Local

A trio of great Hispanic leaders

David Talbot
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Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

It’s Hispanic Heritage Month, an excellent time to remember three of the most important Hispanic labor leaders in U.S. history. All three were engaged in the much needed and very tough job of organizing and improving the generally poor conditions of the nation’s largely Latino farm labor force.

Cesar Chavez, of course, is one of the farm worker leaders we should particularly honor. Another is Dolores Huerta, who joined Chavez in founding the United Farm Workers union – and who, in fact, is still organizing and otherwise helping Latino workers, particularly women.

The third leader who’s especially deserving of honor is the lesser known but no less important t pioneer farm labor organizer, Ernesto Galarza. Despite his important work, Galarza has been largely forgotten – though certainly not by me.  He’s been dead now for a quarter-century, but I recall him well from my days as a reporter covering farm labor:

His shining, black hair and fierce, penetrating gaze. His angry, intense words and slashing speeches against those who resisted demands for reform. His scholarly writing and novels and poetry – and his teaching.

Galarza was one of the loudest and most unusual of the voices that have been raised for the farm worker. He had a Ph. D., wrote a half-dozen books and numerous pamphlets and articles , and taught at all levels, from elementary school to university.

Yet Galarza was also an active union organizer – a key leader in laying the groundwork for the farm labor movement led by Cesar Chavez.

Galarza came to California’s fields in 1948, as an officer of the American Federation of Labor’s now long gone National Farm Labor Union. He had grown up in California, and had worked on farms as a teenager.

But Galarza had left that behind to head off to college on a scholarship and, eventually, to Columbia University for a doctorate in Latin American affairs.

After that, Galarza worked for the Pan American Union in Washington – until, characteristically, he became enraged over what he felt was the organization’s overlooking the exploitation of Latin American workers by US business interests. He resigned to take the job with the National Farm Labor Union.

Galarza led several strikes, but he was completely thwarted by the federal Bracero program that allowed growers to import penniless, undemanding Mexican workers to replace US workers who dared to strike or otherwise seek better treatment. So Galarza shifted his efforts into trying to abolish the Bracero program.

For more than a dozen years he fought a frustrating and often lonely battle. He spoke out endlessly before legislative committees and elsewhere, He issued hundreds of reports documenting the abuses of U.S. and Mexican workers under the Bracero program,. But the program remained untouched, and by 1960, Galarza’s union was gone. Near exhaustion, he turned mainly to writing and teaching.

But finally, in 1964, the public pressure that Galarza had a key role in generating led Congress to kill the Bracero program. It’s no coincidence that year, 1964, was the same year in which Cesar Chavez began his organizing drive. For Galarza was correct: The existence of the Bracero program had made farm labor organizing impossible.

By the time of Galarza’s death at 78 in 1984, the Chavez-led United Farm Workers had become an effective, nationally supported union.

The farm labor system still relies heavily on desperately poor immigrant workers, But thanks to the farm workers union that Ernesto Galarza helped bring about, many workers have had the chance to seek – and many have won – the right to the decent lives that Ernesto Galarza spent so much of his life seeking for them.

I was fortunate enough to also get to know Cesar Chavez.  I first met him when I was covering labor for the San Francisco Chronicle. It was on a hot summer night 45 years ago in the little farm town of Delano in southern California.

“Si se puede . . . It can be done . . . Si se puede.” He said it repeatedly as we talked deep into the early morning hours.

Si se puede . . . But I would not be persuaded. Too many others, over too many years, had tried and had failed to win for farm workers the union rights they had to have if they were to escape their severe economic and social deprivation. The Industrial Workers of the World who stormed across western fields early in the 20th century, had first tried organizing farm workers – and failed. Failing, too, were Communist organizers, socialists, and AFL and CIO organizers.

I was certain Chavez’ effort would be no different from theirs. Boy, was I wrong.  I had not accounted for the tactical brilliance, creativity, courage and just plain stubbornness of Cesar Chavez.

He understood that farm workers had to organize themselves, not depend on outsiders to do it. Chavez led the workers in creating a union of their own, which then sought out – and won – widespread support  from influential outsiders through boycotts and other tactics of non-violence patterned after those of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Chavez proved beyond doubt that the poor and oppressed can prevail against even the most powerful of opponents – if they can effectively organize themselves and adopt non-violence as their principal tactics. As Chavez explained, “We have our bodies and spirits and the justice of our cause as our weapons.”

The results of the Chavez-led organizing drives were impressive – the first farm union contracts in U.S. history, and the California law, also a first, that requires growers to bargain collectively with workers who vote for unionization.

Chavez worked closely with Dolores Huerta in creating and leading the United Farm Workers union. Huerta was, for instance, one of the principal leaders of the worldwide grape boycott that forced growers to agree to those first farm labor contracts  – which Huerta negotiated despite her lack of experience in contract bargaining.

Huerta’s work with the UFW was just a part of her lifelong and extraordinarily successful and courageous fight for economic and social justice that she waged while also raising 11 children.

Huerta’s traveled the country, speaking out and joining demonstrations for a wide variety of causes and successfully lobbying legislators for important gains for Hispanic immigrants and others.

Huerta started out as an elementary school teacher in northern California in 1955, but soon tired of seeing the children of farm workers regularly come to school hungry. That, and her anger over the injustices suffered by the local farm workers, led Huerta to quit teaching and join the Community Services Organization – the CSO – an organization founded by community organizer Saul Alinsky, with Chavez eventually serving as its General Director.

The CSO helped local Chicanos wage voter registration drives and take other actions to win a strong political and economic voice. But when the CSO’s other directors refused to agree to a union organizing drive among local farm workers, Chavez and Huerta quit to organize on their own. Like so many others, the CSO directors said it couldn’t be done. Thankfully, they were wrong and Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta were right.

But being right is just the first step, essential as it is. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of poorly treated farm workers badly need to be organized, badly need the decent treatment that unionization can bring them, as it did to many others that the extraordinary efforts of Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Ernesto Galarza helped bring to many others.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his columns.

On the way

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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On the way

ODC Founder and Artistic Director Brenda Way put it best when, toasting the crowd at the end of the premiere of her Architecture of Light, she said: “If you don’t leave a footprint, you will be forgotten. If you tread lightly, you’ll fly away. So here’s to you who hit the ground running.”

It was indeed a gala — festive, fancy, and fun — as ODC opened its new 36,000-square-foot facility. Elaine Buckholtz’s masterful lighting transformed the exterior into a glistening jewel without obliterating the solidity of architect Mark Cavagnero’s X-beam trusses that so solidly anchor the building on the ground.

But the real action happened inside, as small groups of audience members — high heels clacking — traipsed through the three-story structure for a series of installation performances. From my group’s perspective, Architecture built a beautifully logical trajectory. Others might have experienced the sequences differently. It started with Corey Brady’s index finger gently tracing on a studio floor and ended with him at the center of a huge gathering of professional and audience member dancers in which he partnered the mother of Bay Area dance, Anna Halprin.

In his intimate solo, the bare-chested Brady, an impressively nuanced and athletically nimble dancer, explored his sense of self as he became familiar with the terrain around him. Tracing geometric patterns or slithering through them, he happened upon unexpected frozen moments of frozen balance. Several times Brady appeared to sniff the air around him. At the next location, Vanessa Thiessen — strong, fast, and assertive — put a tie on Brady. A gift? A challenge? Initially the two engaged each other in what looked like a private sign language, then they began to connect more directly. At times they circled and engaged like boxers, though without the violence, finishing with only their fingertips gently touching.

In an adjacent area that could only partially be seen, a quintet — three dancers and two others who reshaped the space around them by means of white strings — looked at perspective, both the one in front of us and in a “parallel universe.” I am not sure that this concept worked. Architecture also somewhat clumsily tried to include “ordinary folks” by having some streak through at the end of episodes. The effect was akin to a joke that missed its punch line.

A ground floor episode made good use of the area’s physical space. Dancers poured in from the street, alternately melting into what probably is a closet or slinking out of sight down a hallway. The dancing had an ambling, relaxed quality about it, with the performers responding to the music’s tick-tock beat with shakes of heads, hands, and shoulders. At one point they even engaged in a stick-out-your-tongue competition.

An audience-involvement section divided dancers and visitors into two groups. Led by the dancers, we learned simple five phrase patterns that then were juxtaposed with each other. Often these exercises can look forced and awkward. This one worked because the moves were simple, the “teachers” good humored, and the audience willing to participate.

The grand finale in the theater proper — a space with the same footprint but twice the height — brought everyone together. Twenty-five dancers each partnered a lay performer while the rest of us watched. Either these unison duets had been rehearsed ahead of time or this city abounds in some very good recreational dancers. At the end of the smartly-timed, one-hour gala, there were chocolates, toasts, and champagne. The festivities continue this month with “JumpstART” on Oct. 16, a free, daylong celebration of dance, theater, and music curated by local artists including Joe Goode and Mark Jackson.

JUMPSTART

Oct. 16, noon–11 p.m.

ODC Theater

351 Shotwell, SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odcdance.org

 

City bid to bring vendors into Dolores Parks causes an uproar

Sasha Cuttler
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City bid to bring vendors into Dolores Parks causes an uproar

Officials with the SF Recreation and Parks Department are attempting to quell the mounting frustrations of some Mission District merchants and residents who feel that the city shouldn’t allow private companies to operate in a public park, as the department is seeking to do. Even those who don’t necessarily have a problem with inviting more commerce into Dolores Park say the process should have been more open and transparent.

“I like pushcarts,” said Rachel Herbert, owner of Dolores Park Café. “I think they add flavor to San Francisco.” But Herbert is also allowing opponents of the department’s request for proposals (RFP) to set up shop in her store and gather signatures for a petition to “stop the commercialization of Dolores Park.” Herbert, who lives in the neighborhood, said she is helping the effort because “It’s about the process and Rec and Park not really thinking things through and doing whatever they want.”

Mike McConnell, the man behind the petition, holds a similar viewpoint. “I don’t feel that it was adequate outreach before this.” They’re not alone. McConnell currently has petitions in three stores – including his own store, Fayes Video – each with around 100 signatures, along with 700 online petition signatures.

While the controversy is recent, the RFP for the permits was issued in September last year. The proposal stated: “Before entering into permit agreement for the operation of a pushcart in any neighborhood park, the Department will conduct a community outreach process to determine the appropriateness of such a use in the park.”

It’s unclear how much outreach there was beyond a request for applicants posted in the July 31 issue of the San Francisco Chronicle. However, according to Mission Local, department spokesman Elton Pon sent them an email stating that the department mailed out “an announcement of the opportunity to more than 1,000 potential applicants.”

Regina Dick-Endrizzi, director of the SF Office of Small Business, said much of the demand for the permits has come from small time vendors. “Part of this has been an organic growing up of the vendors themselves,” Dick-Endrizzi said. “The mobile food folks have been coming and working and urging us to open up more space.”

Dick-Endrizzi helped vet the applicants in the panel that included members of department and the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development. “I can attest as being part of the committee that they were very careful in making their decision,” she said.

However one recipient of the permits, Oakland-based Blue Bottle Coffee, has received criticisms that it isn’t local enough – city policies encourage contracting with San Francisco small businesses. Blue Bottle is also backed by venture capital firm Kohlberg Ventures.

Its founder recently issued a public letter explaining his position: “I had assumed that since there were published articles in The Chronicle, the Examiner, and the SF Weekly in November of 2009, and January 2010, that the community around Dolores Park was well informed. So it pained me to hear that many of our (hopefully) future neighbors were upset that more outreach had not been done.”

This isn’t the first time a vendor has been allowed to operate in city parks. Nor are they the first merchant with questionable local status. Last August RPD commission voted 6-1 to replace long-time Stow Lake vendor with an out of state suitor. The Chronicle reported “the corporation, which has owned and operated the 1940s-era boathouse for 67 years, couldn’t compete with New Mexico-based Ortega Family Enterprises, which pledged to complete $233,000 worth of improvements to the well-worn building and buy a brand-new fleet of boats.”

Dolores has become a haven for unlicensed vendors selling items such as beer, hot dogs, ice cream, and even pot-laced brownies and truffles. What will become of them? “You pay thousands and thousands for your trailer and for permits and this guy comes around with his little cart and is selling coffee for 50 cents less, what are you going to do? You’re going to call the fucking cops and say get this scumbag out of here,” said local impresario Chicken John.

Dolores Park has traditionally been regarded with a kind of laissez faire attitude by many San Francisco residents. On a warm day it’s not uncommon to see hundreds of chic to cheap layabouts basking on its hills, beer and bowl in hand, without worry in mind. And many-a-cop has seen them too, but rarely do they intervene – and all was well. Maybe that’s another reason why there has been such uproar over the proposed introduction of pushcarts into the park.

Since the uproar, both Blue Bottle Coffee and the other potential vendor nonprofit Cocina have been put in limbo. La Cocina’s executive director, Caleb Zigas, told Mission Local that “he had expected to roll into the park this week and is disappointed by the delay. In the past four months he’s poured $28,000 in grant money into La Cocina’s food trailer, which is now sitting in storage.”

But how long will the pushcarts (they’re actually trailers powered by generators) gather dust in a garage? “For most types of appeals there is a 15-day window after the permit was issued,” said Cynthia Goldstein, executive director of the SF Board of Appeals. However it isn’t a concrete rule. “On rare instances the board will extend the window when there is evidence that the city did something wrong.” In addition, according to Goldstein, there is usually a 15-20 day window between when an appeal is filled and when it is reviewed by the Board. In short, the dilemma may not be quashed by the meeting this evening that the department is holding on the controversy.

The extension would bode well for any NIMBYs since Cocina’s and Blue Bottle’s permits were granted on April 15, 2010 and Sept 2, 2010, respectively.

RecPark was expecting a 12 percent cut on the pushcart profits and hoped to net around $70,000 annually. The pushcarts are just one of the many revenue generating ideas that are currently floating around. RecPark – under its new department head, Phil Ginsburg, who was previously chief of staff to Mayor Gavin Newsom – recently created a partnerships and revenue generating division with the purpose of capitalizing on many of the cities assets.

At the Jan 21, 2010 Recreation and Parks Commission meeting, pushcarts were discussed as a way to ostensibly keep city employees from getting laid off. Other ideas that were tossed out included hosting a production of Peter Pan, renting out parking places for car shares, and an adopt-a-park program; an adopt-a-gardener program was even suggested. The city was broke and was searching for a way to close huge General Fund deficits.

