had to Nude on the Moon (1961) and Bad Girls Go to Hell (1965). If you’re a Wishman newbie, Dismember is a great place to start since its saga of the compulsively homicidal suburban Kent family is awesomely clumsy without being too dull or claustrophobic.

The mayhem she contrives (no doubt most “gore” was thriftily broiled for stew after each day’s shoot) looks even more laughable alongside the too convincing graphic ugh-liness of Thai cinematographer Tiwa Moeithaisong’s directorial debut Meat Grinder (2009). Its protagonist is a Bangkok noodle shop proprietor whose extremely abused history triggers a Texas Chainsaw style attitude toward fresh victuals, and whose threadbare grip on reality provides our brain-scrambling POV. Starting out like just another exercise in “Asian Extreme” excess, this grows both more outre and controlled as it goes along, balancing jet-black comedy with a certain grotesque pathos.

Charting a reverse trajectory is Red White & Blue, the first U.S. feature by Brit writer-director Simon Rumley, whose 2006 The Living and the Dead is one of the most original films (horror or otherwise) in recent memory. For 80 minutes, it’s a chillingly fine portrait of some well-marginalized characters in Austin, Texas, culminating in possibly the most alarming home invasion since Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986). But the rest degenerates into rote revenge-fantasy torture porn, further weakened by deliberate story mystifications more enervating than enigmatic.

There are excuses for horror fans who’ve missed Living and Dead — it was barely released in the U.S. — but none for those as yet unbathed in the blood of Wolf Creek. Allegedly based on actual events (a fib), Greg Mclean’s 2005 first feature takes exactly half its length to let nothing happen. Nothing, that is, save our getting to know three young people just ordinary and interesting enough to grow concerned about as they drive across Australia at summer holiday’s end, halted in the middle of nowhere by what at first seems routine bad luck. Several long dread-accruing minutes later, it turns out what’s happening to them is something far, far worse, unrelated to either luck or anything routine. Brilliantly atmospheric and visceral, Creek justifies YBCA’s hyperbolic claim as “possibly the best horror film of the decade.”

Also on “Hell”‘s menu are two films I could say more about, but won’t. Regarding Mladen Djordjevic’s Life and Death of a Porno Gang (2009), that’s because this all-outrages-inclusive tragicomedic mock-doc road flick was only available for preview in its original Serbian language. Still, it’s recommendable. Whereas Marc D. Levitz’s U.S. documentary Feast of the Assumption: BTK and The Otero Family Murders (2008), about a serial killer’s capture and impact on victims’ families 30 years later, would merit further discussion if it didn’t wobble between tabloid TV and home movie — all the while raising serious questions it doesn’t address, or perhaps even notice.

“GO TO HELL FOR THE HOLIDAYS”

Dec. 2–18, $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Supreme Court confirms Guardian legal victory

Andrew Lam
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0
Supreme Court confirms Guardian legal victory

The Bay Guardian won a decisive and final legal victory Nov. 23 in our lawsuit against SF Weekly and its chain parent when the California Supreme Court let stand a verdict now worth more than $22 million.

The ruling ends the Weekly’s appeals, which have stretched for more than two years, and confirms a landmark Aug. 11 ruling by the California Court of Appeal that protects small businesses in the state against predatory chains.

The Bay Guardian sued the Weekly and the New Times chain, now known as Village Voice Media, in 2004, charging that the Weekly had systematically sold ads below cost in an effort to harm the local, independent competitor. By taking advantage of the resources of a large company, the Weekly was able to stay in business despite losing money every year, and was using below-cost pricing as a way to take ads away from the Guardian.

“We have before us the case of an ongoing, comprehensive, below-cost pricing scheme,” the Appeals Court concluded. That sort of behavior is specifically barred by California’s Unfair Practices Act, which was designed to protect small business from big chains.

SF Weekly and VVM tried to argue in their appeals that the state law should be consistent with federal antitrust law, which sets a much higher standard for proving predatory pricing. But the Appeals Court and the Supreme Court disagreed. California, the ruling now says, has every right to provide greater protections for small business than the federal government does.

VVM is still trying to avoid paying the judgment, and the Guardian has been aggressively pursuing collection efforts.

The Guardian’s stellar legal team includes trial lawyers Ralph Alldredge, Rich Hill, and Craig Moody, appellate specialist Joseph Hearst, and collection expert Jay Adkisson.

The lawyers who represented VVM in its unsuccessful trial efforts were H. Sinclair Kerr Jr., Ivo Labar and James Wagstaffe of Kerr & Wagstaffe. The appellate lawers were Paul Fogel, Raymond Cardozo, and Dennis Peter Maio of Reed, Smith. VVM was also represented by Don Bennett Moon. 

The America’s Cup rip-off

Andrew Lam
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10
The America’s Cup rip-off

EDITORIAL Gigantic international sporting events tend to be great fun for the people who attend. They make great promotional videos for the host city. They can generate big revenue and profits for some private businesses.

But when the party’s over and the bills come due, these extravaganzas aren’t always a boon to the municipal treasury. And at a time when San Francisco can’t afford to pay for teachers and nurses and recreation directors, the supervisors ought to be giving much greater scrutiny to the deal that could bring the America’s Cup yacht races to the bay.

In 2009, as the city of Chicago was preparing an unsuccessful bid for the 2016 Olympics, the Chicago Tribune took a look at what the 1996 games had meant to another U.S. city, Atlanta. The Trib’s conclusion: lots of private outfits and big institutions did well — the Atlanta Braves got a new baseball stadium and the Georgia Institute of Techology got a new swimming and diving center — but the city itself didn’t get much money at all.

That’s exactly the way the deal that Mayor Gavin Newsom negotiated with Larry Ellison, the multibillionaire database mogul and yachtsman, is shaping up. A shadowy new corporation controlled by Ellison would get control of more than 30 acres of prime waterfront land worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The city could lose $42 million, and possibly as much as $128 million.

We don’t dispute the huge economic impact of holding an event that could attract more than 1 million visitors to the Bay Area. Those people will spend money in bars, restaurants, shops, and hotels. The waterfront improvements and increased tourism will create, according to economic reports, 8,840 jobs.

But as the Board of Supervisors budget analyst points out, those are not permanent, full-time jobs; much of the increased employment needs would be met by increased productivity (bartenders and waiters handling more customers than usual), overtime, and temporary jobs. And again: Most of the benefits will go to the private businesses in the tourist industry. The city’s increased tax revenue won’t be nearly enough to cover the expenses. Even if the America’s Cup group raises $32 million — and that’s not guaranteed in the deal — the city would still be down $10 million.

So in effect, San Francisco is preparing to spend $42 million of taxpayer money (and to forego as much as $86 million more by giving away waterfront land that could be developed) to benefit the sixth-richest person in the world, a new company he’s going to create and control, and the tourist-related businesses in town.

Oh, and to make it even juicier: the city is promising to seek state approval for Ellison to build condos or a hotel on the waterfront — something nobody else can legally do.

This doesn’t strike us as a terribly good deal.

It looks worse when you consider how the negotiations proceeded: The mayor and other city officials insisted they were scrambling to give Ellison everything he wanted to make sure that San Francisco beat out two other competitors. But as Rebecca Bowe reports on page 12, there were no other formal bids; Ellison’s team, based at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, was only negotiating with one city, San Francisco.

There are alternative proposals. The Telegraph Hill Dwellers Association wants to see the race complex moved from the Central Waterfront to the Northern Waterfront, and there may be ways of saving money. And Sup. Ross Mirkarimi points out that if Ellison wins the races in 2013 and comes back again the next time around, San Francisco could become what Newport, R.I., once was: a repeat host to an event that will bring more and more benefits as time goes on. That, however, involves a number of risks and variables that are far from certain at this point.

We’d like to know a lot more about what Ellison’s development plans are. We’d like to know who, exactly, will be running his new corporation that will get development rights for a couple of nice waterfront parcels.

But before the supervisors sign off on any deal, they need to set a bottom line: this can’t cost the city any net revenue. The San Francisco city treasury and local taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing an event created by and for the very wealthy.

 

The biggest fish

Andrew Lam
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6
The biggest fish

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Shortly after Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO of Oracle Corp. and owner of the BMW Oracle Racing Team, won the 33rd America’s Cup off the coast of Valencia, Spain, in February 2010, a reception was held in his honor in the rotunda at San Francisco City Hall.

The event drew members of Ellison’s sailing crew, business and political heavyweights such as former Secretary of State George Schultz, and other VIPs. Attendees posed for photographs with the tall, glittering silver trophy at the base of the grand staircase.

As part of the celebration, Ellison helped Mayor Gavin Newsom into an official BMW Oracle Racing Team jacket, and Newsom granted Ellison a key to the city, a symbolic honor usually reserved for heads of state and the San Francisco Giants after they won the World Series. Shortly after, the mayor and the guest of honor, whom Forbes magazine ranked as the sixth-richest person in the world, sat down for a face-to-face.

That meeting marked the beginning of the city’s bid to host the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco in 2013. Since securing the Cup, Ellison has made no secret of his desire to stage the 159-year-old sailing match against the iconic backdrop of the San Francisco Bay, a natural amphitheater that could be ringed with spectators gathered ashore while media images of the stunningly expensive yachts are broadcast internationally.

Newsom and other elected officials have feverishly championed the idea, touting it as an opportunity for a boost to the region’s anemic economy. The city’s Budget & Legislative Analyst projects roughly $1.2 billion in economic activity associated with the event — the real prize, as far as business interests are concerned. It would also create the equivalent of 8,840 jobs, mostly in the form of overtime for city workers and short-term gigs for the private sector.

While the idea has won preliminary support from most members of the Board of Supervisors, serious questions are beginning to arise as the finer details of the agreement emerge and the date for a final decision draws near.

Ellison and the race organizers would be granted control of 35 acres of prime waterfront property in exchange for selecting San Francisco as the venue for the Cup and investing $150 million into Port of San Francisco infrastructure. But the event would result in a negative net impact to city coffers.

Hosting the event and meeting Ellison’s demands for property would cost the city about $128 million, according the Budget & Legislative Analyst, just as city leaders grapple with closing a projected $712 million deficit in the budget cycle spanning 2011 and 2012.

Part of the impact is an estimated $86 million in lost revenue associated with rent-free leases the city would enter into with Ellison’s LLC, the America’s Cup Event Authority (ACEA). In exchange for selecting San Francisco as a venue and investing in port infrastructure, ACEA would win long-term control of Piers 30-32, Pier 50, and Seawall Lot 330 — waterfront real estate owned by the Port of San Francisco, with development rights included. Seawall Lot 330, a 2.5-acre triangular parcel bordered by the Embarcadero at the base of Bryant Street, would either be leased long-term or transferred outright to ACEA.

The most vociferous opponent of the America’s Cup plan is Sup. Chris Daly, who has voiced scathing criticism of the notion that the city would subsidize a billionaire’s yacht race at a time of fiscal instability. “The question is whether or not the package that San Francisco’s putting together is good or bad for the city,” Daly told the Guardian, “and whether or not it’s the best deal the city can get.”

 

THE CREW

According to a Forbes calculation from September 2010, Ellison’s net worth is $27 billion, making him several times wealthier than the City and County of San Francisco, which has a total annual budget of about $6 billion. Ellison reportedly spent $100 million and a decade pursuing the Cup.

As soon as Ellison expressed interest in bringing the Cup to San Francisco, Newsom began charting a course. Park Merced architect and Newsom campaign contributor Craig Hartman of the firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was tapped to reimagine the piers south of the Bay Bridge as the central hub for the event, and soon Hartman’s vision for a viewing area beneath a whimsical sail-like canopy was forwarded to the media.