The idea of pushcarts was discussed again at the Feb 18 meeting. Nick Kinsey from the property division of RecPark, told the commission, “We received 18 responses to the RFP and we actually brought six of them in for interviews. As part of the interviews we met with the respondents, we evaluated their qualifications, evaluated their operation plans – in terms of where they wanted to be in each of the parks, in each of the proposed parks, how that would interact with residents and other park users use of the park space and if there would be any conflict there.”

Kinsey continued, “We’re also accepting application on a rolling basis right now. So if anyone is watching and interested in submitting an application for pushcarts, we are accepting pushcarts. Some of our location are maxed out we wouldn’t accept anyone else. But we have plenty of other park spaces where we think this is an appropriate use.”

The meeting of the issue is today (Thurs/7) at 4 p.m. in City Hall Room 416

 

Torture: The new national pastime

Zelda Bronstein
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Torture: The new national pastime

SAN FRANCISCO (Oct. 6th)  — The return of liver cancer has afforded me an unexpected opportunity to contemplate the National Pastime. 


As I emerged from a bout of chemotherapy in late September, the San Francisco Giants were locked in a neck-and-neck drawdown with the San Diego Padres for a post-season play-off spot and Baghdad-by-the-Bay was abuzz with pennant fever. 


The Padres, who had dominated the National League West since the early days of the 2010 season, had suddenly plummeted into an unprecedented funk, at one point losing ten straight games in a row.  Bare percentage points separated the two teams as they entered the final weekend of the pennant race with the local heroes only having to win one out of three games here at home. 


They, of course, lost the first two and die-hards cringed that déjà vu was about to drop all over again.  I have been a Giants fan since the day when the Polo Grounds, a misshapen stadium in upper Manhattan, was their chosen field of battle, and the scenario is an achingly familiar one for me. 


Suddenly, the wind had been sucked out of the Giants’ pennant hopes.  The orange “rally rags” that management distributes free of charge to the aficionados (it’s good for business) stopped twirling, altering wind currents over AT&T park.  Those idiotic panda hats issued during the pre-season to hype the disappointing exploits of third baseman Pablo Sandoval AKA “Kung Fu Panda,” lay dormant splayed upon the scalps of the fanaticos.  No one “Feared the Beards,” the fake whiskers that transform mild-mannered fans into facsimile Mad Bombers and remind the opposition that ace reliever Brian Wilson would soon be on the mound to rescue the locals.  No kind of mumbo jumbo seemed to snap the Giants out of their trance.


I saw the first hand-scrawled signs during the late innings of the Friday night series opener.  As usual, the Giants had been unable to put two hits together and were deep in the hole in yet another nail-biter with the Padres. Two young people of indeterminate sex squatted down by the first base boxes to display their homemade handiwork.  The wording, as best as I can remember, underscored that it was “torture” to be a Giants’ fan these days. 


“Did you see that?” I turned aghast to my fellow couch surfer, the notorious peoples’ lawyer Dennis Cunningham.  Dennis, who of late has been trying to prevent the feds from destroying fragments from the bomb that blew up Judi Bari and her Earth First! comrade Daryl Cheney in 1990, reasoning that that the threatened disappearance of the evidence would absolve the FBI of complicity in the matter, was similarly provoked.


Let me delineate the reasons for our dismay.  Torture, in my dictionary, means the egregious and prolonged physical abuse governments inflict upon those they suspect of harboring information detrimental to their interests.  When I speak of torture, I mean Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo, CIO “black sites” — not an afternoon outing at Pac Bell Park. 


When I speak out against torture, I mean waterboarding, having your fingernails pulled out one by one and your scrotum sliced by a razor, electrical currents shoved up your anus, extreme sensory deprivation — not having to endure a close shave out at the old ballgame. 


When I speak out against torture, I think of the unending agony the Israelis inflict upon the Palestinian people, the castration of those who marched with Monsignor Romero, Victor Jara’s skull being shattered on the soccer stadium steps in Santiago — not Buster Posey and the “tools of ignorance.”


As the weekend progressed and the Giants continued to lose impossibly low-scoring games, the “Torture” syndrome gained increasing currency. Legions of Giants fans were now showing up to wave signs spotlighting the torture motif.  Now the offending word was spelled out in Giants’ colors and decorated with hearts and care bears.  Both the Chronicle and the Examiner (free — and worth every penny of it) were running the T-word in their leads. 


The kicker was a phone call from an old friend who has marched through this city for years decrying torture, injustice, and imperialist occupations.  “It’s torture to be a Giants fan,” she chirped merrily.  I just about did a Mike Tyson and bit her ear off to reciprocate. 


The mindless drumbeat mounted last weekend at AT&T Park trivializes torture, transforming horrendous crimes against humanity into a sports slogan to be inserted somewhere between the Stars Spangled Banner and God Bless America and further converting professional sports into a willing shill for U.S. domination of the Planet Earth.  First and foremost, baseball is a business and I expect torture will soon be deployed to sell everything from beer and sushi to seasons’ tickets.  The possibilities are depressingly endless.


“FANS JUMP ON THE TORTURE BANDWAGON,” the Morning Chron, about the poorest excuse for a daily newspaper in this benighted land, headlines this morning (Weds. Oct. 6th), guaranteeing that torture will be a part of the Giants’ sales pitch as they enter the second round of the play-offs.   Perhaps my illness has magnified the malaise but this past weekend’s low-jinks seem to underscore the premise with which I launched this screed: Torture is indeed the new national pastime.  


John Ross, author of “El Monstruo – Dread & Redemption in Mexico City,” will be covering the new national pastime while recuperating from chemotherapy.

The Performant: Dies Arses have it

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Local Arts: Arse Elektronika weekend and arses up at Dodgyfest III

Couldn’t make it out to the “Oscars of computer art” at the Ars Electronica Center in Linz, Austria? Me neither, but thanks to Viennese techno-prankster collective monochrom, I could stay in San Francisco and experience a slightly more warped version at the 4th annual Arse Elektronika instead. An exploration of sex, tech, and space — inner and outer — Friday evening’s lineup of lectures and presentations turned the Center for Sex and Culture into a grown-up game of show-and-tell.

First up was “Spaceman” Sam Coniglio of the Space Tourism Society presenting on one of his favorite topics: “Sex in Space”. Unfortunately, as Coniglio notes, this is not NASA’s first priority as a research topic and the jury is out on whether or not anyone has ever successfully joined the 217-mile club or not. (If so, “they’re not telling.”) But such lack of information hasn’t stopped the hopeful from designing prototypes of gear that might assist in future feats of space sex. With the help of volunteers, Coniglio showed off his own favorite, a plushy “snuggle tunnel”—like a giant slinky covered in velveteen.

Jason Brown’s extremely entertaining talk, “The Endosymbiotic Cha-Cha” took the concept of sex in space from the outside in, beginning with the premise that humans may fantasize about boinking a reasonably attractive, bipedal extraterrestrial race, but in reality, scale might be the real barrier. Perhaps alien life forms already live among us (or in us!) at a microscopic level. Are multiplying viruses getting it on while we suffer the side effects of their fevered touch? Wrapping up the evening was Heather Kelley, aka moboid, presenting an iPhone app she designed called Body Heat which allows the user to manipulate the speeds of a vibrator using a touchscreen. She showed off its incidental percussive potential along with Jordan Gray, or starPause, who accompanied her with electronic blips and sampled bits.

Such sexoterica was good food for thought, but I was feeling the need to get down and dirty. Luckily, Dodgyfest III was there for me. Ostensibly a birthday celebration for prolific rock photographer Mr Dodgy (Neil Motteram), Dodgyfest featured cake, t-shirts, and hi-octane rocking. Girls with Guns! Meat Sluts! La Plebe! It’s pretty hard to think of a feistier lineup, but just for kicks, Neil threw in a few extra tunes as frontman for the (very) occasional Bloody Hells. Taking a tongue-in-cheek page out of the Ramones’ rock-and-roll high school primer, the pseudononymous Meat Sluts (SFBG-recognized “Sluttiest Rockers”)  bear monikers best suited for the bbq stand (Scarlet Spamchop anyone?) and their set list was equal parts carnivorous and lascivious — man-meat featuring large in the lyrics. Turning up the heat was the ever-smokin’ La Plebe, who rather wholesomely avoid overtly sexual themes in their lyrics, though they always throw in “Dirty Old Town” for the punters. But their overriding message of personal liberty is always an aphrodisiac to the spirit, and their skintight ska-inflected riffs would make Buzz Aldrin wanna mosh. Space-sex fetishists take heed, sometimes the most fun you can have is with your clothes on after all.

Get a clue, Randy Shaw

Zelda Bronstein
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Get a clue, Randy Shaw

I read BeyondChron every day, and Randy Shaw, who operates the site, and Paul Hogarth, his managing editor, often have interesting commentary. But I’m constantly annoyed by people who run what by any stretch is a journalistic operation, but don’t follow the basic rules of (even alternative, activist) journalism: When you’re going to say something nasty about somebody, you call that person for comment.


Randy never called me, or Steve Jones, or Bruce Brugmann, before he launched an attack on the Guardian as part of a political machine. If he had — or if he’d done any reporting work and called around town — he might have learned something.


Randy’s argument is that the “machine” — including the Bay Guardian — is trying to block Jane Kim’s election as D6 supervisor. Let’s examine that for a minute.


There are plenty of people in San Francisco who would love to have a political machine. But it’s just not happening. The very fact that Jane Kim has the support of so many progressives — including the Board president, David Chiu, and Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos (all part of what Shaw calls the “machine”) suggests that nobody has to clout — not even me — to tell a candidate whether she can run for office, to control (or cut off) campaign contributions, or to wire an election.


In the days when Willie Brown ran San Francisco, the machine really did keep people from running for office. It really did close off avenues to political advancement. And if the machine was against you, it was really hard to raise money. If Brown were still the boss, and he didn’t want Kim to run, she would have been frozen out of much of the support and money she has today. Instead, Brown was at her campaign kickoff — and nobody’s manged to intimidate her many supporters and campaign contributors.


And guess what? The Guardian — the axis of the machine evil trying to freeze out Kim — endorsed her as our second choice.


I stand by what I said months ago — there’s nobody in San Francisco today — and no cadre or group — with the clout to operate as a political machine.


Nobody can line up six automatic votes on the Board of Supervisors. Even the progressives on the Democratic County Central Committee can’t always seem to get it together (note that Aaron Peskin, the chair and supposed machine honco, supported Tony Kelly for supervisor, and the DCCC didn’t put Kelly on its slate).


Right now, power in this city is fairly diffuse. That’s both a good and a bad thing. Good because machines are exclusionary, bad because it means the progressives can’t always function on a level that gets the right candidates elected and the right legislation through. Good because the left in this city is aggressively, almost happily disorganized and politically diverse, full of characters, voices, interest groups, candidates and elected officials who don’t always agree with each other and take orders from nobody. Bad because when we’re disorganized, we tend to lose.


Jane Kim didn’t get the DCCC endorsement. Nobody talked to me about that; I’m not on the panel and none of the members called to ask my advice. I would have said what the Guardian said in our endorsement package: There are exactly two progressive candidates who are qualified to be the next D6 supervisor, and their names are Debra Walker and Jane Kim. I still don’t understand why Kim entered the race against an established candidate with whom she has no substantial policy disagreements; I think that, before Kim moved to the district and entered the race, Walker was the clear consensus candidate of progressives, and as a matter of strategy, since Kim and Walker are both on the same side on the key issues, it might have made more sense for the left to unite behind one candidate.


But that’s not the issue anymore; Kim had every right to run, and now any cogent, honest ranked-choice voting strategy includes both her and Walker.


That statement alone makes clear that the Guardian’s not exactly in synch with the DCCC or any of Shaw’s other “machine” operations. The DCCC decided that the top candidate in D10 should be DeWitt Lacy, and left Tony Kelly off the slate entirely. We endorsed Tony Kelly as our first choice. The labor activists on the DCCC (and in the “machine”) are dead set against Margaret Brodkin winning a seat on the Board of Education; we endorsed her.


I would have explained our positions to Randy Shaw if he’d called or emailed me; I’m really easy to reach. And slapping people around without talking to them is bad journalism and bad progressive politics. Randy and I have disagreements, but I don’t consider him the enemy; we’re both part of a larger progressive community, and while I love (and thrive on) disputes in that community, we ought to be civil about it.


(I always contact Randy before I write about him. I did that yesterday, and asked him a series of questions, including why he never called me for comment. His non-response: “I write 3-4 articles a week and have published three books. You are free to quote from anything I have written without asking me about it.”)


Herb Caen used to say (somewhat in jest) that if you “check an item, you lose it.” In other words, once you start talking to everyone involved in an issue, you sometimes find out that the story isn’t at all the way you heard it.


That’s what should have happened with Shaw’s completely inaccurate claim about Steve Jones.


BeyondChron says that Jones was trying to get Kim to challenge Carmen Chu in D4 because they’re both Asian-American, ” in effect saying that as an Asian-American Jane should run among ‘her people,’ implying that demographics prevailed over issues and political stands.”


I talked to Steve about it; he did, indeed, talk to Jane Kim when Kim was shopping around for a district to run in. What he told her — and would have told Randy Shaw — was that it would be great for Kim, a school board member with citywide name recognition, to knock off Carmen Chu and expand the progressive majority rather than going after a strong progressive candidate in a solidly progressive seat. Race had nothing to do with it.


In fact, just about everything we’ve written about Kim comes down to the same argument: Sometimes, you have to think about the larger progressive movement, not just about yourself.


I sometimes wish the all the people who say the Bay Guardian is part of a powerful Peskin Machine were right: I’d love to pass a city income tax, hit the wealthy up for about half a billion dollars a year, eliminate the budget deficit without cutting services, municipalize PG&E (and have municipal cable TV and broadband), ban cars on a lot of streets, create 25,000 units of affordable housing … I’ve got a great agenda. And the Guardian’s so powerful that none of it ever happens.


Randy Shaw and I were both around for the tail end of the Burton Machine, and I think he gives the brothers Phil and John Burton too much credit. They were great on national issues, progressive champions in Congress. But they weren’t progressive leaders on local issues.


The Burton Machine was nowhere on the fights against overdevelopment and downtown power. Phil Burton rarely used his clout to support progressive causes and candidates at home. The machine got Harvey Milk fired from a commission appointment when he announced he was going to run for state Assembly against Art Agnos. The machine came together to make sure that Nancy Pelosi, an unknown who had never held office, got elected to Congress instead of Harry Britt, the most progressive elected official in the city at the time. The machine never helped out on public power, the numerous anti-highrise initiatives, rent control, or much of anything else that challenged the real estate interests like Walter Shorenstein, who gave vast sums of money to the Democratic Party.


Yes, George Moscone, a Burton ally, supported district elections, but once he got elected he stopped challenging downtown power.


And, of course, when Willie Brown emerged as heir to the machine throne, he was a disaster for progressives. He also at one point controlled an unshakable majority on the Board of Supervisors; he could call up votes whenever he needed.


The progressives in San Francisco today share an ideology on local issues — tough local issues that involve powerful economic forces at home.


And honestly, Randy: It’s not all about Jane Kim.


 

Valley highs

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Valley highs

arts@sfbg.com

FILM This year’s Mill Valley Film Festival, the 33rd — we’ll refrain from crucifying it — brings the usual assortment of visiting celebrities starting their Oscar thumpage early at an event with a rep for anticipating next February’s Academy winners. Some have local roots (Annette Bening, Sam Rockwell, James Franco), some don’t (Alejandro González Iñárritu, Edward Norton, Julian Schnabel).

All will be happy, or at least willing, to discuss their creative process from the Rafael or Sequoia stages. But insight into the artistic mind is also available in several lower-profile programs about Bay Area innovators in various media, most made by Bay Area filmmakers.

Tom Ropelewski’s Child of Giants: My Journey With Maynard Dixon and Dorothea Lange is both an appreciation of brilliance — the late, briefly married titans of 20th century Western painting and photography — and a measurement of how difficult it can be to live with. Like many true mavericks, Dixon and Lange drew little distinction between their artistic and personal lives, operating by rules of their own devising that others had to either obey or get the hell out of the way.

Not given much choice in the matter were their two sons, interviewed here. Overshadowed and occasionally neglected by parents (biological and step-) whose notions of progressive upbringing could be dictatorial and harshly critical, one played the passive-obedience card, while the other rebelled to the point of youthful homelessness. Still, they’re forgiving — as a granddaughter puts it, “I can’t pass judgment because I’m not a genius.”

There are no next-generation tattlers in the happier creative vistas of Elizabeth Federici and Laura Harrison’s Space, Land and Time: Underground Adventures with Ant Farm and Emiko Omori’s Ed Hardy: Tattoo the World. The first chronicles the architectural, performance, and media-manipulation of the 1970s SF trickster collective most famously responsible for Amarillo, Texas, automotive cemetery Cadillac Ranch, which one admirer calls “the greatest human undertaking since the Tower of Babel — which failed, and [this] prevailed.” SoCal custom car fanatic and surfer-turned-SF- counterculture-celeb Hardy provides an endearingly modest guide through a career that, perhaps more than any other, revolutionized and popularized U.S. body art.

Among Bay Area narrative features, Scared New World (2005) director Chris Brown’s new Fanny, Annie and Danny hews back to the train-wreck parenting theme. Its three disparately damaged adult siblings seem tragicomedically bad enough company until we meet the monster who made them. Mother Edie (Colette Keen) presides over their climactic Christmas dinner like a lion tamer snapping bullwhip over yelping puppies. Seldom have sing-along carols sounded so hateful.

Ranging farther afield, MVFF 2010 likewise offers a chance to be first on your block to see this year’s Oscar bait (The King’s Speech, 127 Hours) and A-list festival favorites (Blue Valentine, Tiny Furniture). But since those will be coming round soon enough to regular theaters, you’d be better off sampling some of the many features unlikely to be seen again hereabouts.

Several happen to be beautifully photographed foreign titles sharing a certain religious-allegorical dimension. Based on a Gabriel García Márquez story, Hilda Hidalgo’s Costa Rican-Colombian Of Love and Other Demons finds a teenage, early colonialist-era noble dragged to a nunnery, where her rabies symptoms are taken for demonic possession — and where she awakens a priest’s well-buried sensual side. Vardis Marinakis’ Greek Black Field finds a 17th century novice fleeing her convent with a wounded military deserter; in the forest primeval, their own sensual awakening hits a surprising major hurdle. Adán Aliaga’s gorgeous black and white Estigmas follows a burly gentle giant whose picaresque adventures are cursed and redeemed by bleeding stigmata that mysteriously appear on his hands one day.

Special events include an Oct. 8 concert celebrating what would have been John Lennon’s 70th birthday; on Oct. 16 Tim Rutili’s eccentric supernatural whimsy All My Friends Are Funeral Singers, with live accompaniment by his band Califone. Then there’s the Oct. 12 revival of 30-year-old The Empire Strikes Back, the best Star Wars movie. (I might also call it the only really good one, but dare not risk the wrath of fanboys.) Who’s to say a certain Marin resident, employer, and longtime MVFF supporter won’t drop by for the occasion? You never know. 

MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL

Oct 7–17, most shows $12.50

Various venues in Mill Valley, Corte Madera, and San Rafael

1-877-874-6833

www.mvff.com

Fantasy girl

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Fantasy girl

It was one of those knockout weekends during which rabid electro kids and throbbing bluegrass fans, twirling gay flaggers and hot-pink breast cancer walkers all blurred into, well, a blur. Hell if I remember most of it. But it’s a dazzling blur, a blur you can really take a shine to, kind of Brazil-shaped with opalescent edges, undulating there in the partially cloudy air, a 4G jellyfish lingering on the event horizon.

I.e., a blackout. So anyway, what’s my favorite multi-gifted, ultra-busty local transsexual performer Cassandra Cass (www.cassandracass.com) doing lately? In case you hadn’t heard, her talents are blossoming every Thursday at midnight on the Showtime network, in an outrageously entertaining reality show called “Wild Things.”

“You mean my two biggest talents are blossoming,” Ms. Cass breathes into my ear — and I swear I hear her shake her boobs over the phone. Cassandra’s one of those beautiful SF nightlife unicorns you spot whisking through random parties on the arm of a handsome gentleman, or pay good money well-spent to see lip-synch lustily at Harry Denton’s packed Sunday’s A Drag brunch buffets (Sundays, noon and 2:30 p.m., $39.95. Starlight Room, 450 Powell, SF. www.harrydenton.com). She’s fantastical, and now she’s the world’s.

On “Wild Things,” Cass and two other trans bombshells, Maria Roman and Tiara Russell, hit the road in a Winnebago, traveling through the West working odd jobs to raise money for Maria’s brother’s kidney disease treatment. Hair-flipping bronco busting, slaughterhouse mishaps, sexy hotdog sales, half-naked car washes, cop-attracting catfights, flirty lube jobs, and more ensue.

Notably missing on their trips into backcountry? Rampant transphobia. “Sure, here we come, these transgender Amazons with impossible figures into your tiny town. But once people got to know us, they loved us, laughed along with us” Cassandra dished. “That’s why I think the show’s so important. We’re the only trans reality show that’s reaching the nation, our ratings are through the roof. And we’re real people. We’re not just standing on a corner looking bitter.”

Cassandra just auditioned for ABC’s “Wipeout”(!) and is currently working on a 2011 edition of her infamously smokin’ calendar. “Mama’s off the chain for that one — put me in a bikini and I’ll do anything,” she purrs. “My goal is to be someone that people look at and go crazy for. Men, women, gay, straight, whatever — I want them to see me and question why they put themselves in a niche, why they think they have to be just one thing.”

 

B.Y.O.F. CINEMA ORGY

A primo opportunity to check out new performance space Ark221 (www.ark221.com), this monthly “bring your own film” fest — nay, orgy — will open your eyes to great local video talent. Moderators J. Douglas Smith and Gregg Golding, a.k.a. transdimensional rapper Odynophagia, reel you in.

Wed/6, 8 p.m., $3. Ark221, 221 11th St., SF. www.cinemaorgy.com

 

MAURICE FULTON

Eccentric Baltimorean tunesmith has lately specialized in a Chicago-looking brand of burbling, red-lit, obsessively detailed house — so nice. He’ll be headlining the invaluable No Way Back monthly with DJs Conor and Solar.

Sat/9, 9:30, $10. 222 Hyde, SF. www.222hyde.com

 

GASLIGHT

Is SF ready for a lounge revival? It is if it’s this aurally sensuous and intellectually stimulating. DJs Delachaux and FACT.50 plumb the depths, from Angelo Badalamenti and Astor Piazzolla to Hooverphonic and Beirut.

Sat/9, 9:30 p.m., $5. Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF

 

EL RIO’S 32ND ANNIVERSARY SHINDIG

Hard to believe one of my favorite dives is twice as old as I am! Celebrate all evening with eats, treats, and beats from rockin’ bands Mighty Slim Pickens, The Ex Boyfriends, Bronze, and tons more.

Sat/9, 3 p.m., free. El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF. www.elriosf.com

ENDORSEMENTS 2010

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ENDORSEMENTS 2010

On every level — federal, state and local — the Nov. 2 election is critical. Californians will decide whether a billionaire with no political experience and a failed business executive with right-wing views should be the next governor and senator. They’ll address a long list of major ballot measures. In San Francisco, voters will decide the balance of power on the Board of Supervisors, weigh in on ballot measures that could deeply affect the local budget, and decide whether this city wants to allow a harsh crackdown on the homeless.

Absentee ballots are already in the mail. Vote early, vote often, and vote like your city and state depended on it. We’ll publish our Clean Slate clipout guide to take to the polls on October 27. Click below for our endorsements. (East Bay endorsements will be added next week.)

>>NATIONAL RACES

>>STATE RACES

>>STATE BALLOT MEASURES

>>SAN FRANCISCO CANDIDATES

>>SAN FRANCISCO BALLOT MEASURES

>>EAST BAY ENDORSEMENTS

Listen to our Endorsement Interviews with local candidates here

get the single page printable PDF in color or black and white

Endorsements 2010: San Francisco ballot measures

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Endorsements 2010: San Francisco ballot measures

PROP. AA

VEHICLE REGISTRATION FEE

YES

Proposition AA would add $10 to the existing annual fee for vehicles registered in San Francisco, which would bring in about $5 million a year in desperately needed funds for public transit and other environmentally friendly modes of transportation. Proceeds would help to fund new bike infrastructure, pedestrian crosswalks, and transit reliability projects. Some would also be spent on street repairs — with top priority given to streets with bikeways and public transit routes. Unless Muni and bike infrastructure improves, it’s hard to persuade drivers to leave their cars at home and choose greener ways of getting around. Prop. AA is in line with the city’s transit-first goals, and it will be a step toward reducing traffic congestion and helping public transit. Vote yes.

 

PROP. A

EARTHQUAKE RETROFIT BOND

YES

This $46.15 million general obligation bond to support seismic upgrades for wood-framed buildings is an important means of protecting San Franciscans in an earthquake and preserving affordable housing. A 2009 report by the Department of Building Inspection found that 151 buildings that received government affordable housing support — 8,247 units in all — could be destroyed in the next big earthquake.

Unfortunately, most of these buildings are break-even ventures for their owners, who have no incentive to put the money into needed seismic upgrades. This measure would fund those improvements with grants and deferred loans, which would accrue interest but would only need to be paid back if the owner makes a profit or tries to convert the building to another use, providing further guarantees that the housing will remain affordable even after an owner’s obligation to the state or federal governments ends. Vote yes on Prop. A.

 

PROP. B

CITY RETIREMENT AND HEALTH PLANS

NO, NO, NO

Back when the great national health care reform debate was raging, the Guardian advocated for a single-payer system, which would have cut out health insurance companies altogether. What we got instead was a bill that requires everyone to buy health insurance. Now endlessly rising health insurance costs pose a problem for the city — in years of financial stress, it must make ever-larger payments to cover public employees’ health benefits. The blame for this dysfunctional system should be pinned on health insurance companies, not public employees. After all, the industry spent millions lobbying federal lawmakers to preserve a system in which they are solidly guaranteed to make millions off the backs of taxpayers.

But Prop. B, introduced by Public Defender Jeff Adachi, asks public employees to bear the brunt of these ballooning costs. It would also require them to contribute up to 10 percent of their pay to fund retirement benefits. One of the most compelling arguments against Prop. B was articulated by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano in a recent Guardian editorial: “A single mother will be forced to pay up to $5,600 per year for her child’s health care — in addition to the $8,154 she already pays.” That cost would be the same whether the employee earns $40,000 or $100,000 annually — and that’s just unfair. Prop. B would deal the greatest blow to the people who have the least. But there’s a broader consequence, too — take this kind of money out of the pockets of working people and you’ve done just the opposite of stimulating the economy.

Adachi wrote and circulated his measure without negotiating with city employee unions or seeking a solution that would be less harsh and regressive. We’re all for reviewing the city’s pension and health care costs. But making the lowest-paid city workers take the same hit as the overpaid managers is no answer. Vote no on B.

 

PROP. C

MAYOR APPEARANCES AT BOARD

YES

If you feel like you’ve seen this measure before, that’s because you have — an advisory measure asking the mayor to show up once a month and answer questions at the Board of Supervisors passed overwhelmingly in 2006. But Mayor Gavin Newsom ignored it, and a tougher measure failed the next year after Newsom raised $250,000 to defeat it.

Now the problem is worse than ever. In a year in which back room negotiations and underhanded political tactics marred the city budget approval process and other legislative initiatives, progressive supervisors are again trying to get Newsom and future mayors to engage in a political dialogue, in public, to determine what’s best for the city. This is precisely how the people’s business should be done, in an open and transparent way that respects the role that these two branches of government are supposed to play in running the city. Besides, won’t it be fun to watch? Vote yes.

 

PROP. D

NONCITIZEN VOTING IN SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS

YES

Sponsored by Board President David Chiu and Sups. David Campos, Eric Mar, John Avalos, Ross Mirkarimi, Sophie Maxwell, Chris Daly, and Bevan Dufty, this charter amendment would extend the right to vote in local school board elections to San Francisco residents who are parents, guardians, and caregivers of children who attend school in San Francisco, regardless of whether these residents are U.S. citizens.

One-third of San Francisco residents are foreign-born. Parental involvement has been determined as a critical factor in children’s education — and this measure only applies to elections for the Board of Education. Vote yes.