The mayor also issued letters of invitation to form the America’s Cup Organizing Committee (ACOC), a group that would be tasked with soliciting corporate funding for the event. ACOC was convened as a nonprofit corporation, and it’s a powerhouse of wealthy, politically connected, and influential members.

Hollywood mogul Steve Bing, who’s donated millions to the Democratic Party and funded former President Bill Clinton’s 2009 trip to North Korea to rescue two imprisoned American journalists, is on the committee. So is Tom Perkins, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, billionaire, and former mega-yacht owner who was once dubbed “the Captain of Capitalism” by 60 Minutes. George Schultz and his wife, Charlotte, are members. Thomas J. Coates, a powerful San Francisco real estate investor who dumped $1 million into a 2008 California ballot initiative to eliminate rent control, also has a seat. Coates resurfaced in the November 2010 election when he poured $200,000 into local anti-progressive ballot measures and the campaigns of economically conservative supervisorial candidates.

Billionaire Warren Hellman, San Francisco socialite Dede Wilsey, and former Newsom press secretary Peter Ragone are also on ACOC. There are representatives from Wells Fargo, AT&T, and United Airlines. One ACOC member directs a real estate firm that generated $2.5 billion in revenue in 2009. Another is Martin Koffel, CEO of URS Corp., an energy industry heavyweight that made $9.2 billion in revenue in 2009. There’s Richard Kramlich, a cofounder of a Menlo Park venture capital firm that controls $11 billion in “committed capital.” And then there’s Mike Latham, CEO of iShares, which traffics in pooled investment funds worth about $509 billion, according to a BusinessWeek article.

There’s also an honorary branch of ACOC composed of elected officials including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and others. Their role is to help the Cup interface with various governmental agencies to control air space, secure areas of the bay exclusively for the event, set up international broadcasts, and bring foreign crew members and fancy sailboats into the United States without a hassle from immigration authorities.

ACOC is expected to raise $270 million in corporate sponsorships for the America’s Cup. That money will be funneled into the budget for ACEA. It’s unclear whether the $150 million ACEA is required to invest in city piers will be derived from ACOC’s fund drive.

The city also anticipates that ACOC would raise $32 million to help defray municipal costs. “However,” the Budget & Legislative Analyst report cautions, “there is no guarantee that any of the anticipated $32 million in private contributions will be raised.”

A seven-member board, chaired by sports management executive Richard Worth, will direct the ACEA, according to Newsom’s economic advisors, but the other six seats have yet to be filled. ACEA’s newly minted CEO is Craig Thompson, a native Californian who previously worked with a governing body for the Olympics and has helped coordinate major sporting events internationally. In an interview with sports blog Valencia Sailing, Thompson provided some insight on why major corporations might be inspired to donate to the cause. Basically, the Cup is the holy grail of networking events.

“It’s a very difficult economic situation we are going through, and it’s not the best time to be looking for sponsors for a major event,” Thompson acknowledged. “On the other hand, the America’s Cup is one of the very few activities … that offer access to really top-level individuals in terms of education or economic situation. The America’s Cup is a unique platform for a lot of companies that want access to those individuals that are very difficult to reach under normal circumstances. I can tell you for example that Oracle is very pleased with the marketing opportunity the America’s Cup has presented to them. They invite their best customers and are very successful in turning the America’s Cup into a platform for generating business. The same thing can be true for a lot of different companies that need access to wealthy individuals.”

But should San Francisco taxpayers really be subsidizing a networking event for the some of the business world’s richest and most powerful players?

 

TRANSFORMING THE WATERFRONT

Over the past four months, Newsom’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) has been negotiating with race organizers to hash out a Host City Agreement outlining the terms of bringing the America’s Cup to San Francisco.

The proposal will go before the Board of Supervisor’s Budget & Finance Committee on Dec. 8, and to the full board Dec. 14. A final decision on whether San Francisco will host the race is expected by Dec. 31. ACEA and ACOC will each sign onto the agreement with the City and County of San Francisco.

From the beginning, the event was envisioned as “the twin transformation,” according to OEWD — the America’s Cup would be transformed by attracting greater crowds and heightened commercial interest while San Francisco’s crumbling piers would be revitalized through ACEA’s $150 million investment in port infrastructure.

The plan paints downtown San Francisco as the “America’s Cup Village” during the sailing events, and a study produced by Beacon Economics estimates that the financial boost would come primarily from hordes of visitors flocking to the event — more than 500,000 are expected to attend. The city expects a minimum of 45 race days, including one pre regatta in 2011 and one in 2012 (or two in 2012 if the one in 2011 doesn’t happen), a challenger series in 2013, and a final match in 2013.

The transformation of the city’s waterfront would be dramatic. In addition to the rent-free leases for Piers 30-32, 50, and Seawall Lot 330, ACEA would be granted exclusive use of much of the central waterfront, water, and piers around Mission Bay, and water and land near Islais Creek during the course of the event. Under the Host City Agreement, race organizers would have use of water space spanning Piers 14 to 22 ½; Piers 28, 38, 40, 48, and 54, a portion of Seawall Lot 337, and Pier 80, where a temporary heliport would be sited.

Seawall Lot 330, a 2.5-acre parcel valued by the Port at $33 million, lies at the base of Bryant Street along the Embarcadero and has a nice unimpeded view of the bay. Piers 30-32 span 12.5 acres, and Pier 50 is 20 acres.

The Budget & Legislative Analyst’s study predicts that the ACEA could opt to build a 250-unit condo high-rise on Seawall Lot 330, deemed the most lucrative use. Under the Host City Agreement, the city would be obligated to remove Tidelands Trust provisions from Seawall Lot 330, which guarantee under state law that waterfront property is used for maritime functions or public benefit. Tweaking the law for a single deal would require approval from the State Lands Commission, but Newsom, in his new capacity as lieutenant governor, would cast one of the three votes on that body.

The combination of construction, demolition, lost rent revenue, police and transit, environmental analysis, and other event costs would hit the city with a bill totaling around $64 million, according to the Budget & Legislative Analyst study. Since city government would recoup around $22 million in revenue from hosting the Cup, the net impact would be around $42 million. That doesn’t include the potential $32 million assistance from ACOC.

At the same time, the city would stand to lose another $86.2 million by granting long-term development rights to 35 acres of Port property for 66 to 75 years without charging rent, bringing the total cost to $128 million. OEWD representatives played down that loss in potential revenue, saying past attempts to redevelop piers hadn’t been successful because none could handle the upfront investment to revitalize the crumbling piers.

The Host City Agreement has raised skepticism among Port staff and the Budget Analyst that tempered initial enthusiasm for the event. “The terms of the Host City Agreement will require significant city capital investment and will result in substantial lost revenue to the Port,” a Port study determined. Faith in that plan seems to be eroding and it may be scrapped for an alternative plan that’s cheaper for the city.

The Northern Waterfront alternative substitutes Piers 19-29 as the primary location for the event and eliminates the Mission Bay piers from the equation. Under this scenario, ACEA would invest an estimated $55 million, instead of $150 million. In exchange, it would receive long-term development rights to Piers 30-32 and Seawall 330 on “commercially reasonable terms,” according to a Port staff report.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu requested that the Port explore that second option more fully, and the Port report notes that it would reduce the strain on Port revenue. The Northern Waterfront plan would cost the Port a total of $15.8 million, instead of $43 million, the report notes. Port staff recommended in its report that both the original agreement and the alternative be forwarded to the full board for consideration.

 

PHANTOM BIDS?

Under the competition’s official protocol, Ellison, as defender of the Cup, has unilateral power to decide where the next regatta will be held. Race organizers have said it’s a toss-up between San Francisco and an unnamed port in Italy — though it’s anyone’s guess how seriously a European site is being considered by a team headquartered at the Golden Gate Yacht Club, a stone’s throw from the Golden Gate Bridge.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle article published in early September, Newsom issued a memo stating that San Francisco was competing against Spain and Italy to become the chosen venue. Valencia was said to be offering a “generous financial bid,” and a group in Rome was rumored to have offered some $645 million to bring the Cup to Italian shores, the memo noted. It was a call for the city to present Ellison with the most attractive deal possible to compel him to pick San Francisco.

Speaking at an Oct. 4 Land Use Committee hearing, OEWD director Jennifer Matz told supervisors: “San Francisco was designated the only city under consideration back in July. Now we are competing against the prime minister of Italy and the king of Spain.”

However, the veracity of those claims came into question in mid-November. Daly, incensed that the Mayor’s Office never communicated with him about the Cup despite wanting to hold it in his sixth supervisorial district, launched his own personal investigation. He fired off an e-mail to Team Alinghi, a prior America’s Cup winner, and began communicating with other European contacts until he got in touch with someone in Valencia’s municipal government.

“I got a call back from a representative who basically said I should know something,” Daly recounted. Valencia, his source said, never submitted a bid to host the Cup. At a Nov. 13 press conference, Valencia’s mayor Rita Barbera confirmed this claim, according to a Spanish press report, expressing disappointment that the city had been eliminated from consideration as a host venue. “There was no formal bidding process,” she charged. She also denied reports that any money had been offered.

Meanwhile, the Budget Analyst was unable to find any concrete evidence that other host city bids had been submitted. “We have nothing to confirm that other offers have been made,” Fred Brousseau of the Budget Analyst’s office told the Guardian.

In response to Guardian queries about whether the Mayor’s Office had evidence that Italy had indeed submitted a bid, Project Manager Kyri McClellan of the OEWD forwarded a one-page resolution from the Italian prime minister assuring race organizers that there would be tax breaks, accelerated approvals, and other perks guaranteed if the Cup came to Italy. However, an Italian journalist who looked over the resolution told the Guardian that the document didn’t appear to be a formal bid, merely a response to a query from race organizers.

Daly has his doubts that either Valencia or the Italian port were ever seriously considered. “I think they were phantom bids,” he said, “created by either Larry Ellison or the Newsom administration … to place pressure on the Board of Supervisors.”

A representative from OEWD told the Guardian that officials have no reason to doubt that the European bids, and accompanying offers of money, were real. However, the city wasn’t privy to race organizer’s discussions about possible European venues. A final decision is expected before the end of the year.

Daly hasn’t held back in voicing opposition to the America’s Cup and blasted it at an Oct. 5 Board meeting. “This tacking around Sup. Daly will not get you in calmer waters,” Daly said. “I told myself I was not going to make a yachting reference. But I will bring a white squall onto this race and onto this Cup, and I will do everything in my power starting on Jan. 8 to make sure these boats never see that water.”

 

WIND IN WHOSE SAILS?

The America’s Cup would undoubtedly bring economic benefit to the area and create work at a time when jobs are scarce. Police officers would get overtime. Restaurant servers would be scrambling to keep up with demand. Construction workers seeking temporary employment would get gigs. Hotels would rake it in. Pier 39 would be booming. However, the Budget Analyst report cautioned: “It is unlikely that any labor benefits would remain in the years after the America’s Cup event is completed.”

Certain small businesses would catch a windfall. John Caine, owner the Hi Dive bar at Pier 28, didn’t hesitate when asked about his opinion on the city hosting the Cup. “Please come fix our piers. It’s a shout-out to Larry Ellison,” he said. Caine said he supports the America’s Cup bid 100 percent, and is excited about the boost it could give his business. The Hi Dive would not be required to relocate under the proposal, he added.

At the same time, other small business would be negatively affected, particularly those among the 87 Port tenants who would be forced to relocate to make way for the America’s Cup. The Budget Analyst’s report also notes that retail businesses in the area whose services had no appeal to race-goers might suffer from reduced access to their stores, since crowding and street closures would shut out their customers.

The sailing community has rallied in support of the Cup, and Newsom has received hundreds of e-mails from yachting enthusiasts from as far away as Hawaii and Florida promising to travel to San Francisco with all their sailing friends to watch the world-famous vessels compete.

Ariane Paul, commodore of a classic wooden boat club called the Master Mariners Benevolent Association, told the Guardian that she was excited about the opportunity for the America’s Cup to showcase sailing on the bay. “In the long term, it’s a win-win,” Paul said. “It would be great to have that boost.” As for the financial terms of the deal, she remained confident, saying, “I don’t think that the city is going to let Larry Ellison walk all over them.”

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is often politically aligned with Daly, but not when it comes to the issue of the America’s Cup. As a kid growing up on the island of Jamestown, a tiny blue-collar community located off the coast of Rhode Island, Mirkarimi learned to sail and occasionally spent summers working as a deckhand. Every few years, the America’s Cup would come to nearby Newport, transforming the area into a bustling hub and bringing the locals into contact with famous sailors. It left an everlasting impression. When the BMW Oracle Racing Team secured the 33rd Cup off the coast of Valencia, Mirkarimi did a double-take when he saw a photograph of the winning team — his childhood friend from Rhode Island was on the crew.

Mirkarimi told the Guardian he supports bringing the Cup to San Francisco because of the economic boost the area will receive — if the Cup continues to return to San Francisco as it did for 53 years in Newport, he said, the city could look forward to a free gift in improved revenue associated with the event, and that could help quiet the tired annual debates over painful budget cuts.

At the same time, he acknowledged that the Budget Analyst report had prompted what he called healthy skepticism. “I think the onus is on the city and Cup organizers to make sure the benefits far, far outweigh the investment,” Mirkarimi said. “This effort is not just about making one of the wealthiest men in the United States that much more wealthy … That can’t be the case,” he said. “It has to be about what will the Cup do in order to be a win-win for the people of San Francisco.” Mirkarimi said he expected scrutiny of the details of the agreement at the Dec. 8 Budget and Finance Committee hearing: “Naturally, in this time of economic downturn … people want to know, what’s the outlay of cost, and what are we going to get in return?” 

Alerts

Andrew Lam
-
0

news@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1

Local hiring hearing

Sup. John Avalos’ San Francisco Local Hiring Policy for Construction ordinance, which mandates that construction projects that get city money hire more San Franciscans, has its first hearing and vote before the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee.

Noon, free

City Hall Room 250

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF

554-7723

 

FRIDAY, DEC. 3

Young Workers art auction

Young Workers United, the SF-based advocacy organization behind mandatory paid sick days and other progressive reforms, is hosting an art auction and fundraiser. This event features speakers, dancing, food and drinks, a raffle, and a silent art auction.

7–11 p.m. $10–$25 suggested donation

Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

2868 Mission Street

www.youngworkersunited.org

 

AK Press Holiday Sale

Buy independent books, zines, and anarchist lit to your heart’s content at this holiday sale, which offers books as low as $1 and a discount on everything. Drop into this warehouse, located minutes away from the 19th Street BART Station.

4–10 p.m., free

AK Press Warehouse

674-A 23rd St., Oakl.

510-208-1700

 

SATURDAY, DEC. 4

SantaCon

How could thousands of Santas be wrong? Come find out how wrong — oh, so very wrong — this annual flashmob bar crawl can be. In the last several years, SantaCon has grown from dozens to hundreds to thousands of people dressed as Santa Claus, sexy elves, and all manner of XXXmas characters (so many that it’s now broken down into several groups that try to converge a few times during the long, sloppy afternoon).

Noon, free

Throughout SF and the East Bay

Check online for meet-up locations

www.sanfranciscosantarchy.wordpress.com

www.santacon.info/San_Francisco-CA

 

Sea Watch for Endangered Sea Creatures

Come down and search for sea creatures like the humpback whale, stellar sea lion, and southern sea otters while enjoying the views from Fort Funston. This event is part of the Golden Gate National Parks Endangered Species Big Year, which seeks to help save the parks’ endangered species. 9–11 a.m., free RSVP required Fort Funston Observation Deck

Skyline Blvd., SF

415-349-5787

 

Wavy Gravy and his movie

Wavy Gravy is known as the emcee of the Woodstock festival, a hippie icon, activist, clown, and even a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor. Wavy Gravy and filmmakers have created a documentary of one man’s quest to make the world a better place. Playing in theaters for one week only with a talk from Wavy Gravy and filmmakers on Dec. 4.

2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 p.m.

$8 (before 6 p.m.) $10 (general admission)

Landmark Shattuck Cinemas

2230 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 464-5980

 

SUNDAY, DEC. 5

 

SFBC’s Winterfest

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the city’s biggest grassroots advocacy organization, holds its annual winter fundraiser and membership party. Come bid on bike-related art and merchandise, hear from leaders of the carfree movement, and party down with more than 1,000 of the tightest butts in town.

6-10:30 p.m.

$15 for members, $40 for nonmembers (includes one-year membership)

SOMArts Gallery

934 Brannan, SF

www.sfbike.org/winterfest 

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

 

Emergency forum Tues. / 30 on HANC recycling center eviction

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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8

An emergency community forum will be held tonight, Nov. 30, about the Recreation and Parks Department’s plan to evict the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) Recycling Center from a parking lot in Golden Gate Park. If Mayor Gavin Newsom and his former chief of staff, Rec & Park General Manager Phil Ginsburg, succeed in their plan to evict the 36-year old recycling center, they’ll kill 10 green jobs, eliminate a rare source of income for poor people, and put an end to a community resource that costs San Francisco taxpayers nothing.

HANC believes the recycling center is being targeted by Newsom’s administration as a form of political payback, since the progressive organization opposed Proposition L, the sit / lie ordinance, which Newsom supported.

Ginsburg wants to evict the recycling center, which pays rent to the city, and replace it with a community gardening center that would cost $250,000. The shaded lot doesn’t seem like an ideal site for growing produce.

A memo issued Nov. 29 from Ginsburg to Rec & Park Commissioners notes that it is legal for the department to move forward with the eviction without commission approval. Apparently, Newsom’s administration intends to send 10 people to the unemployment line and kick a 36-year-old green resource to the curb without any public input, despite receiving 400 postcards from San Francisco residents opposing the eviction. The Rec & Park Commission will take up the issue of the new community garden center at its Thurs., Dec. 2 meeting.

Tonight’s emergency forum, organized by Keep Arboretum Free, is an attempt to open up a space for public dialogue.

A stakeholder meeting took place this afternoon with Ginsburg, District 5 Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, Department of the Environment Director Melanie Nutter, representatives from the San Francisco Police Department, represenatives from the offices of Assembly Member Tom Ammiano and City Attorney Dennis Herrera, HANC, and area residents.

Jim Rhoads of the HANC Recycling Center told the Guardian just after the meeting, “They’re going to evict us by the end of December. That’s their goal. The mayor has it in for us and he wants to get us out before he leaves.”

The recycling center, located at Frederick and Arguello streets, operates a buyback program for recyclable materials as well as a San Francisco native plant nursery. Residents from the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors have voiced complaints about “quality-of-life issues” that they link with some of the center’s patrons. During buyback hours, held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., people arrive with shopping carts filled of cans and bottles to exchange for small amounts of cash. Some of them are homeless.

Representatives from HANC, Rec & Park, and the Inner Sunset Park Neighbors have been invited to speak at tonight’s forum. “There are strongly felt opinions on both sides,” a flier for the event notes. “In the interest of a broad discussion, a number of long time local residents organized this forum for a full public airing of the issues prior to the Dec. 2 Commission meeting.”

The forum will be held tonight, Tuesday, Nov. 30, from 7 to 9 p.m. at St. John of God, 5th Avenue at Irving St.

To voice your opinion about Rec & Park’s plan to evict HANC, call Phil Ginsburg at 415-831-2701 or email him at Philip.Ginsburg@sfgov.org.

Editor’s notes

Andrew Lam
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0
Editor’s notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

The pollsters like to call it the Santa Claus effect, and we’ve seen it over and over in surveys of California voters in the past few months. I think of it more as some sort of deep political pathology, a schizophrenia combined with delusions that underlies the state’s inability to get anything done.

Here’s what the data shows:

California voters don’t want cuts to higher education; in fact, they want to see more money spent on the University of California system, the California State University system, and local community colleges. They don’t want cuts to K-12 education either. Nor do they want to shut down state parks, release prisoners early, close public hospitals, stop building high-speed rail, reduce state support of local government … or do anything else that would save a significant amount of money.

And they don’t want tax increases.

If you ask people how they think the state should balance the budget, they talk about cutting waste — even though the current Republican governor admits there’s not that much waste left to cut.

I could spend hours talking about how we got here, how decades of corruption and bad governmental priorities soured people so much on the public sector that they don’t believe the state can be trusted to spend their money properly. But part of the issue is that the news media (which love to find a little waste here and there to trumpet) are very bad at presenting the choices.

Nobody in Sacramento’s going to do anything serious about the budget until Jerry Brown takes office; that’s just how it is. So this psycho-financial nightmare is going to fall in his lap — and I wonder sometimes if he ought to force us all to make the choices we want to avoid.

Maybe Brown ought to call a special election in February or March and put two — and exactly two — measures before the voters. Both would balance the state budget. One would do it almost entirely with cuts, and those cuts would be clearly defined: public schools would shut down all over the state. Class size would rise to 40 or more kids. UC would close half its campuses and admit half the number of qualified students it does today. At least 100,000 prisoners would be released as several prison are mothballed. The entire state park system would be shuttered. And that’s just the start. Consumer protection agencies would be abolished, public health devastated — there wouldn’t be a single thing that Californians take for granted that would survive.

Because that’s what a cuts-only, no borrowing budget would look like.

The other proposition would save those services by closing tax loopholes that benefit big business and raising income taxes on the wealthiest people in the state. Brown would have to travel up and down the state and make it clear: these are the choices we face. You can’t solve a $20 billion budget crisis without either tearing the state apart or raising taxes.

No more ducking. No more pretending. No more looking around for Santa Claus. Make the choice, folks: accept new taxes on a small percentage of the population, or give up on the state.

It’s a scary thought, but it may have to come to that.

 

Why selling state buildings is so dumb

Zelda Bronstein
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18
Why selling state buildings is so dumb

To stem the massive hemorrhaging in the budget, the state of California has authorized the sale of 24 state-owned office buildings across the state to private investors. The state would then rent back the office space.


It’s a classic case of short-term thinking: In the end, the state will end up paying more money in rent than it will gain from the sales. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office reported in April that over the next 30 years, the lease payments will likely cost $5  billion more than if the property had stayed in the state’s possession.


But it would provide an immediate injection of $1.2 billion into the state’s general fund.


But there’s an interesting twist that hasn’t been reported on: The state buildings are currently exempt from local property taxes. Once they’re in private hands, county assessors can put them on the tax rolls.


And the way the deal is structured, the state — that is, the taxpayers — will be subsidizing the private owners to cover the local property tax bills. In effect, the deal means that the state will be shifting more money from its general fund to local government — a good thing for counties, but not a terribly good deal for Sacramento.


According to Eric Lamoureux, spokesperson for the Department of General Services, if the local cities decide to tax the new owners, the rent state agencies pay would increase to make up the difference. The private owners would pay nothing.
“The [cost of the tax] is built into lease terms. Ultimately, the state would be paying that.” Lamoureux said.


And while San Francisco City Attorney’s office is still unsure of the exact terms of the sale-lease back agreement, they plan on looking out for the city’s best interests.


 “The city attorney is going to be extremely diligent with the recorder-assessor to collect all the taxes that are owed,” Matt Dorsey, press spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, told us. And by collecting property tax, the local city governments would get a nice boost in revenue.


The sale to California First LLC, a partnership between Hines Interests and Antarctica Capital, has already been met with opposition including a lawsuit and an injunction trying to prevent the deal.