 

PROP. E

ELECTION DAY VOTER REGISTRATION

YES

In an era of growing political apathy and cynicism, anything that draws more people into the electoral process is a good thing. So this common sense measure by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi to remove one more barrier to participation in elections is a positive step.

Current state law requires eligible voters to register at least 15 days before an election. Prop. E would allow any city resident to simply show up at a polling place on Election Day, register to vote, and participate in a municipal election. Eight other states currently offer same-day voter registration. Vote yes.

 

PROP. F

HEALTH SERVICE BOARD ELECTIONS

NO

Sup. Sean Elsbernd, who sponsored this measure, says it will save the city money be consolidating elections for the board that oversees the city employee health care fund. But it won’t save much — $30,000 a year, at most — and the unions that represent the people who are served by this board say risks turning board elections into more expensive and complex political contests. Vote no.

 

PROP. G

TRANSIT OPERATOR WAGES

NO

We understand the motivations behind this measure — Muni drivers are the only city employees who don’t have to engage in collective bargaining for wages and work rules. Instead, the City Charter guarantees them the second-highest salary level of all comparable transit systems in the nation. Although that’s not an unreasonable salary level given that Muni is perhaps the country’s most challenging transit system and San Francisco has one of the highest cost of living price tags in the country, no city workers should have their salaries set this way.

We also agree that many of Muni’s work rules need to be changed and that removal of the salary guarantees would give the city more leverage to make those changes. We even agree that Transport Workers Union Local 250 hasn’t done itself any favors and should have been a better partner in this year’s difficult city budget process.

But we oppose Prop. G, which inappropriately seeks to blame Muni’s problems on its drivers and would set a new standard for collective bargaining that could hurt workers and perhaps make Muni more dangerous to pedestrians and others.

Like all city employees, Muni drivers are banned from going on strike. In exchange, the city agrees to binding arbitration if contract talks reach an impasse. But this measure adds a factor that exists in no other city union contract: the arbitrator would have to consider whether a proposed contract could negatively affect service.

While that might seem benign or even appropriate, the reality is that everything from driver rest breaks to assisting those with disabilities to the expectations of how fast drivers can complete a route all potentially affect service, forcing the arbitrator into positions of agreeing with city officials who have been choosing the politically expedient path of trying to squeeze more out of Muni without trying to give it the resources it needs to operate safely, efficiently, and reliably.

Earlier this year, progressive supervisors tried to craft an omnibus Muni reform measure that removed driver pay guarantees from the charter while also trying to get it more money and make critical changes in how the system is governed, an effort the TWU supported but that the supervisors ultimately abandoned. That’s the kind of balanced approach the system needs and it ought to be revived. In the meantime, vote no on G.

 

PROP. H

LOCAL ELECTED OFFICIALS ON POLITICAL PARTY COMMITTEES

NO

This one’s a pure political vengeance act by Mayor Newsom, who is unhappy that the local Democratic Party is controlled by progressives who oppose his initiatives. The measure would bar elected officials in San Francisco from serving on the Democratic or Republican County Central Committee. It’s almost certainly unconstitutional — the parties get to decide their own membership rules — and has no rationale at all except the mayor’s personal sour grapes. Vote no.

 

PROP. I

SATURDAY VOTING

YES

Okay, we’re suspicious of Prop I. The sponsor is Alex Tourke, a political consultant whose client list isn’t exactly a roster of progressive San Francisco. And it’s a little funky — it calls for an experiment in opening the polls the Saturday before the next mayoral election, with the costs covered by private donations. And the idea of private interests paying for an election strikes us as bad policy.

But at its base, the idea is sound. Tuesday voting is a very old idea that makes no sense in the modern age. We’d much rather see Election Day held at a time when most people aren’t working. In fact, we’d rather see the polls open for a week, not just one day. And this is a one-time test to see if weekend voting might increase turnout. Vote yes.

PROP. J

HOTEL TAX CLARIFICATION AND TEMPORARY INCREASE

YES

There are two competing hotel taxes on the November ballot: Prop. J and Prop K. Prop. K contains a poison pill: if both measures pass, whichever gets the most votes take effect. Both J and K try to address legal insufficiencies in San Francisco’s existing hotel tax, but Prop. J also asks visitors to pay a slightly higher tax — about $3 a night (the cost of a latte) — for the next three years.

Currently the way hotel taxes are assessed allows some online customers to avoid part of the tax. When a customer books a hotel room through an online booking service like Expedia or Orbitz, the hotel tax is only assessed on the amount that a hotel receives, not the amount that the website charges the customer. In other words, if a website sells a room to an online customer for $150 a night, but only $120 of that goes to the hotel, the customer is charged hotel tax on the lower amount. If Prop. J passes, the customer will have to pay a hotel tax on the full amount paid to the online booking service. The measure would also eliminate a loophole that allows airlines to book rooms for flight crews without paying any tax. Those changes are expected to generate at least $12 million a year. The $3 increase in the hotel tax will generate another $26 million.

The Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau say the measure could hurt tourism — but it’s hard to imagine how somebody will decide not to visit San Francisco because of a $3 a night fee. Vote yes.

 

PROP. K

HOTEL TAX CLARIFICATION

NO

Put on the ballot by Mayor Newson at the behest of large hotel corporations, Prop. K also seeks to close loopholes in the hotel tax. But Prop. K doesn’t include a tax increase, meaning that it will contribute millions less to the city’s General Fund at a time when San Francisco is having trouble balancing its budget, leading to ongoing cuts in city staff and services.

Prop. K’s a direct attempt to undermine Prop. J. Vote no.

 

PROP. L

SITTING OR LYING ON SIDEWALKS

NO, NO, NO

What kind of a city is San Francisco? If proponents of Prop. L, the Civil Sidewalks Ordinance, were to be believed, it’s a city where nothing is done when uncivil people harass pedestrians, drink on the sidewalk, or pee in public. Even though Prop. L purports to address this kind of behavior, all it really does is outlaw sitting or lying on public sidewalks.

We think San Francisco is the kind of city that is smart enough to reject this dumb idea. The Prop. L proponents like to say it’s about public safety, but there is nothing inherently unsafe about sitting or lying down on the sidewalk. Street poets sit at their typewriters to sell sonnets to tourists. The tamale lady sometimes sits while selling her tasty Mexican treats. Day laborers sit when they get tired of standing around waiting for work. Many people who live on the streets lie down to sleep beside their shopping carts. If Prop. L passes, there is nothing to guarantee that buskers, day laborers, homeless people, partygoers, people with bad knees, or anyone else would not be harassed by police for the simple act of sitting.

But even if there are people squatting on the sidewalk harassing passersby, how is this law going to change that? All they have to do is stand up — which would still be legal. If they persist, and the police arrest them, the city will be on the hook for millions of dollars in costs for prosecution, defense, and incarceration.

The notion that the ordinance would only be used against troublemakers is problematic too, since a law that is selectively enforced could open the door to legal headaches. Prop. L is misguided, draconian, unnecessary, and the wrong direction for San Francisco. Vote no.

 

PROP. M

COMMUNITY POLICING AND FOOT PATROLS

YES

Prop. M offers an enlightened alternative to Prop. L. Introduced by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, it would require the chief of police to establish a comprehensive beat patrol program, with cops on the beat, to deal with the safety and civility issues Prop. L seeks to address. It would also direct the Police Commission to adopt a written community policing policy, involving police interactions with the community, focusing police resources on high crime areas, and encouraging citizen involvement in combating crime. Prop. M also has a poison pill: if the voters adopt both M and L and M gets more votes, then the law against sitting or lying down on the sidewalk would not take effect. So a yes vote for Prop. M is kind of like another no vote against Prop. L. Vote yes.

 

PROP. N

REAL PROPERTY TRANSFER TAX

YES

With the city facing a massive structural budget deficit, it’s hard to argue against a measure that would bring in an average of $36 million without hurting anyone except the buyers and sellers of very high-end property — that is, big corporations and exceptionally wealthy individuals. Prop. N would slightly increase the tax charged by the city on the sale of property worth more than $5 million. Vote yes.

 

>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

Endorsements 2010: San Francisco candidates

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Endorsements 2010: San Francisco candidates

SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 2


JANET REILLY


Frankly, we were a little surprised by the Janet Reilly who came in to give us her pitch as a District 2 supervisorial candidate. The last time we met with her, she was a strong progressive running for state Assembly as an advocate of single-payer health care. She was challenging Fiona Ma from the left, and easily won our endorsement.


Now she’s become a fiscal conservative — somewhat more in synch with her district, perhaps, but not an encouraging sign. Reilly seems to realize that there’s a $500 million budget deficit looming, but she won’t support any of the tax measures on the ballot. She’s against the hotel tax. She’s against the real estate transfer tax on high-end properties. She’s against the local car tax. She opposed Sup. David Chiu’s business tax plan that would have shifted the burden from small to larger businesses (even though it was clear from our interview that she didn’t understand it).


She talked about merging some of the nonprofits that get city money, about consolidating departments, and better management — solutions that might stem a tiny fraction of the red ink. But she wouldn’t even admit that the limited tax burden on the very rich was part of San Francisco’s budget problem.


Her main proposal for creating jobs is more tax credits for biotech, life sciences, and digital media and more public-private partnerships.


It’s too bad, because Reilly’s smart, and she’s far, far better than Mark Farrell, the candidate that the current incumbent, Michela Alioto-Pier, is backing. We wish she’d be realistic about the fiscal nightmare she would inherit as a supervisor.


On the positive side, she’s a strong supporter of public power and she has good connections to the progressive community. Unlike Alioto-Pier, she’d be accessible, open-minded, and willing to work with the progressive majority on the board. That would be a dramatic change, so we’ll give her the nod.


We were also impressed with Abraham Simmons, a federal prosecutor who has spent time researching city finance on the Civil Grand Jury. But he supports sit-lie, Prop. B and Prop. S, and opposes most new tax proposals and needs more political seasoning.


 


DISTRICT 4


NO ENDORSEMENT


We’ve always wanted to like Carmen Chu. She’s friendly, personable, intelligent, and well-spoken. But on the issues, she’s just awful. Indeed, we can’t think of a single significant vote on which she’s been anything but a call-up loyalist for Mayor Newsom. She even opposed the public power measure, Prop. H, that had the support of just about everyone in town except hardcore PG&E allies.


She’s running unopposed, and will be reelected. But we can’t endorse her.


 


DISTRICT 6


1. DEBRA WALKER


2. JANE KIM


3. GLENDON “ANNA CONDA” HYDE


CORRECTION: In our original version of this endorsement, we said that Jim Meko supports the sit-lie ordinance. That was an error, and it’s corrected below.


A year ago, this race was artist and activist Debra Walker’s to lose. Most of the progressive community was united behind her candidacy; she’d been working on district issues for a couple of decades, fighting the loft developers during the dot-com boom years and serving on the Building Inspection Commission. Then School Board member Jane Kim decided to enter the race, leaving the left divided, splitting resources that might have gone to other critical district races — and potentially helping to put the most pro-business downtown candidate, Theresa Sparks, in a better position to win.


Now we’ve got something of a mess — a fragmented and sometimes needlessly divisive progressive base in a district that’s key to holding progressive control of the board. And while neither of the two top progressive candidates is actively pursuing a credible ranked-choice voting strategy (Kim has, unbelievably, endorsed James Keys instead of Walker, and Walker has declined to endorse anyone else), we’re setting aside our concern over Kim’s ill-advised move and suggesting a strategy that is most likely to keep the seat Chris Daly has held for the past 10 years from falling to downtown control.


Walker is far and away our first choice. She understands land use and housing — the clear central issues in the district — and has well thought-out positions and proposals. She says that the current system of inclusionary housing — pressing market-rate developers to include a few units of below-market-rate housing with their high-end condos — simply doesn’t work. She supports an immediate affordable housing bond act and a long-term real estate transfer tax high enough to fund a steady supply of housing for the city’s workforce. She told us the city ought to be looking at planning issues from the perspective of what San Francisco needs, not what developers want to build. She’s in favor of progressive taxes and a push for local hiring. We’re happy to give her our first-place ranking.


Jane Kim has been a great SF School Board member and has always been part of the progressive community. But she only moved into District 6 a year and a half ago — about when she started talking about running for supervisor (and she told us in her endorsement interview that “D6 is a district you can run in without having lived there a long time.”) She still hasn’t been able to explain why she parachuted in to challenge an experienced progressive leader she has no substantive policy disagreements with.


That said, on the issues, Kim is consistently good. She is in favor of indexing affordable housing to market-rate housing and halting new condo development if the mix gets out of line. She’s for an affordable housing bond. She supports all the tax measures on this ballot. She’s a little softer on congestion pricing and extending parking-meter hours, but she’s open to the ideas. She supports police foot patrols not just as a law-enforcement strategy, but to encourage small businesses. She’d be a fine vote on the board. And while we’re sympathetic to the Walker supporters who would prefer that we not give Kim the credibility and exposure of an endorsement, the reality is that she’s one of two leading progressives and would be better on the board than the remaining candidates.


Hyde, a dynamic young drag queen performer, isn’t going to win. But he’s offered some great ideas and injected some fun and energy into the race. Hyde talks about creating safe injection sites for IV drug users to reduce the risk of overdoses and the spread of disease. He points out that a lot of young people age out of the foster-care system and wind up on the streets, and he’s for continuum housing that would let these young people transition to jobs or higher education. He talks about starting a co-op grocery in the Tenderloin. He proposes bus-only lanes throughout the district and wants to charge large vehicles a fee to come into the city. He’s a big advocate of nightlife and the arts. He lacks experience and needs more political seasoning, but we’re giving him the third-place nod to encourage his future involvement.


Progressives are concerned about Theresa Sparks, a transgender activist and former business executive who now runs the city’s Human Rights Commission. She did a (mostly) good job on the Police Commission. She’s experienced in city government and has good financial sense. But she’s just too conservative for what remains a very progressive district. Sparks isn’t a big fan of seeking new revenue for the city telling us that “I disagree that we’ve made all the cuts that we can” — even after four years of brutal, bloody, all-cuts budgets. She doesn’t support the hotel tax and said she couldn’t support Sup. David Chiu’s progressive business tax because it would lead to “replacing private sector jobs with public sector jobs” — even though the city’s own economic analysis shows that’s just not true. She supports Newsom’s sit-lie law.