Released, Steve Li urges passage of DREAM Act

Mary Magee
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8

On a cold and sunny morning in late November, as sharp winds stirred up fallen leaves, and most folks were beginning to slow down in anticipation of Thanksgiving, Shing Ma “Steve” Li, a 20-year-old nursing student from San Francisco who narrowly avoided deportation to Peru, whipped the local media into a energized frenzy by advocating for the passage of the DREAM Act during a press conference at the Asian Law Caucus, whose offices sits close to the Transamerica Pyramid, and a stone’s throw from the lantern-decorated streets of Chinatown and the neon-lit strip clubs of North Beach, in San Francisco.

The purpose of the press conference was to give thanks for Li’s release four days earlier from a federal detention facility in Arizona, outline why a hardworking student who has lived in San Francisco since he was 12, has no criminal record, and speaks Cantonese, English, French and Spanish, was incarcerated for two months and threatened with deportation. And ultimately, the event was aimed to stir up support for the DREAM ((Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act, bi-partisan legislation that leading congressional Democrats plan to put to a vote this month.

Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have promised to move to a vote on the DREAM Act on November 29, during Congress’ lame duck session, a brief window of opportunity to complete action on stalled bills, before Republicans take charge of the House, and Democrats see their majority in the Senate shrink, come January 2011.

Li, his family and his legal counsel Sin Yen Ling, a senior staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, kicked off the press conference by acknowledging the many supporters whose phone-calling, letter writing and protesting outside Sen. Barbara Boxer’s offices in San Francisco, helped secure Li’s Nov. 19 release from a federal detention center in Arizona, after Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced a private bill to delay Li’s deportation.

“I believe his removal would be unjust before the Senate gets to vote on the DREAM Act,” Feinstein said in a Nov. 19 press statement. Feinstein’s bill guarantees Li protection for 75 days after Congress’ lame-duck session end. And Li’s attorney Ling says Feinstein may reintroduce her private bill next year, and that ICE isn’t likely to deport Li in future, now that he is no longer considered a fugitive.

“We don’t feel that Feinstein’s private bill will pass, because of the result of the Nov. 2 election and the reality of partisan politics, but it’s unlikely that Steve will get deported again,” Ling said.

If passed, the DREAM Act would grant undocumented immigrants a pathway to citizenship, if they entered the United States before age 15 and have attended college or served in the military for two years.

Li’s ordeal—and his ensuing conversion to an ardent DREAM Act advocate—is happening against the backdrop of an increasingly anti-immigrant mood in the United States, as witnessed in Arizona, where state legislators passed SB 1070 earlier this year, and now in California, where a Tea Party member from Belmont wants California voters to weigh in on a similar initiative in 2012. And then there’s the sobering reality that come January, congressional Republicans, who are facing challenges from the far right-wing Tea Party,  take control of the House and are unlikely to advocate for immigration reform.

But Li, who is ethnically Chinese, and was born and raised in Peru until he was eleven years old, after his parents left China in the 1980s to escape its one-child policy, remained optimistic, as he drew on his recent experience to illustrate why Congress needs to passes the bi-partisan DREAM Act now.

“I’m still at risk of being deported,” Li said, noting that, each year, about 65,000 U.S.-raised students graduate from high school and would qualify for the DREAM Act, which addresses the fact that federal immigration law has no mechanism to consider the circumstances of youth who were brought here as minors and call the U.S. home, but can’t work legally, face barriers to accessing higher education, and live in constant fear of deportation.

“We have to work to do something to stop these students from being deported,” said Li, who wasn’t aware that a final deportation order had been issued against his family, when he was 14 years old and the U.S. denied his parents’ application for political asylum. “It’s important we push Congress, so no other student has to go through the same thing I did.”

“How many future doctors, engineers and scientists will the US lose,” Li added, questioning whether the US could end up deporting geniuses who might otherwise have discovered a cure for cancer, or invented ground-breaking sustainable energy technologies. “We are America’s future and we want to make a difference,” he said. “I still believe America is a great nation, a moral nation, and that Americans, if given all the information, will do the right thing.”

Li’s legal counsel Ling, recalled how Li and his parents were arrested on Sept. 15 by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and detained at ICE’s offices in downtown San Francisco, before being transferred to a jail in Sacramento County. “They were arrested as part of ICE’s fugitive operations program, which targets people who have failed to comply with final deportation orders,” she said.

The family was held there for three weeks, Ling said, before Li’s parents were released back to San Francisco, wearing electronic monitoring anklets. But Li was involuntarily transferred to a federal detention facility in Florence, Arizona, where he remained until mid-November. His transfer also made it impossible for his parents to visit, since, under the terms of their electronically monitored release by ICE, they are not allowed to leave San Francisco.

Ling said ICE blames a lack of bed space in the Bay Area for why they must transfer folks from San Francisco to Arizona, Texas or a facility near Bakersfield, California. But either way, the practice serves to isolate immigrant detainees from family and friends as they await deportation.

“Steve was released from Florence, Arizona, on Friday, Nov. 19, and then took a Greyhound bus, which arrived in San Francisco Saturday afternoon,” Ling said, noting that ICE wasn’t planning to notify her or Li’s family of his release, and that they typically drive folks to Phoenix and drop them off at the bus station.

Li’s mother Maria addressed the media in Cantonese, as she thanked Sen. Feinstein for allowing her son “to return to his mother’s embrace.”

And then Li, who says he is “a huge Giants fan” and “grew up reciting the pledge of allegiance at school, just like everybody else”, described his ordeal
.
“I always viewed myself as an American,” Li said, recalling how that perception was challenged when ICE raided his home and threw him in jail, this fall.
“I was shocked and confused, I felt it must have been a mistake” Li said, recalling that he was in the bathroom getting ready for school when the doorbell rang on Sept. 15.
“I didn’t expect anyone, so I woke up my mother, and she answered the door,” Li said.“Next thing, immigration agents came into the house. I didn’t know what was going on.They said they had to take me somewhere, that I had to be deported. “

Li said he was immediately separated from his mother and not allowed to ask ICE questions.
‘They searched me, threw me in the car, handcuffed me and took me to the immigration center,” Li said, referring to ICE’s office in downtown San Francisco.
“It was intimidating. I was scared of what was going to happen to me,” Li continued, describing how he was held for the rest of the day in a cell that contained 20 other people, some of whom had been transferred from other detention facilities and were already wearing prison clothing.

“I was fingerprinted, my photograph was taken and my situation was explained to me,” Li said, describing his shock at then being transferred in handcuffs and shackles by bus to a jail in Sacramento County with his parents, who were also handcuffed and shackled.
“It was traumatic to see my parents, who are hard-working people, be treated like that,” he said,

In Sacramento County, Li and another detainee were placed in a cell that contained bunk beds, a small table, a toilet and a sink.
“We could only go to the day room and watch TV for one hour a day,” he said. “The immigration authorities didn’t tell me anything, they just threw me from place to place.”

After three weeks, Li thought he was going to be released, when the prison authorities returned his clothes and got him to sign some paperwork. But instead, he was transferred to ICE’s San Francisco office on Sansome Street, put him in a holding cell, and told him he was being sent to Arizona to be processed for deportation,

“My whole world came down,” Li said. “I couldn’t talk to my parents, who had already been released. I thought of never being able to see my family and friends again. It was depressing.”

Things got worse when he was shackled, handcuffed, and loaded onto a bus which took him to Oakland airport, where he was put on a plane with a bunch of other deportation detainees.
“We were handcuffed and shackled to our seats, and I wondered what would happen if the plane went down,” Li said, describing a seemingly interminable journey to Arizona, which involved making landings in Los Angeles and San Diego.
“In San Diego, they took Mexicans off the bus, presumably to drive them to the border,” Li said.

Arriving in Arizona the following morning, Li was driven to an isolated federal detention facility in Florence, which is about 800 miles from San Francisco, where he was only allowed outside his cell for an hour a day.
“We were incarcerated all day and body searched multiple times in a facility, where there were three toilets and four showers between 64 people,” he said.

Locked up with 400 fellow detainees, Li heard a lot of stories that were similar to his: students who’d received a higher education and were very talented, but didn’t have legal status.

In particular, Li remembers one student he met during his Arizona incarceration.
“Like me, he came here with his parents and had no say in that decision, but was picked up as a result of new legislation in Arizona, “ he said.

Li’s arrest means he missed a semester of school, but he vows to continue his studies. And despite his traumatic experience, Li says he is not bitter.
“It went through my mind,” he said, “But I have learned a lot, including the fact that we have a broken immigration system. I urge everyone who qualifies for the DREAM Act to use their voice. They need to find the courage to use it and fight to change the law.”

 
 

 

The Dozen

Andrew Lam
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0
The Dozen

DANCE The Hip-Hop Dance Fest has grown up. What started 12 years ago as a showcase for local crews and studios has become an excellently balanced showcase of national and international artists. Only four of this year’s 11 participants came from the Bay Area. Sad to say, the sorriest performance all night long came from a local one. Still, the future for hip-hop dance on stage looks brighter than ever.

One of the most moving and wildly applauded works on Nov. 19 was South African dancer/choreographer Jane Sekonya-John’s deftly and economically choreographed Spoti. She donned an old spoti — fisherman’s cap — and transformed herself from a limping, bent old woman into a victorious (though scar-bearing) freedom fighter. Another highlight was Raphael Xavier’s almost oppressively serious Black Canvas, in which breakdancing, much of it floor-bound, became the paint that portrayed three men in fractious, competing, and cooperating relationships. It’s one of the best examples I’ve seen of hip-hop’s theatrical expressiveness.

Los Angeles’ exuberant VersaStyle Dance Company’s Legacy paid tribute to hip-hop’s ancestry by weaving live dance with beautifully chosen video clips from past greats such as Bill Bailey (inventor of the moonwalk), Fred Astaire, Peg Leg Bates, and the Nicholas Brothers. DS Players from San Jose returned with Before Old School, a tribute to the ballroom style of the 1930s and ’40s. Anything this trio touches is blessed with understated wit and a sense of camaraderie.

Also from Southern California, One Step Ahead presented Tables and Chairs, which brought split-second timing and a sometimes humorous approach to the subject of an argumentative family. The kitchen table became the locus for blame-assigning, with flips, kicks, and leaps as synchronized as clockwork. Everyone took as much as they got. Bringing up the L.A. contingent was the b-boying duet between Rock Steady Crew’s YNOT and BailRok, a pint-size virtuoso with a mountains of attitude. Remember the name.

Pro-Phenomen, seven men from France, closed the program with a performance of Signum that justifiably brought down the house. Thematically, the piece had something to do with the preservation of freedom. Impeccably performed, the dancers’ silken combinations and fabulous sense of timing were mesmerizing. Gestures ran down a line or through a circle. Helicopter-like movement popped up like an afterthought from otherwise engaged groups, and tiny dramatic or tender duets exploded out of nowhere and evaporated as quickly. Huge stretches went into military-type push-ups; dancers “fainted,” were thrown, or ended up on the sidelines.

The 12th Hip-Hop Fest also embraced more traditional presentations. Future Shock Bay Area, a large studio company, opened the evening with Rappin Da Bay. The choreography broke what could have been tedious unisons into ever-shifting small ensembles, with a spot for a soloist or two. Perhaps not terribly original, Rappin stayed vital through its performers skill and commitment. SoulForce Dance Company enlivened its choreography by assigning it to characters such as Brandy Logue as “the Elder” and Meegan Hertensteiner as “Miss Meow Meow,” among others. The piece was an amusing, successful mashup of individuality.

Mind over Matter was this year’s serious misstep. Choreographer Allan Frias, who recently appeared on So You Think You Can Dance, has made it something of a specialty to go for sex and violence. Psyke was probably inspired by gangsta rap and underground aspects of gay culture. (The performance was announced as having “adult material.”) Raunch — in this case, simulated violence against women and simulated sex — can be funny, ironic, and pornographic. What it should never be is boring.

Timbre!

Andrew Lam
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2
Timbre!

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Local multi-instrumentalist and Root Strata label cofounder Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has titled his newest solo album, Love is a Stream (Type), but the watercourse this robust and unexpectedly sharp collection of dazzlers brings to mind is Niagara Falls.

Whether he’s playing a pastoral variant of psych rock with his more recent project The Alps or improvising a soundtrack to one of Paul Clipson’s gorgeous 8mm films, a careful attention to timbre and a nimble, even delicate, shaping of sound through the graduated addition of sonic elements have always been trademarks of Cantu-Ledesma’s musicianship.

Love is a Stream is, in some ways, a sustained exploration of what happens to timbre when you keep piling sounds on top of each other. Cantu-Ledesma smears what sounds like racks of overdriven keyboards and the warped buzz of a hundred guitars into thick, shimmering fog banks, as if following Iggy Pop’s lead when he remixed Raw Power in 1997 so that it sounded more “in the red.”

Variations exist across the album’s 12 beatless and wordless tracks, but they can be easily missed if one isn’t listening closely. Opener “Stained Glass Body” warms up with 20 seconds of tonal clusters ham-fisted on a Casio and keening vocals until a tangled low-end of what sounds like processed-to-bits guitar burrows up through the mix, building to a sustained crescendo of speaker-shredding intensity. This quick and early peaking is consistent over the next 45 minutes, with brief moments of respite spaced throughout (track five, “Body Within Body,” and track nine, “Womb Night,” keep things at a comparative simmer).

“Orbiting Love” is a church bell carol as reorchestrated by the Cocteau Twins and fed through dying computer speakers. “White Dwarf Butterfly” perfectly recaptures the enveloping hiss and warped cassette-like warble of My Bloody Valentine’s “To Here Knows When” (listening to the two tracks simultaneously produces a smile-inducing complementarity not unlike one of Humphry Slocombe’s less outré taste combinations). The appropriately titled closing track “Mirrors Death” ends the album on a more meditative note, as a recurring rumble gently breaks apart an ice floe of quietly droning guitars, until it too has sputtered into silence.

The My Bloody Valentine comparison is inevitable with an album such Love is A Stream, and with a musician of lesser gifts than Cantu-Ledesma, it could be taken as faint praise. As was noted in this paper’s recent profiles of local acts Weekend and Tamaryn, the continued influence of shoegaze can be heard all over contemporary indie music but it takes more than a studied replica of Kevin Shields’ “glide guitar” to build something decidedly new — or even fresh — when working with well-worn floor plans.

Like the beautiful, overdriven digital tsunamis of Tim Hecker or Christian Fennesz, Love is A Stream employs a familiar vocabulary to new ends. I hope Cantu-Ledesma, at least for the next little while, continues to keep things turned up to 11. 

 

Mädchen gone wild

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Mädchen gone wild

Every nation had its distinct cinematic response to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s. Germany’s was characteristic in offering the pretense of order, “scientific” educational value, and encouraging a healthy collective morality — even if all this was usually mere gloss over the usual, more marketable qualities of copious T&A.

Encouraged by Scandinavian films already tearing down censorship barriers worldwide, Deutschland screens (the free-Western ones only, needless to say) began addressing the matter directly in 1968. Then, Oswalt Kolle, a psychiatrist’s son and tabloid journalist turned celebrity sex educator, commenced making features like Sexual Partnership (1968), The Sensual Male (1970), and Your Child, That Unknown Creature (1970). These fairly sober mixtures of documentary and dramatized “case histories” were as widely translated as his writings. (Nonetheless, Kolle and his family relocated to Amsterdam, citing constant harassment by conservative German politicians and media as the cause.)

Such success inevitably attracted imitation. Dr. Gunther Hunold’s Schulmädchen-Report had made best-seller waves with its collection of interviews with 14- to 20-year-old women about their sexual experiences and opinions. Enter Wolf C. Hartwig of Rapid Film, producer-distributor of such savory titles as Satan Tempts With Love (1960) and Your Body Belongs to Me (1959). He bought the book’s film rights, retaining Hunold as co-scenarist and consultant for 1970’s Schoolgirl Report: What Parents Don’t Think Is Possible, which proved so enormously popular that an entire national subgenre was born.

The resulting series of Schoolgirl Report features stretched through the entire Me Decade. All 13 are being issued on DVD by the Impulse Pictures label of South San Francisco’s CAV Distributing Corporation, a project that reaches its precise midpoint next month with 1974’s Schoolgirl Report Volume 7: What the Heart Must Thereby …. Watching too many of these interchangeable vintage sexploitation “documentaries” in close succession can be hazardous to your mental health, but in moderation — as with most things – — they prove instructive.

Volume 1 set the mold, sometimes in stone: factors like the groovy Farfisa-acid guitar-flute rock instrumental theme by Gert Wilden and His Orchestra (whose original soundtracks would continue to run a delightfully dated gamut from go-go discotheque to cocktail jazz to Mantovani-like schmuzak), cheap production values, Ernst Hofbauer’s on-the-nose direction, the wooden acting (despite allegedly “starring many anonymous youths and parents”), and an entire opening credits sequence would scarcely budge in film after film. More flexible within a limited range were the bodies bared by 20-something actors playing teens (seldom convincingly) and the framing devices for each installation of variably comic, dramatic, and tragic vignettes.

The first movie started with a flower-decal-covered VW full of hippie chicks and dudes driving by as a female voice says “That’s us: today’s youth. We want a new morality without hypocrisy.” Then an actor playing a reporter announces this “effective and spontaneous documentary shows our youth as they really are. [It] will open many parents’ eyes.”

More likely the Schoolgirl films opened a lot of men’s pants. For all the earnest jabber about “sexual prejudice and why German families hang on to it,” Hartwig, Hofbauer, scenarist Gunther Heller (Hunold split after the series’ launch) and company weren’t interested in liberating minds — let alone promoting feminism — so much as wrapping age-old male fantasies in a cloak of socioanthropological inquiry.

Women are occasionally victimized in the Schoolgirl universe: a lone black girl is set up for gang rape by racist classmates, a country lass is forced into prostitution by loutish dad, etc. But such instances usually end up with the protagonist rescued by a convenient Prince Charming, often as our narrator urges us to question whether they brought the abuse on themselves.

The overwhelming majority of tales present a brave new world of brazenly aggressive females demanding satisfaction whenever, wherever, with whomever. Particularly with older men, including priests, teachers, bus drivers, family friends, guest workers (Rinaldo Talamonti often appears as a comedy-relief Italian stereotype addressed in terms like “Hey, spaghetti! Show us your macaroni!”), even sexy older brothers.

Their behavior sometimes edges from fantasy fodder into the fanatical, as when a married fencing instructor tells his obsessed student, “You must be reasonable!” and she replies “I’ll be reasonable when I’m 75!” Or when another underage lassie brags that beyond regular partner sex, “I also do myself four or five times a day.” Most disturbing is a frequent refrain of blackmail, almost invariably used by nymphets on a reluctant authority figures to maintain a sexual relationship (and/or good grades). In the ickiest instance, Volume 5‘s 15-year-old Margit seduces Grandpa, saying if he refuses she’ll say he raped her; three months of action later he confesses to parents and police rather than endure more shame.

Ostensibly celebrating women’s newfound sexual freedom, the Schoolgirl Reports often seem to regard that as a menace to society as well. (At one curious point we’re informed “They’re all reading Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto, which turns men into slaves and a necessary evil for sex.”) Needless to say, the series’ major off-camera collaborators were an entirely penis-bearing roll call.

These films made tens of millions, not just in Western Europe but in overseas locations where their copious full-frontal nudity (nearly all female, of course) required cutting or fogging to meet local standards. Entries appeared around the globe under titles like Campus Pussycats, Smartie Pants, Further Confessions of a Sixth Form Girl, and Super Sexy Show. The 1980 final chapter didn’t hit American screens until three years later as Making Out — quite the reduction from an original German title translating as Don’t Forget the Love in Sex. Meanwhile Germany had been flooded with copycat “reports” (housewife, schoolboy, nurse, etc.), and in 1975 saw the legalization of hardcore porn. So a once ubiquitous, now quaint and bizarre example of mainstream softcore slowly petered (ahem) out.

The Impulse-CAV discs are notably stingy with extras — there aren’t any, not even trailers or a horrible-English-dubbing option — but in a way that suits their blunt appeal. After all, one shouldn’t expect many frills from movies wherein a dessert-spooning virgin (sex aside, ice cream appears this generation’s predominant onscreen indulgence) muses that a passing motorist “could help me get rid of that bothersome hymen,” or the “pathological dream world” of a girl troubled by incestuous thoughts features psychedelic imagery of Daddy menacing her nubile naked self with a shish kabob.

Boring through

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
Boring through

news@sfbg.com

Despite an official groundbreaking ceremony last February, the Central Subway — an underground Muni connection to Chinatown — still doesn’t have its full $1.5 billion in funding lined up yet, and now the project is facing renewed criticism that the high cost isn’t worth the benefits.

The project was a promise by former Mayor Willie Brown to Chinatown leaders who were upset that the Embarcadero Freeway was torn down after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and never rebuilt, leaving that densely populated part of town difficult to access. But not everyone in Chinatown wants the project.

Wilma Pang, founder and co-chair of A Better Chinatown Tomorrow (ABCT) stands firmly against it, while the Rev. Norman Fong, deputy director of programs for the Chinatown Community Development Center, takes a solid stand for building the project, as does Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who represents the district.

Fong explains that the majority of Chinatown has united to make sure the subway comes through, and that he himself has never seen the community in Chinatown more set on something. “This is an environmental justice movement,” Fong said. “For me, this was the first time Chinatown had ever fought [for such a major infrastructure project].”

City staff is also focused on moving the project forward. “This project has been supported by our state, local, and federal officials,” Brajah Norris, external affairs manager for the Central Subway Project, told the Guardian.

But the group SaveMuni — formed last year by progressives, transit engineers, transit advocates, and other activists “working to reverse Muni’s death spiral” — recently called for the Central Subway to be shelved and its resources put to more efficient projects. “Now that the analysis has been done, it’s time to rethink the situation,” SaveMuni says in a white paper on the Central Subway.

The group argues that using the subway will take longer than other transit options, threatens many businesses on Stockton Street, and doesn’t even connect effectively with the Muni system. Even worse, they point out that Muni would have to spend an additional $4 million a year in local operating expenditures beyond the existing bus service, an expenditure that seems unnecessary to the organization members.

Although creating a subway for the crowded community seemed like a good idea initially, people like Tom Radulovich soon began to realize that a 1.7 mile subway stretch buried 20 feet underground is not the same as the plan he hoped for when considering an economically efficient transportation system for the people in Chinatown.

“People deserve a whole range of alternatives,” said Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and an elected member of the BART Board of Directors. “You have to be mindful of when the [current] project is not the same project you voted for.”

For those at SaveMuni, the project long ago strayed from its original goal. Although they agree that Chinatown community members deserve their own form of reliable transportation, they believe this is not the right way to be spending federal, state, and local money.

“It’s an important corridor, so funding should go there,” Radulovich said. But he thinks the same money could be better used other ways, such as for a dedicated Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) lane.

Jerry Cauthen, a retired SFMTA transportation engineer who cofounded San Francisco Tomorrow and SaveMuni, explained that he initially liked the concept of a subway but then became “bitterly disappointed” as the project progressed.

The subway line has three stops mapped out: one at Moscone Center, one at Union Square/Market Street, and one in Chinatown. From the Chinatown station, the tunnel will continue under Washington Square and remain there for future extensions to the subway, which is projected to begin service in 2018.