Sparks is the candidate of the mayor and downtown, and would substantially shift the balance of power on the board. She’s also going to have huge amounts of money behind her. It’s important she be defeated.


Jim Meko, a longtime neighborhood and community activist, has good credentials and some solid ideas. He was a key player in the western SoMa planning project and helped come up with a truly progressive land-use program for the neighborhood. But he supports Prop. B and is awfully cranky about local bars and nightlife.


James Keys, who has the support of Sup. Chris Daly and was an intern in Daly’s office, has some intriguing (if not terribly practical) ideas, like combining the Sheriff’s Department and the Police Department and making Muni free). But in his interview, he demonstrated a lack of understanding of the issues facing the district and the city.


So we’re going with a ranked-choice strategy: Walker first, Kim second, Hyde third. And we hope Kim’s supporters ignore their candidate’s endorsement of Keys, put Walker as their second choice, and ensure that they don’t help elect Sparks.


 


DISTRICT 8


RAFAEL MANDELMAN


This is by far the clearest and most obvious choice on the local ballot. And it’s a critical one, a chance for progressives to reclaim the seat that once belonged to Harvey Milk and Harry Britt.


Mandelman, a former president of the Milk Club, is running as more than a queer candidate. He’s a supporter of tenants rights, immigrants’ rights, and economic and social justice. He also told us he believes “local government matters” — and that there are a lot of problems San Francisco can (and has to) solve on its own, without simply ducking and blaming Sacramento and Washington.


Mandelman argues that the public sector has been starved for years and needs more money. He agrees that there’s still a fair amount of bloat in the city budget — particularly management positions — but that even after cleaning out the waste, the city will still be far short of the money it needs to continue providing pubic services. He’s calling for a top-to-bottom review of how the city gets revenue, with the idea of creating a more progressive tax structure.


He’s an opponent of sit-lie and a supporter of the sanctuary city ordinance. He supports tenants rights and eviction protection. He’s had considerable experience (as a member of the Building Inspection Commission and Board of Appeals and as a lawyer who advises local government agencies) and would make an excellent supervisor.


Neither of the other two contenders make our endorsement cut. Rebecca Prozan is a deputy city attorney who told us she would be able to bring the warring factions on the board together. She has some interesting ideas — she’d like to see the city take over foreclosed properties and turn them into housing for teachers, cops, and firefighters — and she’s opposed to sit-lie. But she’s weak on tenant issues (she told us there’s nothing anyone can do to stop the conversion of rental housing into tenancies-in-common), doesn’t seem to grasp the need for substantial new revenues to prevent service cuts, and doesn’t support splitting the appointments to key commissions between the mayor and the supervisors.


Scott Wiener, a deputy city attorney, is a personable guy who always takes our phone calls and is honest and responsive. He’s done a lot of good work in the district. But he’s on the wrong side of many issues, and on some things would be to the right of the incumbent, Sup. Bevan Dufty.


He doesn’t support public power (which Dufty does). He says that a lot of the city’s budget problems can’t be solved until the state gets its own house in order (“we can’t tax our way out of this”) and favors a budget balanced largely by further cuts. In direct contrast to Mandelman, Wiener said San Franciscans “need to lower our expectations for government.” He wants broad-based reductions in almost all city agencies except Muni, “core” public health services, and public safety. He doesn’t support any further restrictions on condo conversions or TICs. And he has the support of the Small Property Owners Association — perhaps the most virulently anti-tenant and anti-rent control group in town.


This district once gave rise to queer political leaders who saw themselves and their struggles as part of a larger progressive movement. That’s drifted away of late — and with Mandelman, there’s a chance to bring it back.


 


DISTRICT 10


1. TONY KELLY


2. DEWITT LACY


3. CHRIS JACKSON


District 10 is the epicenter of new development in San Francisco, the place where city planners want to site as many as 40,000 new housing units, most of them high-end condos, at a cost of thousands of blue-collar jobs. The developers are salivating at the land-rush opportunities here — and the next supervisor not only needs to be an expert in land-use and development politics, but someone with the background and experience to thwart the bad ideas and direct and encourage the good ones.


There’s no shortage of candidates — 22 people are on the ballot, and at least half a dozen are serious contenders. Two — Steve Moss and Lynette Sweet — are very bad news. And one of the key priorities for progressives is defeating the big-money effort that downtown, the police, and the forces behind the Van Ness Avenue megahospital proposal are dumping into the district to elect Moss.


Our first choice is Tony Kelly, who operates Thick Description Theater and who for more than a decade has been directly involved in all the major neighborhood issues. He has a deep understanding of what the district is facing: 4,100 of the 5,300 acres in D10 have been rezoned or put under the Redevelopment Agency in the past 10 years. Planners envision as many as 100,000 new residents in the next 10 years. And the fees paid by developers will not even begin to cover the cost of the infrastructure and services needed to handle that growth.


And Kelly has solutions: The public sector will have to play a huge role in affordable housing and infrastructure, and that money should come from higher development fees — and from places like the University of California, which has a huge operation in the district and pays no property taxes. Kelly wants to set up a trigger so that if goals for affordable housing aren’t met by a set date, the market-rate development stops. He supports the revenue measures on the ballot but thinks we should go further. He opposes the pension-reform measure, Prop. B, but notes that 75 percent of the city’s pension problems come from police, fire, and management employees. He wants the supervisors to take over the Redevelopment Agency. He’s calling for a major expansion of open space and parkland in the district. And he thinks the city should direct some of the $3 billion in short-term accounts (now all with the Bank of America) to local credit unions or new municipal bank that could invest in affordable housing and small business. He’s a perfect fit for the job.


DeWitt Lacy is a civil-rights lawyer and a relative newcomer to neighborhood politics. He speaks passionately about the need for D10 to get its fair share of the city’s services and about a commitment to working-class people.


Lacy is calling for an immediate pilot program with police foot patrols in the high-crime areas of the district. He’s for increasing the requirements for developers to build affordable housing and wants to cut the payroll tax for local businesses that hire district residents.


Lacy’s vision for the future includes development that has mixed-use commuter hubs with shopping and grocery stores as well as housing. He supports the tax measures on the ballot and would be willing to extend parking meter hours — but not parking fines, which he calls an undue burden on low-income people.


He’s an outspoken foe of sit-lie and of gang injunctions, and with his background handling police abuse lawsuits, he would have a clear understanding of how to approach better law-enforcement without intimidating the community. He lacks Kelly’s history, experience, and knowledge in neighborhood issues, but he’s eminently qualified and would make a fine supervisor.


Chris Jackson, who worked at the San Francisco Labor Council and serves on the Community College Board, is our third choice. While it’s a bit unfortunate that Jackson is running for higher office only two years after getting elected to the college board, he’s got a track record and good positions on the issues. He talks of making sure that blue-collar jobs don’t get pushed out by housing, and suggested that the shipyard be used for ship repair. He wants to see the city mandate that landlords rent to people with Section 8 housing vouchers. He supports the tax measures on the ballot, but also argues that the city has 60 percent more managers than it had in 2000 and wants to bring that number down. He thinks the supervisors should take over Redevelopment, which should become “just a financing agency for affordable housing.” He wants to relocate the stinky sewage treatment plant near Third Street and Evans Avenue onto one of the piers and use the area for a transit hub. He’s still relatively unseasoned, but he has a bright political future.


Eric Smith, a biodiesel activist, is an impressive candidate too. But while his environmental credentials are good, he lacks the breadth of knowledge that our top three choices offer. But we’re glad he’s in the race and hope he stays active in community politics.


Malia Cohen has raised a lot of money and (to our astonishment) was endorsed No. 2 by the Democratic Party, but she’s by no means a progressive, particularly on tenant issues — she told us that limiting condo conversions is an infringement of property rights. And she’s way too vague on other issues.


Moss is the candidate of the big developers and the landlords, and the Chamber of Commerce is dumping tens of thousands of dollars into getting him elected. He’s got some good environmental and energy ideas — he argues that all major new developments should have their own energy distribution systems — but on the major issues, he’s either on the wrong side or (more often) can’t seem to take a stand. He said he is “still mulling over” his stand on sit-lie. He supports Sanctuary City in theory, but not the actual measure Sup. David Campos was pushing to make the policy work. He’s not sure if he likes gang injunctions or not. He only moved back to the district when he decided to run for supervisor. He’s way too conservative for the district and would be terrible on the board.


Lynette Sweet, a BART Board member, has tax problems (and problems explaining them) and wouldn’t even come to our office for an endorsement interview. The last thing D10 needs is a supervisor who’s not accountable and unwilling to talk to constituents and the press.


So we’re going with Kelly, Lacy, and Jackson as the best hope to keep D10 from becoming a district represented by a downtown landlord candidate.


 


SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF EDUCATION


MARGARET BRODKIN


KIM-SHREE MAUFAS


HYDRA MENDOZA


Three seats are up on the School Board, and three people will get elected. And it’s a contested race, and in situations like that, we always try to endorse a full slate.


This fall, it was, to put it mildly, a challenge.


It’s disturbing that we don’t have three strong progressive candidates with experience and qualifications to oversee the San Francisco Unified School District. But it seems to be increasingly difficult to find people who want to — and can afford to — devote the time to what’s really a 40-hour-a-week position that pays $500 a month. The part-time school board is an anachronism, a creature of a very different economic and social era. With the future of the next generation of San Franciscans at stake, it’s time to make the School Board a full-time job and pay the members a decent salary so that more parents and progressive education advocates can get involved in one of the most important political jobs in the city.


That said, we’ve chosen the best of the available candidates. It’s a mixed group, made up of people who don’t support each other and aren’t part of anyone’s slate. But on balance, they offer the best choices for the job.


This is not a time when the board needs radical change. Under Superintendent Carlos Garcia, the local public schools are making huge strides. Test scores are up, enrollment is increasing, and San Francisco is, by any rational measure, the best big-city public school district in California. We give considerable credit for that to the progressives on the board who got rid of the irascible, secretive, and hostile former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and replaced her with Garcia. He’s brought stability and improvement to the district, and is implementing a long-term plan to bring all the schools up to the highest levels and go after the stubborn achievement gap.


Yet any superintendent and any public agency needs effective oversight. One of the problems with the district under Ackerman was the blind support she got from school board members who hired her; it was almost as if her allies on the board were unable to see the damage she was doing and unable to hold her accountable.


Our choices reflect the need for stability — and independence. We are under no illusions — none of our candidates are perfect. But as a group, we believe they can work to preserve what the district is doing right and improve on policies that aren’t working.


Kim-Shree Maufas has been a staunch progressive on the board. She got into a little trouble last year when the San Francisco Chronicle reported that she’d been using a school district credit card for personal expenses. That’s not a great move, but she never actually took public money since she paid back the district. Maufas said she thought she could use the card as long as she reimbursed the district for her own expenses; the rules are now clear and she’s had no problems since. We don’t consider this a significant enough failure in judgment to prevent her from continuing to do what she’s been doing: serving as an advocate on the board for low-income kids and teachers.


Maufas is a big supporter of restorative justice and is working for ways to reduce suspensions and expulsions. She wants to make sure advanced placement and honors classes are open to anyone who can handle the coursework. She supports the new school assignment process (as do all the major candidates), although she acknowledges that there are some potential problems. She told us she thinks the district should go back to the voters for a parcel tax to supplement existing funding for the schools.


Margaret Brodkin is a lightening rod. In fact, much of the discussion around this election seems to focus on Brodkin. Since she entered the race, she’s eclipsed all the other issues, and there’s been a nasty whisper campaign designed to keep her off the board.


We’ve had our issues with Brodkin. When she worked for Mayor Newsom, she was part of a project that brought private nonprofits into city recreation centers to provide services — at a time when unionized public employees of the Recreation and Parks Department were losing their jobs. It struck us as a clear privatization effort by the Newsom administration, and it raised a flag that’s going to become increasingly important in the school district: there’s a coming clash between people who think private nonprofits can provide more services to the schools and union leaders who fear that low-paid nonprofit workers will wind up doing jobs now performed by unionized district staff. And Brodkin’s role in the Newsom administration — and her background in the nonprofit world — is certainly ground for some concern.


But Brodkin is also by far the most qualified person to run for San Francisco school board in years, maybe decades. She’s a political legend in the city, the person who is most responsible for making issues of children and youth a centerpiece of the progressive agenda. In her years as director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, she tirelessly worked to make sure children weren’t overlooked in the budget process and was one of the authors of the initiative that created the Children’s Fund. She’s run a nonprofit, run a city department, and is now working on education issues.


She’s a feisty person who can be brusque and isn’t always conciliatory — but those characteristics aren’t always bad. Sup. Chris Daly used his anger and passion to push for social justice on the Board of Supervisors and, despite some drawbacks, he’s been an effective public official.


And Brodkin is full of good ideas. She talks about framing what a 21st century education looks like, about creating community schools, about aligning after-school and summer programs with the academic curriculum. She wants the next school bond act to include a central kitchen, so local kids can get locally produced meals (the current lunch fare is shipped in frozen from out of state).


Brodkin needs to remember that there’s a difference between being a bare-knuckles advocate and a member of a functioning school board. But given her skills, experience, and lifetime in progressive causes, we’re willing to give her a chance.


We also struggled over endorsing Hydra Mendoza. She works for Mayor Newsom as an education advisor — and that’s an out-front conflict of interest. She’s a fan of Obama’s Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, whose policies are regressive and dangerous.


On the other hand, she cares deeply about kids and public education. She’s not a big supporter of charter schools (“I’ve yet to see a charter school that offers anything we can’t do ourselves,” she told us) and while she was on the wrong side of a lot of issues (like JROTC) early in her tenure, over the past two years she’s been a good School Board member.


There are several other candidates worth mentioning. Bill Barnes, an aide to Michela Alioto-Pier, is a good guy, a decent progressive — but has no experience in or direct connection to the public schools. Natasha Hoehn is in the education nonprofit world and speaks with all the jargon of the educrat, but her proposals and her stands on issues are vague. Emily Murase is a strong parent advocate with some good ideas, but she struck us as a bit too conservative (particularly on JROTC and charter schools.) Jamie Wolfe teaches at a private school but lacks any real constituency or experience in local politics and the education community.


So given a weak field with limited alternatives, we’re going with Maufas, Brodkin and Mendoza.