“There’s no reason to wait 10 years for a subway,” Cauthen said. “Because it is not going to do what it says it will do.”

Cauthen explained that the route for the Central Subway misses the most important lines anyway, which would be “serving Chinatown poorly.” Cauthen was not alone in his concern that the three-stop subway system will prove to be more of a hassle than a convenience.

But in a committee meeting held Nov. 16 at City Hall, the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (which oversees capital expenditures, while the SFMTA runs Muni) addressed the issue that the city in fact does not have all the money it needs to complete this project. While federal officials have already handed over $72 million out of $948 million, getting the rest of that federal money requires the city and its affected agencies to come up with local matching funds of between $137 million to $225 million.

Malcolm Yeung, public policy manager for the Chinatown Community Development Center, explained that based on the recent hearing, the SFMTA needs to find a viable source for the remaining $137 million. It has until February to inform the Federal Transportation Administration how it will obtain the rest of this money. The SFCTA meeting was an attempt to request an allocation of about $22 million in Proposition K (sales tax) funds.

Now that the city is having trouble meeting its fiscal goal by February 2011, the new question is, if city officials don’t come up with the money, will San Francisco lose the project and its funding?

“I don’t think it means that we lose the whole project,” Yeung said, but there could be delays. And every time there is a delay, there is also an associated cost to be paid.

According to SFMTA, the project received $948.2 million in federal money, $375 million from the state, and $255.1 million in local contributions. Norris explained that since the federal money was given for this specific New Starts program, then it can only be used for this project. And if the project comes to a halt, the money will go somewhere else. “People don’t realize that $948 million is part of the New Starts program,” Norris said. “If we don’t get it, we actually lose it.”

Fong, Chiu, and other supporters of the project rallied in its support outside City Hall on Nov. 15. As Fong told us, “[People against the project] don’t appreciate the hard work, that it takes a decade to get the federal funds … It cannot be simply shifted or “redirected” as some have said.”

For Fong, ending this project would be “disregarding two decades of hard work.” Although the ideas to improve Muni seem fair to Fong, moving forward with the subway is the only option for him right now.

 

*This article has been corrected from an original version.

Score board

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Score board

Dear Andrea: My girlfriend is 19 and has had 15 partners. I’m 28, with 10. It pisses me off. I’m in love, but part of me feels that I ought to be honest about this. Is it possible for me work through my jealousy and anger or will I succumb to the stud/slut double-standard that rewards promiscuity in men but punishes it in women? Am I being too uptight? Love, Grrrrr!

Dear G: You are being crazy uptight, but the question isn’t where you register on some uptightness scale supplied by your local sex expert, it’s whether you can work through your resentment before you chase this girl away and have to hate yourself forever. You can, but it’s going to be a pile of work and you may need her help, so you’re going to have to confess eventually. At that point, you’d best be prepared to hear, “You’re mad about what? Five guys who meant nothing to me, back before I even met you? What the hell is your problem?” I certainly hope she doesn’t apologize for having had a life before she met you. Even if it were worth apologizing for, it’s not like there’s anything she can do about it now.

I have one question for you: is your problem really that your girlfriend had a 15 lovers by her late 20s, or that you hadn’t? Next time, don’t ask questions if you’re not prepared to hear the answer. Love, Andrea

Dear Andrea: When I met my wife, I think she was reluctant to date me because I had two children and she was a very eligible bachelorette. She limited our romantic activities to a kiss and some heavy petting. Being a regular guy, I tactfully kept the pressure on her, and eventually we became lovers. I once asked her jokingly what her other boyfriends would say about such a Puritan relationship, and she laughed and told me they got the same treatment. I knew she had dated extensively but out of respect for her; I didn’t pry into her past. I must admit I was curious, but she seemed a little guarded and I didn’t press it.

After all these happy years together, my wife has never brought up the subject of intimacy or lack of it with her previous boyfriends other than to laugh and comment that when we met, she was a young innocent and that I corrupted her. I am still curious if I was her first lover, but out of respect I have not asked. I am not the jealous type, and she knows that, but curiosity is killing me. Do you think after all this time and mutual devotion, I am foolish to still wonder about her prior sexual relations with old boyfriends? Love, Tactful

Dear T: Very foolish. But don’t let that stop you.

Love, Andrea

Got a question? Email Andrea at andrea@mail.altsexcolumn.com

The high harvest

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
The high harvest

caitlin@sfbg.com

CULTURE “There was some sweet in there and some spice — it was like finger food, you could eat it like chips.” Larry Medders, 11-year resident of the Cecil Williams Glide Community House, is showing off the new rooftop garden, installed by the San Francisco Zen Center, on top of his nine-story supportive housing complex. He’s talking about his introduction to kale.

Medders cooks for himself in his studio apartment and used to stick to the same meals. He likes pasta and herbal teas, which he now brews with the mint and chamomile growing upstairs. An older man from the South endowed with a becoming drawl, he comes up once a day “to water and make sure everything’s in its place.” At the opening ceremony for the new green space, Medders tried the iron-rich greens for the first time. “Now I’m hooked,” he says.

If a once-bare Tenderloin rooftop seems like an incongruous spot to grow spinach, carrots, lemons, blueberries, parsley, onions, and tomatoes (a few of the nascent crops at the Community House), it shouldn’t. The buzzing streets below Medders’ feet offer sparse play areas for children, occasional safety risks, and few places to buy fresh veggies.

The city has tried to attract grocery stores to the area, so far unsuccessfully. “Grocery store operators and other retailers perceive that the area is unsafe and have expressed concerns about the safety of their employees and customers,” says Amy Cohen, director of neighborhood business development. TL residents largely must content themselves with corner stores for neighborhood shopping trips — a bummer for low-income seniors who live in the area.

For the residents of Community House’s 55 units — many dealing with life post-addiction and homelessness and all low income — the roof was already a place to gather. Building barbeques were common. But they knew the rooftop could be much more. “I just wanted to see more greenery, because it really is beautiful,” Medders says.

Enter the San Francisco Zen Center (www.sfzc.org). The center has operated in tandem with Muir Beach’s Green Gulch Farm since the early 1970s, providing a green dojo for meditation students and producing organic produce for restaurants such as Greens in Fort Mason. Says Zen Center vice president Susan O’Connell, “the color green alone is calming, the oxygen and the sense of being surrounded by life.” Gardening can aid in one’s quest for enlightenment, she says. “Zen takes a lot of different forms, it’s not just sitting down.”

Taking inspiration from a garden next door on top of Glide Church, the Zen Center pledged to fill Community House’s communal space with veggies. Now 15 planter boxes built by construction training nonprofit Youth Builds stand at different heights so children and residents in wheelchairs can work them. There are compost bins, shaded tables, chairs, a sink where cooking classes will be held once a local artist finishes painting a mural on the surrounding wall.

The roof’s design, plotted by ex-Green Gulch apprentice Jamie Morf, is laid out so residents can socialize (when Medders and I toured the roof, three children were eating a late lunch on one of the round tables) as well as sit and be thoughtful in nooks designed with peace in mind. “One of the most important precursors to being able to meditate is called taking refuge. But that’s really hard for people in the Tenderloin,” O’Connell says.

We are joined by Patty Rose and Arlinda Van Brunt, two other long-term residents who, with Medders, have stepped up to form the core gardening group. The three teach me about the challenges of running a plot that belongs to every one of the residents living in a nine-story building, including many who have never tended a kitchen garden before. The learning curve can include beginner’s missteps, like overpicking a hardy green onion plant that the trio laments.

“Look at this,” Van Brunt, an energetic woman whose father’s landscaping career left her with a severe aversion to seeing mistreated plants, is pointing at a vertical potato cage that doesn’t seem to be producing the same bushy green leafs as its neighbor. “They overwatered it! It’s our first year, we’re still finding a lot of things out.”

But these kinds of small setbacks show that the garden is being used — and often, they lead to new discoveries in and of themselves. The aforementioned rotting potato cage attracted the notice of the roof’s nightcrawlers, which must have scooted the 10 feet between their two massive bins to the cage, where they were discovered by Van Brunt.

The composting process in the worm bins is now one of her favorite parts of the garden. With the aid of Medders, she lifts the heavy metal lid of one of the bins and pulls aside the shredded newspaper piled on top of the composting material. Underneath, there is a teeming, squirming mass of pink worms. Van Brunt tenderly fingers a handful of them. “Look at that, are they really breeding in there? The nastier it is, the more they like it,” she says, exhibiting the satisfaction of a woman who has taken charge of her food system.

Critical care

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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5
Critical care

Sarah@sfbg.com

A complex and controversial project that would involve five San Francisco hospitals — including building a huge showcase facility for the wealthy atop Cathedral Hill — has prompted a debate about what average city residents need from the health care system.

California Pacific Medical Center, an affiliate of Sutter Health, proposes to downsize St. Luke’s Hospital, which primarily serves a low-income population in the Mission District, as part of a $2.5 billion proposal to renovate and retrofit three existing medical campuses, close another one, and build housing and a megahospital on Cathedral Hill that would draw patients from around the country.

CPMC’s grandiose plan was being considered strictly as a land use decision, despite its far-reaching impact on the city’s health care system. So Sup. David Campos created legislation calling for the city to create a citywide health services master plan and to use that as another tool for gauging future medical projects.

Debate over that legislation left some activists on both sides unhappy, with progressives disappointed that it won’t be able to stop a CPMC project they see as neglectful of the poor, and moderates wary of creating a new way to challenge development projects in the face of widespread unemployment in the construction industry.

But it struck a fine enough balance to win 8-3 approval by the board Nov. 16, enough to override a threatened mayoral veto. “I’m really happy and excited about the passage of this legislation,” Campos told the Guardian after the vote.

The legislation has a two-part mandate, with the first part kicking in as soon as it has final approval. It requires the Planning Department, with input from the Department of Public Health, to prepare a health care services master plan to identify current and projected needs for health care services and where they should be provided.

The second part, which begins in 2013, requires Planning to determine whether medical projects are consistent with the findings of this plan. That delay is credited to a last-minute amendment Campos granted during a Nov. 15 committee hearing after the hospital industry complained that the process could jeopardize its ability to meet state-mandated seismic retrofitting deadlines for projects already in the planning pipeline.

The passage of Campos’ legislation comes eight months after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Hailed by its supporters as the most significant change to the U.S. health care delivery systems in 40 years, the reform package has also been greeted with criticism on both ends of the political spectrum. Progressives complain that it relies too heavily on private insurance companies and medical providers, while Tea Party supporters says that it’s government run amok and they have vowed to “kill the bill.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) recently compared so-called Obamacare to “tyranny” in a speech to conservative legal scholars.

But here in San Francisco, the debate over Campos’ legislation — as heated and divisive as it was at times — yielded a surprising amount of consensus around the long-neglected idea that government should play a role in health care planning.

 

PULLING THE PLUG

The passage of Campos’ legislation marks the first time in 30 years that a government entity has mandated health care services planning in California. That approach West Bay Health Systems Agency, whose creation he opposed as governor of California.

Lucy Johns, a San Francisco-based health care planning consultant who wrote the only health care services master plan California has ever had, recalls what happened in the mid-1970s after President Gerald Ford signed legislation that established health system agencies nationwide.

“California established 14 health systems agencies, including the West Bay Health System Agency, which governed the nine Bay Area counties,” Johns told the Guardian. “The legislation mandated that they be established by every state, with the federal government providing the funding. So every state had to decide how many, how big, and how structured the health system agencies would be.”

Johns notes that state legislators were constrained when it came to the decisions these health service agencies made. “The governing bodies of the health systems agencies had to have a membership that was 51 percent consumer and 49 percent healthcare provider, which included doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators,” she said.