 


SAN FRANCISCO COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD


JOHN RIZZO


The San Francisco Community College District has been a mess for years, and it’s only now starting to get back on track. That’s the result of the election of a few progressive reformers — Milton Marks, Chris Jackson, and John Rizzo, who now have enough clout on the seven-member board to drag along a fourth vote when they need it.


But the litany of disasters they’ve had to clean up is almost endless. A chancellor (who other incumbent board members supported until the end) is now under indictment. Public money that was supposed to go to the district wound up in a political campaign. An out-of-control semiprivate college foundation has been hiding its finances from the public. The college shifted bond money earmarked for an arts center into a gigantic, expensive gym with a pool that the college can’t even pay to operate, so it’s leased out to a private high school across the street.


And the tragedy is that all three incumbents — two of whom should have stepped down years ago — are running unopposed.


With all the attention on the School Board and district elections, not one progressive — in fact, not one candidate of any sort — has stepped forward to challenge Anita Grier and Lawrence Wong. So they’ll get another term, and the reformers will have to continue to struggle.


We’re endorsing only Rizzo, a Sierra Club staffer who has been in the lead in the reform bloc. He needs to end up as the top vote-getter, which would put him in position to be the board president. Rizzo has worked to get the district’s finances and foundation under control and he richly deserves reelection.


 


BART BOARD OF DIRECTORS, DISTRICT 8


BERT HILL


It’s about time somebody mounted a serious challenge to James Fang, the only elected Republican in San Francisco and a member of one of the most dysfunctional public agencies in California. The BART Board is a mess, spending a fortune on lines that are hardly ever used and unable to work effectively with other transit agencies or control a police force that has a history of brutality and senseless killing.


Fang supports the suburban extensions and Oakland Airport connector, which make no fiscal or transportation sense. He’s ignored problems with the BART Police for 20 years. It’s time for him to leave office.


Bert Hill is a strong challenger. A professional cost-management executive, he understands that BART is operating on an old paradigm of carrying people from the suburbs into the city. “Before we go on building any more extensions,” he told us, “we should take care of San Francisco.” He wants the agency to work closely with Muni and agrees there’s a need for a BART sunshine policy to make the notoriously secretive agency more open to public scrutiny. We strongly endorse him.


 


ASSESSOR-RECORDER


PHIL TING


San Francisco needs an aggressive assessor who looks for every last penny that big corporations are trying to duck paying — but this is also a job that presents an opportunity for challenging the current property tax laws. Phil Ting’s doing pretty well with the first part — and unlike past assessors, is actually stepping up to the plate on the second. He’s been pushing a statewide coalition to reform Prop. 13 — and while it’s an uphill battle, it’s good to see a tax assessor taking it on. Ting has little opposition and will be reelected easily.


 


PUBLIC DEFENDER


JEFF ADACHI


Adachi’s done a great job of running the office that represents indigent criminal defendants. He’s been outspoken on criminal justice issues. Until this year, he was often mentioned as a potential progressive candidate for mayor.


That’s over now. Because Adachi decided (for reasons we still can’t comprehend) to join the national attack on public employees and put Prop. B on the ballot, he’s lost any hope of getting support for higher office from the left. And since the moderate and conservative forces will never be comfortable with a public defender moving up in the political world, Adachi’s not going anywhere anytime soon.


Which is fine. He’s doing well at his day job. We wish he’d stuck to it and not taken on a divisive, expensive, and ill-conceived crusade to cut health care benefits for city employees.


 


SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT


SEAT 15


MICHAEL NAVA


To hear some of the brahmins of the local bench and bar tell it, the stakes in this election are immense — the independence of the judiciary hangs in the balance. If a sitting judge who is considered eminently qualified for the job and has committed no ethical or legal breaches can be challenged by an outsider who is seeking more diversity on the bench, it will open the floodgates to partisan hacks taking on good judges — and force judicial candidates to raise money from lawyers and special interests, thus undermining the credibility of the judiciary.


We are well aware of the problems of judicial elections around the country. In some states, big corporations that want to influence judges raise and spend vast sums on trial and appellate court races — and typically get their way. In Iowa, three judges who were willing to stand on principle and Constitutional law and declare same-sex marriage legal are facing what amounts to a well-funded recall effort. California is not immune — in more conservative counties, liberal judges face getting knocked off the bench by law-and-order types.


It’s a serious issue. It’s worth a series of hearings in the state Legislature, and it might be worth Constitutional change. Maybe trial-court elections should be eliminated. Maybe all judicial elections should have public campaign financing. But right now, it’s an elected office — at least in theory.


In practice, the vast majority of the judicial slots in California are filled by appointment. Judges serve for four-year terms but tend to retire or step down in midterm, allowing the governor to fill the vacancy. Unless someone files specifically to challenge an incumbent, typically appointed judge, that race never even appears on the ballot.


The electoral process is messy and political, and raising money is unseemly for a judicial officer. But the appointment process is hardly pure, either — and governors in California have, over the past 30 years, appointed the vast majority of the judges from the ranks of big corporate law firms and district attorney’s offices.


There are, of course, exceptions, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been better than his predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis. But overall, public interest lawyers, public defenders, and people with small community practices (and, of course, people who have no political strings to pull in Sacramento) have been frustrated. And it’s no surprise that some have sought to run against incumbents.


That’s what’s happening here. Michael Nava, a gay Latino who has been working as a research attorney for California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, was going to run for a rare open seat this year, but the field quickly got crowded. So Nava challenged Richard Ulmer, a corporate lawyer appointed by Schwarzenegger who has been on the bench a little more than a year.


We will stipulate, as the lawyers say: Ulmer has done nothing wrong. From all accounts, he’s a fine judge (and before taking the bench, he did some stellar pro bono work fighting for reforms in the juvenile detention system). So there are two questions here: Should Nava have even filed to run against Ulmer? And since he did, who is the better candidate?


It’s important to understand this isn’t a case of special interests and that big money wanting to oust a judge because of his politics or rulings. Nava isn’t backed by any wealthy interest. There’s no clear parallel to the situations in other areas and other states where the judiciary is being compromised by electoral politics. Nava had every right to run — and has mounted an honest campaign that discusses the need for diversity on the bench.


Ulmer’s supporters note — correctly — that the San Francisco courts have more ethnic and gender diversity than any county in the state. And we’re not going to try to come to a conclusion here about how much diversity is enough.


But we will say that life experience matters, and judges bring to the bench what they’ve lived. Nava, who is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and the first person in his family to go to college, may have a different perspective on how low-income people of color are treated in the courts than a former Republican who spent his professional career in big law firms.


We were impressed by Nava’s background and knowledge — and by his interest in opening up the courts. He supports cameras in the courtrooms and allowing reporters to record court proceedings. He told us the meetings judges hold on court administration should be open to the public.


We’re willing to discuss whether judicial elections make sense. Meanwhile, judges who don’t like the idea of challenges should encourage their colleagues not to retire in midterm. If all the judges left at the end of a four-year term, there would be plenty of open seats and fewer challenges. But for now, there’s nothing in this particular election that makes us fear for the independence of the courts. Vote for Nava.


 


>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

Endorsements 2010: State ballot measures

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Endorsements 2010: State ballot measures

PROP. 19

LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

YES, YES, YES

The most surprising thing about Prop. 19 is how it has divided those who say they support the legalization of marijuana. Critics within the cannabis community say decriminalization should occur at the federal level or with uniform statewide standards rather that letting cities and counties set their own regulations, as the measure does. Sure, fully legalizing marijuana on a large scale and regulating its use like tobacco and alcohol would be better — but that’s just not going to happen anytime soon. As we learned with the legalization of marijuana for medical uses through Prop. 215 in 1996, there are still regional differences in the acceptance of marijuana, so cities and counties should be allowed to treat its use differently based on local values. Maybe San Francisco wants full-blown Amsterdam-style hash bars while Fresno would prefer far more limited distribution options — and that’s fine.

Other opponents from within marijuana movement are simply worried about losing market share or triggering federal scrutiny of a system that seems to be working well for many. But those are selfish reasons to oppose the long-overdue next step in legalizing adult use of cannabis, a step we need to take even if there is some uncertainty about what comes next. By continuing with prohibition Californians and their demand for pot are empowering the Mexican drug cartels and their violence and political corruption; perpetuating a drug war mentality that is ruining lives, wasting resources, and corrupting police agencies that share in the take from drug-related property seizures; and depriving state and local governments of tax revenue from the California’s number one cash crop.

Bottom line: if there are small problems with this measure, they can be corrected with state legislation that Assemblymember Tom Ammiano has already pledged to carry and that Prop. 19 explicitly allows. But this is the moment and the measure we need to seize to continue making progress in our approach to marijuana in California. Vote yes on Prop. 19.

 

PROP. 20

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT REAPPORTIONMENT

NO

Prop. 20 seeks to transfer the power to draw congressional districts from elected officials to the 14-member California Citizens Redistricting Commission, the state agency created in 2008 to draw boundary lines for California state legislative districts and Board of Equalization districts.

Supporters argue that Prop. 20, (which is backed by Charles Munger Jr., the heir to an investment fortune) would create more competitive elections and holds politicians accountable. And indeed, there’s been some funky gerrymandering going on the the state for decades.

But the commission is hardly a fair body — it has the same number of Republicans as Democrats in a state where there are far more Democrats than Republicans. And most states still draw lines the old-fashioned way, so Prop. 20 could give the GOP an advantage in a Democratic state. States like Texas and Florida, notorious for pro-Republican gerrymandering, aren’t planning to change how they do their districts.

That’s why former state Assemblymember John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), who lost his recent bid for the State Senate thanks to gerrymandering and an August special election, calls Prop. 20 “the unilateral disarmament of California.”

It could also create a political mess in San Francisco, Laird said. “An independent commission could end up dividing the city north/south, not east/west. Or it could throw Sen. Mark Leno and Leland Yee into the same district.” Vote no.

 

PROP. 21

VEHICLE LICENSE FEE FOR PARKS

YES

Part of the reason California is in the fiscal crisis it is now facing — underfunding schools, slashing services, and considering selling off state parks — is because Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for office on a pandering pledge to deeply cut the vehicle license fee, costing the state tens of billions of dollars since then. It was the opposite of what this state should have been doing if it was serious about addressing global warming and other environmental imperatives, not to mention encouraging car drivers to come closer to paying for their full societal impacts, which study after study shows they don’t now do. This measure doesn’t fully correct that mistake, but it’s a start.

Prop. 21 would charge an $18 annual fee on vehicle license registrations and reserve at least half of the $500 million it would generate for state park maintenance and wildlife conservation programs. As an added incentive, the measure would also give cars free entrance to the state parks, a $50 million perk. Of the remaining $450 million, $200 million could be used to back-fill state general fund revenue now going to these functions, which means most of this money would go to parks and wildlife.

We’d rather see funds derived from private car use go to mass transit and other alternatives to the automobile, but we’re not going to quibble with the details on this one. California desperately needs the money, and it’s time for drivers to start giving back some of the money they shouldn’t have been given in the first place.

 

PROP. 22

LOCAL REDEVELOPMENT FUNDS

NO

This one sounds good, on the surface: Prop. 22 would prevent the state from taking money from city redevelopment agencies to balance the budget in Sacramento. But it’s not so simple: Sometimes it actually makes sense to use redevelopment money to fund, say, education — and only the state can do that. Besides, this particular bill only protects cities, not counties — so San Francisco will take even more of a hit in tough times. Vote no.

 

PROP. 23

SUSPENDING AIR POLLUTION CONTROL LAWS

NO, NO, NO

Think of Prop. 23 as a band of right-wing extremists orchestrating a sneak attack on the one hope this country has for removing its head from the tarball-sticky sand and actually doing something, for real this time, about global warming. Assembly Bill 32, California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, imposes enforceable limits on greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 — and now, Big Oil is drilling deep into its pockets in an effort to blow up those limits.

Funded by Texas oil companies Tesoro Corporation and Valero Energy Corporation in conjunction with the Koch brothers, billionaires who have been called the financial backbone of the Tea Party, Prop. 23 would reverse a hard-fought victory by suspending AB32 until unemployment drops to 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters — not likely to happen anytime soon. In truly sleazy fashion, proponents have dubbed Prop. 23 the “California jobs initiative.”

The environmental arguments for rejecting Prop. 23 are obvious, but this time there’s a twist — even the business community doesn’t like it. Take it from Rob Black of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, which is actively opposing Prop. 23. “There is a fear that clean energy policy is a communist plot,” Black explained. “We actually think it’s a good capitalist strategy.” To most business leaders, AB32 is like the goose that laid the golden egg — it encourages investment in green technology, which is probably California’s best future economic hope. Vote no on 23.

 

PROP. 24

BUSINESS TAXES

YES

Prop. 24 repeals some special-interest tax breaks that the Legislature had to accept as part of the latest budget deal. In essence, it restores about $1.7 billion worth of taxes on corporations, particularly larger ones that hide income among various affiliates. Vote yes.

 

PROP. 25

SIMPLE MAJORITY BUDGET PASSAGE

YES, YES, YES

Prop. 25 would be a step toward ending the budget madness that defines California politics every year. It would allow the state Legislature to pass a budget and budget-related legislation can be passed with a simple majority vote.

It’s not a full solution — a two-thirds vote would still be required to pass taxes. But at least it would allow the majority party to approve a blueprint for state spending and help end the gridlock caused by a small number of Republicans. Vote yes.

 

PROP. 26

TWO-THIRDS VOTE FOR FEES

NO, NO, NO.

Prop. 26 would require a two-thirds supermajority vote in the Legislature and at the ballot box in local communities to pass fees, levies, charges and tax revenue allocations that under existing rules can be enacted by a simple majority vote

It’s supported by the Chamber of Commerce, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, the Wine Institute, and Aera Energy.

Opponents argue that Prop. 26 should be called the “Polluter Protection Act” because it would make it harder to impose fees on corporations that cause environmental or public health problems. For example, it would be harder to impose so-called “pollution fees” on corporations that discharge toxics into the air or water. It would also make it nearly impossible for San Francisco to impose revenue measures like the Alcohol Fee sponsored by Sup. John Avalos. It’s another in a long line of attempts at the state level to block local government from raising money. Vote no.