That history served as a backdrop for discussion of the Campos legislation, with the Planning Department staff report noting, “With the elimination of the West Bay Health Systems Agency in 1981, there is no longer a routine or comprehensive analysis of health service resources, needs, trends, and local impacts conducted for changes to or within medical uses.”

“It’s truly a historic moment for San Francisco,” Campos said after his legislation passed its Nov. 16 first reading (the second and final reading is set for Nov. 23, after Guardian press time). “We are the first city in the country to make sure land use decisions are aligned to our health care needs. That’s an unprecedented step that will shape the future of healthcare planning for years to come.”

Campos acknowledged that the passage of Obama’s heath reform package — which includes a mandate to purchase private health insurance beginning in 2014 — was also a catalyst for his legislation, along with the CPMC project.

“But it had more to do with seeing that the city didn’t have the tools it needed to evaluate projects in terms of whether they met the city’s healthcare needs and how they might impact people’s access to healthcare,” Campos said. “The main catalyst came from the community, which felt it was being asked to make decisions that will have long-lasting health care implications, but didn’t have any way to understand those needs. Those concerns were compounded by changes at the national level — and the recognition that these changes offer us an opportunity to engage in planning.”

Campos’ legislative victory came two months after members of the Cathedral Hill Neighbors Association joined nurses, medical workers, patients, and community groups in voicing concerns at a Sept. 23 public hearing about the draft environmental impact report for CPMC’s Cathedral Hill hospital and the other facilities that are part of its proposal.

These groups collectively expressed fear that downsizing St. Luke’s, closing the CPMC California campus, and transforming CPMC Pacific campus to an outpatient-only hospital will force low-income people to travel farther to access health care services while offering better service to the wealthy at Cathedral Hill. And neighbors worried that the proposed complex would increase traffic and require the demolition of rent-controlled apartments.

Formed in 1991 through the merger of Pacific-Presbyterian Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of San Francisco, CPMC has been affiliated with Sutter Health since 1996 and currently has four medical campuses in San Francisco: Pacific in Pacific Heights, California in Presidio Heights, Davies in the Duboce Triangle, and St. Luke’s in the Mission.

But CPMC’s longtime goal was to build a facility intended to be like the Mayo Clinic of the West Coast, a 15-story, 555-bed full-service hospital and specialty care facility at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Geary Boulevard. Company officials have made approval for that project conditional on keeping St. Luke’s open in the face of the state’s deadline on seismic safety standards that the hospital doesn’t now meet.

“St. Luke’s Hospital was the big issue that got our attention,” Le Tim Ly, lead organizer for the Chinese Progressive Association, told the Guardian. His group has worked with residents in the city’s southeast sector around environmental justice, air quality, and pollution issues when they became aware of the threat to St. Luke’s. “All this, coupled with efforts to downsize Luke’s, left us alarmed by the disproportionate impact on an already impacted area.”

But alarm over CPMC’s plans has now revived the idea of healthcare planning.

 

MAKING A PLAN

As recently as the beginning of November, representatives for the Hospital Council of Northern and Central California — whose members include CPMC, Chinese Hospital, Jewish Home, Kaiser Permanente, Laguna Honda, St Luke’s, St. Mary’s, San Francisco General Hospital, and Veterans Affairs Medical Center — seemed opposed to any change in the way healthcare planning is done in San Francisco.

At a Nov. 1 hearing on the Campos legislation at the board’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee, Ron Smith, the Hospital Council’s senior vice president for advocacy, said his organization favored maintaining the city’s current procedures. “We would like to propose that the Health Commission does the planning, the Planning Commission does the land use, and that there is a required determination process which is in the current legislation,” Smith said. “We’re proposing that that continue.”

But two weeks later, after Campos amended his legislation so projects now in the planning pipeline are exempt from having to comply with the city’s health care services master plan, some members of the Hospital Council seemed to have a change of heart.

CPMC’s Chief Executive Officer Warren Browner surprised just about everybody when he publicly stated in mid-November that CPMC supports health care planning. “We strongly support the efforts of the city — we are in favor of health planning,” Browner said at a Nov. 15 hearing on the legislation.

“That statement was extraordinary,” said Lucy Johns, recalling CPMC’s history of resisting government control. “The conversation about this legislation has already changed the discourse, at least in public.”

Linda Schumacher, chief executive officer of Chinese Hospital, a community-owned, not-for-profit facility, explained at the same hearing that her organization had been concerned that Campos’ legislation would affect her hospital’s ability to move ahead with a $150 million project that has been in the pipeline since 2003.

“We thank you for that amendment that allows the effective date to be changed,” she said.

“It shows how much progress had been made, even before this legislation goes into effect,” Campos said of the hospital industry’s apparent shift in attitude. “It’s a monumental step, something that was not expected as recently as a few months ago.”

But Ly of the Chinese Progressive Association said he believes the Hospital Council still doesn’t want to see the city getting involved. “As recently as a month ago, their folks were speaking out against any kind of legislation. But I think they started seeing the writing on the wall.”

Ly fretted about the potential negative impact of Campos’ last-minute amendments. “Sup. Campos’ plan represents a victory. But we could use that information as soon as possible. The 2013 deadline means the city will be handicapped: it will have information it can’t use yet.”

Ly ventures that the hospital industry’s approach will be to try to lessen the impact of the legislation. “As written, it still provides the Planning Commission and the board with the discretion to approve projects,” Ly said. “Ultimately, the struggle is about values. Just because there are plans and guidance doesn’t mean the healthcare needs of the community will become a top priority — it just provides us with tools to make an assessment.”

Campos counters that his bill will allow the city to create incentives for, and apply pressure on, the hospital industry. “If they truly want their projects to be expedited and approved before state-mandated seismic retrofitting deadlines kick in, they’ll propose plans that work for the community,” Campos explained.

But even as it publicly vows to be supportive, the Hospital Council continues to express concerns about the Campos legislation. “It’s the council’s job is to be supportive now that the board has approved Campos’ plan,” Smith said. “And Sup. Campos was very generous. He started talking to us in June. But we really didn’t get a handle on his proposal until much later. We think the idea of healthcare planning is very good. We still have concerns about the process, but now the board has voted on the legislation, our goal is to do our best to work with the law.”

Concerns that the legislation would be used to mire projects in repeated appeals and give too much weight to critics’ concerns was raised at the Nov. 16 hearing by Sup. Sean Elsbernd.

“Right now, if anyone has concerns, there’s a conditional use process and a CEQA [California Environmental Quality Act] process,” Elsbernd told the Guardian. “But this turns up a brand new appeal. It means the appeals are heard at the same time, but you’ve now created a third route.”

Campos responded to these concerns by amending the legislation to clarify that the board must act on consistency determination appeals at the same time it acts on other related appeals, so projects won’t be delayed.

Evidently this wasn’t enough to appease the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. “We cannot be supportive of that piece of legislation,” Rob Black, the Chamber’s vice president of public policy, told the Guardian after the legislation was approved. “We believe appeals should be done at the Department of Public Health in conjunction with service providers, since San Francisco provides 20 percent of service, and private organizations provide the remaining 80 percent.”

Black says the Chamber was pleased Campos amended his legislation so as not to slow down projects that are currently in the planning pipeline. But he claimed Campos’ legislation could actually limit access to healthcare services. “The Chamber is concerned that Campos’ legislation will make it harder for doctors to pool together in pods, and if we don’t do that, it won’t make healthcare more available because services will be more expensive,” Black said. “But we absolutely think” the city should analyze gaps in providing health care to San Franciscans.

Campos’ aide Hillary Ronen confirmed that Black is correct in saying that anyone can appeal a hospital project’s consistency determination. “But the final analysis will revolve around asking if the proposed project meets the health care needs of San Francisco,” she said. “If it doesn’t, and the board doesn’t believe there’s a compelling public policy reason to approve the project, [the board] can override the approval.”

 

PATIENTS VS. PROFITS

Mary Michelucci, a registered nurse for 40 years and a member of the California Nurses Association, is hopeful that Campos’ legislation will rein in the hospital industry.

“I hope that any plan that would favor patient care over profit would be the way to go,” Michelucci said. “Running a hospital is expensive. But with the profits that Sutter and CPMC are making, they can afford this.”

Michelucci says the dispute over St. Luke’s came to a head three years ago, when nurses began to suspect that CPMC was planning to let the facility fail, suspicions that intensified when CPMC closed St. Luke’s neonatal intensive care unit 18 months ago.

“Now the babies who need neonatal special care are transported to CPMC’s California campus, which is in the Richmond,” Michelucci said. “But the moms may be discharged and most of them live in the Mission or Bayview-Hunters Point.”

Michelucchi still fears that CPMC will wage “a horrific campaign” against the California’s Nurses Association as it continues to push the plan for its megahospital. “CPMC wants to be in complete control of the registered nurses,” she said. “We, unfortunately, are their conscience, while they are a business model in the business of healthcare. The decisions they make about healthcare are not in the interests of patients or nurses, and we are the thorn in their side.”

All this is happening against the backdrop of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, and for construction workers facing high unemployment rates in San Francisco, CPMC’s megaproject clearly represents light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

“CPMC is my future,” William Hestor, a 28-year-old father of two and member of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers, said at the Nov. 15 hearing. “We worked hard on a contract and we just want to make sure our hospital is built on time.”

CPMC media spokesperson Kevin McCormack told the Guardian that the real issue between CPMC and the CNA is union membership at CPMC’s Cathedral Hill facility. “CPMC is reducing beds at St. Luke’s because the beds aren’t in use, but the facility will be able to take care of 90 percent of patients’ needs and if you need specialist care, a shuttle will take you to Cathedral Hill,” McCormack said. “This centralized arrangement is the best way to attract the best staff and equipment.”

McCormack noted that there are union members and 1,200 nonunion nurses working at CPMC facilities in San Francisco. “We are bringing together nonunion and union nurses together at this facility, and we don’t feel we have the right to force our nonunion nurses to join,” he said, adding that since the Teamsters, the Carpenters, and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers (UHW) are already unionized at the Pacific and California campuses, they’ll be allowed to unionize at Cathedral Hill.

CNA member Eileen Prendiville, who has worked in San Francisco as a registered nurse for decades, recalls the negative changes she has already seen at CPMC’s facilities, including eliminating registered nurses and specialty services.

“If you pull services, as they have, of course you’ll have fewer patients. And the physicians start leaving, so it’s a vicious cycle,” she said. “St. Luke’s was a small community hospital but now it’s all about corporate medicine.”

Sup. Eric Mar sided with those seeking to exempt current projects from the city’s health care services master plan. But Sup. Sophie Maxwell noted that the Planning Commission will take a facility’s historical role into account in determining whether projects are consistent with the city’s health care services plan.

“We believe that addressed community concerns,” Maxwell said. “St. Luke’s would never have been targeted for closure had this legislation been on the books in the past.”

Campos insists his legislation is not simply about CPMC. “Ultimately this legislation stems from a number of pleas we have heard in the last couple of years from people throughout the city,” he said. “It takes the institutional master planning process to the next level. We have tried to consolidate the appeal process under existing law. Important as the legislation is, it’s key to make sure we have the right master plan because that’s where the heavy lifting will take place.”

Meanwhile, the final EIR is being completed for the CPMC project, which should go before the Board of Supervisors for approval early next year.

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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0

alert@sfbg.com

THURSDAY, NOV. 25

Indigenous People’s Thanksgiving

Join this annual sunrise celebration on Alcatraz Island to honor Mother Earth, the spirit of popular resistance to exploitation, and generations past and future. Sponsored by the International Indian Treaty Council and American Indian Contemporary Arts and featuring guest speakers, drummers, dancers, and MC Lakota Harden.