 

PROP. 27

ELIMINATING REDISTRICTING COMMISSION

YES

We opposed the 2008 ballot measure creating the redistricting commission, arguing that, while allowing the state Legislature to draw its own seats is a problem, the solution would make things worse. The panel isn’t at all representative of the state (it has an equal number of Republicans and Democrats) and could be insensitive to the political demographics of California cities (it makes sense, for example, to have Senate and Assembly lines in San Francisco divide the city into east and west sides because that’s how the politics of the city tend to break).

This measure abolishes that panel and would allow the Legislature to draw new lines for both state and federal offices after the 2010 census. We don’t love having the Legislature handle that task — but we like the existing, unaccountable, unrepresentative agency even less. Vote yes.

 

>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

Endorsements 2010: State races

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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24
Endorsements 2010: State races

GOVERNOR

EDMUND G. BROWN

We have issues with Jerry Brown. The one-time environmental leader who left an admirable progressive legacy his first time in the governor’s office (including the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the California Conservation Corps, and the liberal Rose Bird Supreme Court) and who is willing to stand up and oppose the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant has become a centrist, tough-on-crime, no-new-taxes candidate. And his only solution to the state budget problems is to bring all the players together early and start talking.

But at least since he’s started to debate Republican Meg Whitman face to face, he’s showing some signs of life — and flashes of the old Jerry. He’s strongly denouncing Whitman’s proposal to wipe out capital gains taxes, reminding voters of the huge hole that would blow in the state budget — and the $5 billion windfall it would give to the rich. He’s talking about suing Wall Street financial firms that cheated Californians. He’s promoting green jobs and standing firm in support of the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions limits.

For all his drawbacks (his insistence, for example, that the Legislature shouldn’t raise any taxes without a statewide vote of the people), Brown is at least part of the reality-based community. He understands that further tax cuts for the rich won’t solve California’s problems. He knows that climate change is real. He’s not great on immigration issues, but at least he’s cognizant that 2 million undocumented immigrants live in California — and the state can’t just arrest and deport them all.

Whitman is more than a conservative Republican. She’s scary. The centerpiece of her economic platform calls for laying off 40,000 state employees — thereby greatly increasing the state’s unemployment rate. Her tax plan would increase the state’s deficit by another $5 billion just so that a tiny number of the richest taxpayers (including her) can keep more of their money. She’s part of the nativist movement that wants to close the borders.

She’s also one of the growing number of candidates who think personal wealth and private-sector business success translate to an ability to run a complex state government. That’s a dangerous trend — Whitman has no political experience or background (until recently she didn’t even vote) and will be overcome by the lobbyists in Sacramento.

This is a critically important election for California. Vote for Jerry Brown.

 

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

 

GAVIN NEWSOM

Why is the mayor of San Francisco running for a job he once dismissed as worthless? Simple: he couldn’t get elected governor, and he wants a place to perch for a while until he figures out what higher office he can seek. It’s almost embarrassing in its cold political calculus, but that’s something we’ve come to expect from Newsom.

We endorsed Newsom’s opponent, Janice Hahn, in the Democratic primary. It was hard to make a case for advancing the political career of someone who has taken what amounts to a Republican approach to running the city’s finances — he’s addressed every budget problem entirely with cuts, pushed a “no-new-taxes” line, and given the wealthy everything they wanted. His immigration policies have broken up families and promoted deporting kids. He’s done Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a nice favor by doing nothing to help the community choice aggregation program move forward.

Nevertheless, we’re endorsing Newsom over his Republican opponent, Abel Maldonado, because there really isn’t any choice. Maldonado is a big supporter of the death penalty (which Newsom opposes). He’s pledged never to raise taxes (and Newsom is at least open to discussion on the issue). He used budget blackmail to force the awful open-primaries law onto the ballot. He’s a supporter of big water projects like the peripheral canal. In the Legislature, he earned a 100 percent rating from the California Chamber of Commerce.

Newsom’s a supporter of more funding for higher education (and the lieutenant governor sits on the University of California Board of Regents). He’d be at least a moderate environmentalist on the state Lands Commission. And he, like Brown, is devoting a lot of attention to improving the state’s economy with green jobs.

We could do much worse than Newsom in the lieutenant governor’s office. We could have Maldonado. Vote for Newsom.

 

SECRETARY OF STATE

 

DEBRA BOWEN

California has had some problems with the office that runs elections and keeps corporate filings. Kevin Shelley had to resign from the job in 2005 in the face of allegations that a state grant of $125,000 was illegally diverted into his campaign account. But Bowen, by all accounts, has run a clean office. Her Republican opponent, Damon Dunn, a former professional football player and real estate agent, doesn’t even have much support within his own party and is calling for mandatory ID checks at the ballot. This one’s easy; vote for Bowen.

 

CONTROLLER

 

JOHN CHIANG

Chiang’s been a perfectly decent controller, and at times has shown some political courage: When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to cut the pay of state employees to minimum-wage level, Chiang refused to go along — and forced the governor to back down. His opponent, state Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Los Angeles), wants to use to office to promote cuts in government spending. Vote for Chiang.

 

TREASURER

 

BILL LOCKYER

Lockyer’s almost certain to win reelection as treasurer against a weak Republican, Mimi Walters. He’s done an adequate job and pushed a few progressive things like using state bonds to promote alternative energy. Mostly, though, he seems to be waiting for his chance to run for governor — and if Jerry Brown loses, or wins and decides not to seek a second term, look for Lockyer to step up.

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL

 

KAMALA HARRIS

This is going to be close, and it’s another clear choice. We’ve had our differences with Harris — she’s trying too hard to be a tough-on-crime type, pushing some really dumb bills in Sacramento (like a measure that would bar sex offenders from ever using social networking sites on the Internet). And while she shouldn’t take all the blame for the problems in the San Francisco crime lab, she should have known about the situation earlier and made more of a fuss. She’s also been slow to respond to serious problem of prosecutors and the cops hiding information about police misconduct from defense lawyers that could be relevant to a case.

But her opponent, Los Angeles D.A. Steve Cooley, is bad news. He’s a big proponent of the death penalty, and the ACLU last year described L.A. as the leading “killer county in the country.” Cooley has proudly sent 50 people to death row since he became district attorney in 2001, and he vows to make it easier and more efficient for the state to kill people.

He’s also a friend of big business who has vowed, even as attorney general, to make the state more friendly to employers — presumably by slowing prosecutions of corporate wrongdoing.

Harris, to her credit, has refused to seek the death penalty in San Francisco, and would bring the perspective of a woman of color to the AG’s office. For all her flaws, she would be far better in the AG’s office than Cooley. Vote for Harris.

 

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER

 

DAVE JONES

Jones, currently a state Assemblymember from Sacramento, won a contested primary against his Los Angeles colleague Hector de la Torre and is now fighting Republican Mike Villines of Fresno, also a member of the Assembly. Jones is widely known as a consumer advocate and was a foe of Prop. 17, the insurance industry scam on the June ballot. A former Legal Aid lawyer, he has extensive experience in health-care reform, supports single-payer health coverage, and would make an excellent insurance commissioner.

Villines pretty much follows right-wing orthodoxy down the line. He wants to replace employer-based insurance with health savings accounts. He argues that the solution to the cost of health insurance is to limit malpractice lawsuits. He wants to limit workers compensation claims. And he supports “alternatives to litigation,” which means eliminating the rights of consumers to sue insurance companies.

Not much question here. Vote for Jones.

 

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION, DISTRICT 1

 

BETTY YEE

The Board of Equalization isn’t well known, but it plays a sizable role in setting and enforcing California tax policy. Yee’s a strong progressive who has done well in the office, supporting progressive financial measures. She’s spoken out — as a top tax official — in favor of legalizing and taxing marijuana. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.

 

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

 

TOM TORLAKSON

We fully expected a November runoff between Torlakson and state Sen. Gloria Romero. Both Democrats had strong fundraising and political bases — and very different philosophies. Romero’s a big charter school and privatization fan; Torlakson has the support of the teachers unions. But to the surprise of nearly everyone, a wild-card candidate, retired Los Angeles educator Larry Aceves, came in first, with Torlakson second and Romero third. Now Aceves and Torlakson are in the runoff for this nonpartisan post.

Aceves is an interesting candidate, a former principal and school superintendent who has the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Green Party. But he’s too quick to take the easy line that the teachers’ unions are the biggest problem in public education, and he wants the unilateral right to suspend labor contracts.

Torlakson wants more charter-school accountability and more funding for primary education. He’s the far better candidate.

 

STATE SENATE

 

DISTRICT 8

Leland Yee

Yee’s got no opposition to speak of, and will easily be re-elected. So why is he spending money on a series of slick television ads that have been airing all over San Francisco, talking about education and sending people to his website? It’s pretty obvious: The Yee for state Senate campaign is the opening act of the Yee for San Francisco mayor campaign, which should kick into high gear sometime next spring. In other words, if Yee has his way, he’ll serve only a year of his next four-year term.

Yee infuriates his colleagues at times, particularly when he refuses to vote for a budget that nobody likes but everyone knows is necessary to keep the state afloat. He’s done some ridiculous things, like pushing to sell the Cow Palace as surplus state property and turn the land over to private real estate developers. But he’s always good on open-government issues, is pushing for greater accountability for companies that take tax breaks and then send jobs out of state, has pushed for accountability at the University of California, and made great progress in opening the records at semiprivate university foundations when he busted Stanislaus State University for its secret speaking-fees deal with Sarah Palin.

With a few strong reservations, we’ll endorse Yee for another term.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 12

 

FIONA MA

A clear hold-your-nose endorsement. Ma has done some truly bad things in Sacramento, like pushing a bill that would force the San Francisco Unified School District to allow military recruiters in the high schools and fronting for landlords on a bill to limit rent control in trailer parks. But she’s good on public power and highly critical of PG&E, and she has no opposition to speak of.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 13

 

TOM AMMIANO

Ammiano’s a part of San Francisco history, and without his leadership as a supervisor, we might not have a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors. Ammiano was one of the architects of the return to district elections, and his 1999 mayoral campaign (against Willie Brown) marked a turning point in the organization, sophistication, and ultimate success of the city’s left. He was the author of the rainy day fund (which has kept the public schools from massive layoffs over the past couple of years) and the Healthy San Francisco plan.

In Sacramento, he’s been a leader in the effort to legalize (and tax) marijuana and to demand accountability for the BART Police. He’s taken on the unpleasant but critical task of chairing the Public Safety Committee and killing the worst of the right-wing crime bills before they get to the floor. He has four more years in Sacramento, and we expect to see a lot more solid progressive legislation coming out of his office. We enthusiastically endorse him for reelection.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 14

 

NANCY SKINNER

Skinner’s a good progressive, a good ally for Ammiano on the Public Safety Committee, and a friend of small business and fair taxation. Her efforts to make out-of-state companies that sell products in California pay state sales tax would not only bring millions into the state coffers but protect local merchants from the likes of Amazon. We don’t get why she’s joined with Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates to try to get rid of Kriss Worthington, the most progressive member of the Berkeley City Council, but we’ll endorse her for re-election.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 16

 

SANDRE SWANSON

Swanson’s a good vote most of the time in Sacramento, but he’s not yet the leader he could be — particularly on police accountability. The BART Police murdered Oscar Grant in Swanson’s district, yet it fell to a San Franciscan, Tom Ammiano, to introduce strong state legislation to force BART to have civilian oversight of the transit cops. Still, he’s done some positive things (like protecting state workers who blow the whistle on fraud) and deserves another term.

 

>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

Opinion: For Democratic unity

Zelda Bronstein
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6
Opinion: For Democratic unity

We ran out of space in today’s print edition and couldn’t publish either of the two opeds I wanted to run, so I’m posting them here. The first one is by the chairman of the SF Democratic Party.

By  Aaron Peskin

As one of the most Democratic cities in California, San Francisco has a special responsibility to make sure we help elect a Democratic ticket on November 2nd.  We always take that responsibility seriously – but this year we will have the pleasure of helping elect our own to statewide office: Gavin Newsom as Lt. Governor, Kamala Harris as Attorney General and even native son Jerry Brown as California’s next Governor.

Because so many of our nominees are from San Francisco – and because San Francisco is so Democratic – and because so many of the statewide elections are so, so close – what we do to turn out the vote here in San Francisco could very well be the difference between victory and defeat for many statewide candidates. 

A quick look at the numbers shows just how important San Francisco could be in this year’s statewide races. In November of 2008, a total of 388,112 San Franciscans cast ballots. In November of 2006, the last gubernatorial contest, just 253,719 San Franciscans voted. That is a difference of 134,393 votes.

Local Democratic Party leaders agree a coordinated campaign could turn out at least 20% of these “occasional” voters and probably many more.  That means we could add a minimum of more than 25,000 votes from this Democratic base to the statewide total.

In a year in which the polls show razor-thin margins separating the winners from the losers, a 25,000 vote margin could make the difference between Democratic policies like support for schools, investing in green jobs and protecting a woman’s right to choose and the Republican reaction supported by Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Steve Cooley and Able Maldonado.
Considering how important Democratic unity is to our city and our state – we need to pay it more than lip service. And that’s what our local party is trying to do.

It is certainly true that there are important local issues upon which we disagree. For example, I certainly take issue with some of Mayor Newsom’s positions – such as his so-called Sit/Lie ordinance. I know that he takes issue with many of my positions.

There are many in our party unhappy with Newsom for putting an attack on the ballot on the elected members of the local party in this crucial election.  Again, I know Mayor Newsom has expressed his displeasure with the local party for not supporting some of his candidates and positions.

But these local disagreements are small in comparison to what is at stake for Californians. They are actually small compared to what is at stake for San Franciscans – a city that relies on state aid to support our schools and colleges, much of our local health services and many other important programs.

That’s why unity is the only sensible policy in this crucial 4-weeks of voting until the November 2nd election. And that’s why I have a simple and genuine invitation to Mayor Newsom and the other statewide candidates.

Come help us help you.

We are gathering every day at our headquarters at 1261 Howard Street to knock on doors, register voters and make phone calls to get out the vote.  Come show with your presence that turning out the vote is so important that we will turn aside both petty differences and legitimate policy disagreements on local concerns.

Across California our opponents are attacking “San Francisco” Values. Come show that a core value of San Francisco Democrats is uniting to support the greater good.