4:45-6 a.m., $14 (for adult ferry ticket)

Pier 33, SF

(415) 981-7625

 

FRIDAY, NOV. 26

Malling of the Sacred

Join this Black Friday protest at Emeryville’s Bay Street Mall. The mall was built on top of an ancient Ohlone burial site, and even after years of protest actions by the local Native American community, the construction of the mall was completed after the human remains were unearthed.

11a.m.–3p.m., free

Shellmound and Ohlone, Emeryville

(510 )575-8408

 

Fur-free Friday

Thousands of animals are slaughtered for their fur each year. Join in a peaceful protest against the fur industry on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Noon–2 p.m., free

Union Square, SF

(415) 448-0058

 

SATURDAY, NOV. 27

South of the Border

Director Oliver Stone journeys south to interview Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to investigate how the United States media has depicted him. He also speaks with several other South American presidents and creates an eye-opening documentary in the process.

1:30–4 p.m., free

Fremont Library

2400 Stevenson, Fremont

(510) 745-1400

 

TUESDAY, NOV. 30

Talking Trotsky

Join the Freedom Socialist Party for a screening of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1927 film The History of the Russian Revolution. The film is part of the Leon Trotsky discussion circle and encapsulates the world’s first socialist uprising.

7 p.m., $2–$5 sliding scale

New Valencia Hall

625 Larkin, Room 202, SF

(415) 864-1278

 

Death of Liberalism

Come hear journalist and author Chris Hedges discuss his latest book, The Death of the Liberal Class, which chronicles the gradual corruption and death of liberalism in the U.S., which was for decades a defense against the worst excesses of power.

6:30 p.m., $12

First Congregation Church

2345 Channing, Berk.

(510)967-4495

 

Green Film Festival

Enjoy a lively selection of short films including Matt Briggs; The Krill is Gone, which raises awareness of the growing threat to the world’s oceans, and Dive, in which filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and friends Dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles supermarkets. 6–9p.m., $10–$20 sliding scale

Ninth Street Independent Film Center

145 Ninth St., SF

www.sfgreenfilmfest2011launch.eventbrite.com 

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 437-3658; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

Our Weekly Picks: November 24-30

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 24

MUSIC

Pretty Lights

Fewer and fewer new musicians are choosing to fight the losing battle against illegal downloading, deciding instead to align with our interweb overlords and rely on their music to speak for itself. Colorado electronic music producer Derek Vincent Smith, a.k.a. Pretty Lights, has been steadily releasing free albums on his website all year, and this tour is proof that a heavy helping of Internet chatter can indeed get you a big-time show at The Fox. Reminiscent of early-aught DJ Shadow or RJD2 albums, Smith’s style infuses old school, crate-digging funk and soul with contempo dance beats, an approach that’s lain dormant in the aftermath of the mashup. Come for the rad music and stay to see how many “candy kids” it takes to turn the show into a rave. (Peter Galvin)

With Thunderball and Gramatik

7:30 p.m., $27.50

The Fox Theatre

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

1-800-745-3000

www.thefoxoakland.com

 

MUSIC

Kenny Dope

I have an urge to use Kenny Dope’s last name as an adjective, but the powers that be informed me I’m cut off from using any more puns this week. So here’s the straight talk: Come Thursday, you’re gonna be in a full on turkey (or tofurkey) coma, which makes tonight night your last chance to squeeze in some cardio. Even for the unmotivated, Kenny Dope will make this happen. Also half of the production duo Masters at Work, Dope is known for reworking disco, jazz, pop, and especially Nuyorican soul to make everything (including your feet) move a whole lot more. (Ryan Prendiville)

With David Harness and LadyHouse

10 p.m., call for price

Endup

401 Sixth St., SF

(415) 646-0999

www.theendup.com

 

FRIDAY 26

EVENT

Dickens Christmas Fair

Imagine 12,000 square feet of Victorian London, suitable for diversion over Thanksgiving weekend and perhaps some light Christmas shopping (sorry, I said it). But harken! The Dickens Christmas Fair is one costume-heavy event whose appeal goes far beyond the Miss Havisham fan club. Especially if you like beer — there will be five pubs on the cobblestone streets, including the Bohemian Absinthe Bar, and ribald entertainment like daily performances of The Mikado and an explorer’s club where the audience is regaled with tales of British empire expansion. And especially if you like cinching — Dark Garden’s corsetry will be there amid the fake snow and bawdiness, perfect for the French postcard tableaux nearby. Wink. Nudge. (Caitlin Donohue)

Fri/26–Sun/28; also Dec. 4–5, 11–12, 18–19;

11 a.m.–7 p.m., $12–$25

Cow Palace Exhibition Halls

2600 Geneva, SF

1-800-510-1558

www.dickensfair.com

 

PERFORMANCE

Mummenschanz

With zany characters created from wires, tubes, boxes, and even toilet paper, all ages will delight in Mummenschanz and its imaginative world. Founded in 1972 by Bernie Schüch, Floriana Frassetto, and the late Andres Bossard as a nonverbal theatrical troupe interested in transcending national and cultural barriers, this Switzerland-based pantomime company has enjoyed internationally acclaim. 3×11, a retrospective look back on the company’s most popular and successful works of the past 33 years, will entertain Bay Area audiences immensely this weekend. Come and be enchanted by the wacky, witty universe of Mummenschanz. (Emmaly Wiederholt)

Fri/26-Sat/27, 2 p.m.; (also Sat/27, 8 p.m.);

Sun/28, 3 p.m., $22–$52

Zellerbach Hall

UC Berkeley, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org


DANCE

The Christmas Ballet

The late Michael Smuin knew western music inside out. From Bach to Coltrane, Palestrinata to Presley, he let it feed his wit, imagination, and — let’s be frank — a dollop of his sentimentality. Nowhere did he put these propensities to better use than in The Christmas Ballet, a rip-roaring trip through the holidays. You can’t miss the way these composers inspired him for choreography that’s both classical and cool. Every year he added a few new voices, letting others rest. This year the task of keeping the show fresh has fallen to choreographer-in-residence Amy Seiwert, who picked Leonard Bernstein’s version of the “Carol of Bells,” and ballet master Amy London, who went for Andy Williams’ “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” The show comes to SF Dec. 15. (Rita Felciano)

Fri/26–Sat/27, 8 p.m.;

also Sat/27, 2 p.m., $20–$62

Lesher Center for the Arts

1601 Civic Center, Walnut Creek

(925) 943-7469

www.smuinballet.org


FILM

Kuroneko

Japanese director Kaneto Shindo has a thing for ghostly mothers and daughters-in-law, perhaps because the supernatural events that unfurl in his elegant, horror-minded films always spring from domestic traumas. In his most famous film, Onibaba (1964), two women are driven to madness after preying on near-dead samurai in feudal Japan. In the equally stunning Kuroneko (Black Cat, 1969), a different pair of women linked by a son gone off to war also prey on samurai: only this time, as vengeful, shape-shifting spirits. Shindo makes more than a few stylistic nods to Jacques Tourneur (especially 1942’s Cat People) in this recently restored beauty, which dwells as much on the sorrows of the dead as it does on the terror the dead inflict on the living. (Matt Sussman)

2:30, 4:45, 7, and 9:15 p.m., $7.50–$10

Castro

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com


PERFORMANCE

Yard Dogs Road Show

Two years since this glitter and glory bordello played its own show in the Bay? Egads! But jealous lovers we are not. YDRS felt the need to bring its vaudevillian stage presence to circus freaks around the country, so like the proverbial “thing,” we loved it enough to let it go — and it has returned. High Times described the 13-member troupe as “an acid trip without the come-down” — the group stuffs into its hobo cornucopia cheery fanfare, sword swallowing, burlesque, a mystic man, handlebar mustaches, and Mission Thrift finery enhanced by their temporarily halted epic wanderlust. Dance off your Turkey Day paunch to the freewheeling frolics. (Donohue)

Fri/26–Sat/27, 9 p.m., $20

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


DANCE

The Velveteen Rabbit

Margery Williams’ tale The Velveteen Rabbit has made many a child hope their most beloved toy might one day come to life — and for the past 24 seasons, the story of a boy and his adored stuffed rabbit has come to life itself, thanks to ODC Dance. Directed and choreographed by KT Nelson with music by Benjamin Britten, this dance adaptation features the talented artists of ODC as the madcap characters in this childhood favorite. With festive undertones and a classic narrative about enduring love and what it means to be real, The Velveteen Rabbit is the perfect way to ring in the holidays with the family. (Wiederholt)

Fri/26–Sun/28 and . 5, 12, 2 p.m.;

Dec.2–3 and 9–10, 11 a.m.; Dec. 4 and 11, 1 and 4 p.m.

$15–$45

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Novellus Theater

700 Howard, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.odcdance.org


SATURDAY 27

DANCE

Nutcracker at Zeum

Is there a little one in your life who would love The Nutcracker but doesn’t have the attention span to sit through a two-hour extravaganza? There is no better (or more affordable) way to make that first foray into Nut-Land — where brave little Marie lets the evil Mouse King have it — than Mark Foehringer’s theatrically savvy and utterly charming Nutcracker at Zeum. The show runs 50 minutes and squeezes a tiny orchestra into the corner of the stage. The kids can watch scenery being moved. The story is beautifully condensed with dancers still shining in spiffy turns and floating leaps; Brian Fisher’s Drosselmeyer is as mysterious and kindly as any seen on local stages. (Felciano)

Through Dec. 19

Sat.–Sun., 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.;

also Sat., 4 p.m.,$25–$40

Zeum

Yerba Buena Gardens

221 Fourth St., SF

1-800-838-3006

www.brownpapertickets.com/event/125859

 

MONDAY 29

MUSIC

Grinderman

Apparently deciding he needed to be even more of a badass, Nick Cave went ahead and added blues-punk outfit Grinderman to his repertoire as a songwriter, screenwriter, author, and film scorer. The group is all raw, sweaty, garage-rock drive, full of dirty-sounding guitars and some psychedelic touches sprinkled throughout. Grinderman includes three members of Cave’s touring-recording band, the Bad Seeds, and is further proof that even now into his 50s, he isn’t even thinking of slowing down. (Landon Moblad)

With Armen Ra

8 p.m., $29–$35

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com


TUESDAY 30

EVENT

SF Green Film Festival screening and launch party

Who’s “greener” — the guy in the Haight who picks up cigarette butts, takes one arguable drag, then deposits them in an otherwise empty can? Or the innumerable Prius drivers? Not sure, but sometimes I turn green when everything from drinking coffee to buying stocks is considered candidacy for eco-martyrdom. What are we, leprechauns? Mythical creatures or no, it’s good to understand what’s going on in the world, and to get inspired to change it if it sucks. Tonight’s kickoff event features a screening of Dive!, chronicling the romantic art of eating out of Dumpsters, plus short films, film clips, and trailers. Cocktails and conversation prescreening; proceeds help bring the films to the inaugural festival next March. (Kat Renz)

6 p.m.–9 p.m., $10–$20

Ninth Street Independent Film Center

145 Ninth St., SF

(415) 625-6100

www.ninthstreet.org


MUSIC

Os Mutantes

Combing traditional bossa nova, samba, and tropicalia music of its native Brazil, with a sound heavily inspired by western rock from the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, Os Mutantes was one of the more adventurous psych-rock bands of the 1960s. The band has had its music covered and praised by such artists as Kurt Cobain, Beck, and Of Montreal. Front man Sergio Dias has remained active as a solo artist in Brazil, but the band, in any incarnation, hasn’t really been on the map for more than 35 years. Now Dias is leading a new lineup with a new album in tow, resurrecting the Os Mutantes sound. (Moblad)

With Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

8 p.m., $27

Regency Ballroom

1290 Sutter, SF

1-800-745-3000 www.theregencyballroom.com  

 

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