The family Yañez and their evolving altars

Andrew Lam
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0

To hear father and son artistic team Rene and Rio Yañez talk about San Francisco’s Day of the Dead celebration is to realize how much the holiday has taken on its own light here in the city. “It’s about personal experience, but also politics,” Rene says. The duo have crafted another year of homage to the dead around us — and in so doing also reflect a shifting scene in San Francisco art.

No art event in the city reflects evolving tradition more than the Yañezs’ yearly exhibit of Dia de los Muertos altars at SOMArts Cultural Center (opening Fri/8). As the three of us sit in Rene’s office at SOMArts next to the cow brain in a mason jar on top of which the elder Yañez — the center’s director of special projects — has stacked a pair of headphones and a plush Taco Bell chihuahua, Rene tells his son and myself about the first public Day of the Dead celebration in San Francisco.

Rene, a seminal figure in the Mission art scene, held the first year of the altar installations in the early ’70s at his neighborhood community art hub from that time, Galería de la Raza. In an area full of Central and South American activists who had lost their home due to oppressive regimes and political exile, he and other artists figured it was time to start acknowledging the Mexican holiday of death, parody, and remembrance in their new community. 

In Mexico, Dia de los Muertos is celebrated by the gathering of family, of processions to the cemetery to mark loved ones’ graves with ofrendas of marigolds, sugar skulls, and refreshments. In the Mission, that feeling of community and import was to be replicated with a distinctly San Franciscan twist. “We talked about creating a ritual, ceremonial exhibit,” Rene says.

In those early days, it was mainly the Latinos that lived in the neighborhood that came to see the altars that Yañez and fellow artists created in the Galería. But soon, word of the popular exhibit spread, and it became a teaching moment for those outside the culture. School groups would come by for a field trip, occasions for which the Galeria printed out Day of the Dead lesson plans. 

Still, not every one immediately understood the holiday’s significance. “It’s not really a morbid holiday,” Rene tells me. “People use it to make fun of death, some people make political statements, some people use humor.” That approach “made some people preoccupied,” Rene says, a smile flickering over his face. “They were seeing skulls and things like that.” “It’s about celebrating death as a part of life,” Rio supplies.

Of course, things have changed over the last forty years. Nowadays, the esoteric procession that began in the Mission in the ’80s to mark the holiday has grown into a 15,000 person yearly event, and has been jokingly termed “Day of the Dead Gringos” and “Gringos Gone Wild” by some local blogs for the Burning Man-style theatrical costumes, stilting, and concept artwork contributed by those with nary a drop of Latino blood in their body.

Which, Rio Yañez says, is just fine. Rio – who dad Rene jokingly calls “a cholo hipster” – was born and raised in the Mission, watching his family stave off eviction notices during the dot com boom and beyond during times when rent prices in his neighborhood have soared. Unlike many of his childhood friends, he has chosen to remain in the Mission, and having graduated from CalArts, now partners with his father at SOMArts. 

In the Day of the Dead celebration’s cultural inclusivity, Rio finds a positive benefit for the city’s diverse tribes. “It’s a way of sharing culture – even with all the drunk hipsters just having a good time marching there’s still a community spirit.” When I ask him whether the Mission Latino community can still claim ownership of the procession, he replies diplomatically. “The neighborhood has changed so much — the parade is a reflection of that.”

Rene concurs. “I haven’t experienced a neighborhood that hasn’t changed,” he tells me.

That kind of cultural shift is reflected in the Yañez-curated SOMArts exhibition. Past years’ exhibits have paid homage to deceased family members, to the victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, and even to the artists themselves – last year one contributor passed away during the altar’s run at SOMArts, and her installation was augmented by fellow mourners to reflect the snuffing of a creative life. Although the papel picado and traditional iconography remain a part of the vast labyrinth of artists’ contributions at SOMArts, the things mourned and celebrated ring universal, hurts and hopes accessible to everyone present in the melting pot of the city.

This year, the Day of the Dead artists come from all over, and hail from all age groups. Some, like CJ Grossman, Susan Matthews, and Jos Sances have been working with Rene on the exhibit since the late ’80s. Others, like photographer Amanda Lopez, have been brought in by Rio, who is aiding in the transition to online culture, contributing his own photographic skills to the effort, and scouts talent from the younger artistic circles he runs in.

Which isn’t to say that Rene hasn’t taken advantage of some of today’s most cutting edge art technologies, including the Avatar-inspired mania for 3D. Before I leave SOMArts, he produces a sheaf of 3D renderings he’s created on the computer and a flashy pair of red and blue-lensed glasses – far more impressive than anything that I’ve been handed en route to Toy Story 3. 

I put them on, and a galaxy of Mexican masked wrestlers, women, and designs pop up at varying levels in front of my eyes. The images, Rene tells me, will be projected on the walls of the Day of the Dead exhibit to create a saturated visual experience. More evidence of tradition – and the family Yañez – gathering no moss in the name of art. 

 

Dia de los Muertos Exhibition: Honoring Revolution With Visions of Healing

(through Nov. 6)

Opening reception: Fri/8 6- 9 p.m., $5-10 sliding scale

SOMArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, SF

(415) 863-1414

www.somarts.org

 

Quick Lit: Oct. 6-Oct. 12

David Talbot
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0

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Litquake 2010 goes out with a bang featuring novelists, scientists, poets, comedians, sexy storytellers, and more, culminating in this year’s not-to-be-missed Lit Crawl.


Wednesday, Oct. 6

“The Art of Narrative Nonfiction”
Much is said about how to write fiction, but what about non-fiction? This panel moderated by best-selling author David Ewing Duncan will discuss the techniques for turning a biography into a National Book Award Winner. Featuring Tamim Ansary, Frances Dinkelspiel, Richard Rhodes, and T.J. Stiles.
6 p.m., free
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.litquake.org

Bawdy Storytelling
Hear real people sharing their bona fide sexual exploits in ten minutes or less. Storytellers are an eclectic mix of authors, poets, comedians, actors, and regular people, including Tim Barsky, Stephen Elliot, Johnny Funcheap, Jow Klocek, Joe Kukura, and Morgan.
7 p.m., $10
Blue Macaw
2565 Mission, SF
www.litquake.org

“The Complex Societies of Ants and Honeybees”
Join Litquake and the California Academy of Sciences for a discussion led by two leading experts, Mark W. Moffett and Dr. Thomas D. Seeley, on our planet’s smallest and most complex social organizations. Co-sponsored by KQED, and moderated by KQED’s QUEST TV series producer Amy Miller.
7 p.m., $15
Morrison Planetarium
California Academy of Sciences
55 Music Concourse
Golden Gate Park, SF
www.litquake.org

“Dance, Intergenerational Trauma, and the Diaspora”
Learn about the Katherine Dunham Technique at this lecture featuring Eyla Moore, teacher at ODC, Dance Commons, Hip Line, and Dance Fitness Studio, and Aliyah Dunn Salahuddin, dancer and tutor in City College of San Francisco’s African American Scholastic Program.
3 p.m., free
City College of San Francisco
Ocean Campus
Rosenberg Library, Room 305
50 Phelan, SF
(415) 239-3854

Flight of Poets
Internationally renowned sommelier Christopher Sawyer pairs six talented local poets with six great wines carefully selected to illuminate their work. Featuring Camille T. Dungy, Robin Ekiss, Paul Hoover, Ada Limón, Zachary Mason, Christopher Sawyer, and Matthew Siegel.
7 p.m., $15 includes wine flight 
Hotel Rex
562 Sutter, SF
www.litquake.org

The Funny Side of Sex
Join Daily Show correspondent Kristen Schaal as she celebrates her first book, The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex, along with Scott Jacobson, co-author of the new book Sex: Our Bodies Our Junk, illustrator Michael Kupperman, and actor and writer Ted Travelstead. This evening of live and uncensored sex-humor unfolds at San Francisco’s legendary Cobb’s Comedy Club. Co-sponsored by Chronicle Books.
8 p.m., $15
Cobbs Comedy Club
915 Columbus, SF
www.litquake.org

Lit on the Lake
Celebrate East Bay writers at this litquake event featuring acclaimed novelists including Melanie Abrams, Elaine Beale Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Jacqueline Luckett, Lisa Braver Moss, and Kristin McCloy.
6 p.m., $5-$10 donation
Gondola Room
Lake Chalet
1520 Lakeside, Oakl.
www.litquake.org

100th Literary Death Match
Celebrate the kickoff of a worldwide Literary Death Match tour where judges, W. Kamau Bell, Mark Fiore, and Jane Smiley, will pass centurial judgment on a must-see lineup featuring readers Jason Bayani, David Corbett, Kari Kiernan, and Joel Selvin. Hosted by Todd Zuniga, Elissa Bassist, Alia Volz, and M.G. Martin.
7 p.m., $15
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
www.litquake.org

Radar Reading Series: Litquake Edition
This monthly literary series brings in first-time novelists, playwrights, shoplifting poets, and riot girl historians for readings, followed by a Q&A session hosted by Michelle Tea. Featuring Chinaka Hodge, Tao Lin, Sara Marcus, and Beth Pickens.
6 p.m., free
Latino Reading Room
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.litquake.org

Thursday, Oct. 7

Booksmith Bookswap
Bring a book you passionately love but can part with and learn about dozens of new, fantastic books. Ticket price includes two drinks, appetizers, and a 20% discount card to purchase books after the event.
6:30 p.m., $25
Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
www.litquake.org

Feminine Wiles
Hear witty women read from their most recent books, featuring Elif Batuman, Marisa Crawford, Katie Crouch, Thaisa Frank, Joyce Maynard, Kaya Oakes, and Shawna Yang Ryan.
7 p.m., free
Noe Valley Recreational Center
295 Day, SF
www.litquake.org

The International Homosexual Conspiracy
Author Larry-bob Roberts offers humorous insights into the absurdities of modern life and queer culture, from contemporary topics like mistaken first impressions, to sustainable yet unaffordable pants, and critiques of bourgeois mindsets.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

Litquake Bites
Local food and books, two of San Francisco’s favorite pastimes, converge at this delicious and informative lunchtime event featuring presentations and tastings by four innovative food purveyors and authors including Sarah Billingsley, Gordon Edgar, Steve Sando, and Amy Treadwell.
Noon, free
Book Passage
1 Ferry Building, SF
www.litquake.org

Stories on the Stage
Hear short fiction stories about love lost, love never found, and love perpetually out of touch with authors Daniel Handler, Daniel Alarcón, and Yiyun Li. Directed by Sean San José, co-founder of Campo Santo, the award-winning resident theater company of San Francisco’s Intersection for the Arts.
7:30 p.m., $25
Roda Theater
Berkeley Repertory Theatre
2025 Addison, Berk.
www.litquake.org

Friday, Oct. 8

All-Memoir Women’s Night
From finding love in foreign lands to struggling with poverty, from being in the sandwich generation to making the perfect brownie, women are fearless when it comes to exploring life and its myriad joys and challenges. Hear authors Zoe Fitzgerald Carter, Katherine Ellison, Laura Fraser, Frances Lefkowitz, Meredith Maran, Kate Moses, Janice Cooke Newman turn inward to provide us with stories that delight, dismay, and entertain. Emceed by Litquake co-director Jane Ganahl.
6:30 p.m., $5-$10 donation
Paris Ballroom
501 Geary, SF
www.litquake.org

“How to Write and Sell Erotica”
Join a panel of editors, anthologists, and published authors as they offer practical tips and personal insights about how to write and sell all forms of erotica. Find out what magazines, websites, anthologies, and book publishers you can sell your work to, as well as  tips on how to write more marketable erotica.
7:30 p.m., $5-$15 donation
Center for Sex and Culture
1519 Mission, SF
www.sexandculture.org

“It’s All Over But the Crying”
Enjoy a night of author talks on the world of sports, from the infinite variations of major-league baseball to the international phenomenon of the World Cup, with Alan Black, Howard Bryant, Dan Epstein, Dan Fost, David Henry Sterry, Jason Turbow, and Michael Zagaris. Special multimedia presentation by Bay Area sports photographer Michael “Z Man” Zagaris. Emceed by Litquake co-director Jack Boulware.
7 p.m., $10
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
www.litquake.org

Jonathan Lethem
Novelist, essayist, and short story writer Jonathan Lethem will discuss his latest novel, Chronic City. Co-presented by Litquake and San Francisco’s Jewish Community Center.
11 a.m., $20
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
3200 California, SF
www.litquake.org

Litquake at the Bikestore
In the late 19th century, an accountant named Frank Lenz quit his job to cycle around the world. Two years later he mysteriously disappeared during the final leg of the journey. Hear author David V. Herlihy discuss this mystery and his new book The Lost Cyclist. In conjunction with Green Apple Books.
7 p.m., free
Public Bikes
123 South Park, SF
www.litquake.org

Saturday, Oct. 9

Lit Crawl
Get your fill of literary entertainment at galleries and bars across the Mission, where each phase offers crawlers a choice of attending readings happening simultaneously at over a dozen venues. With best-selling authors, poets, professors, bawdy story-tellers, amateurs, and professionals, it’ll be tough to choose three.
Phase I 6pm-7pm, Phase II 7:15pm-8:15pm, Phase III 8:30pm-9:30pm; free
Various venues along the Valencia Street Corridor
Mission District, SF
www.litquake.org

Sunday, Oct. 10

Social Justice with Claudette Colvin
Attend this social justice event featuring a conversation between Enid Lee and Civil Rights legend Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery bus in 1955 and was the star witness in the federal case Browder v. Gayle, which desegregated the Montgomery buses. Also featuring a performance piece by Awele Makeba and a performance by poet, activist, and spoken word artist Bryonn Bain.
1:30 p.m., free
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
www.litquake.org

Tuesday, Oct. 12

Bill Bryson
Hear the author of At Home in conversation with Roy Eisenhardt.
8 p.m., $20
Herbst Theater
401 Van Ness, SF
www.cityboxoffice.com

Left in the Dark
Authors R.A. McBride and Julie Lindow celebrate twentieth century movie theatres and movie going in this book titled, Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres, a collection of personal essays and fine art photographs that casts the theatres as characters within the city’s cultural landscape.
7 p.m., free
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus, SF
www.litquake.org

Joseph O’ Neill
The award-winning novelist of Netherland will be discussing his new family memoir, Blood-Dark Track.
7 p.m., $20
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
3200 California, SF
(415) 292-1200

On the Cheap listings

David Talbot
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0

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 6

Bawdy Storytelling Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.litquake.org. 7pm, $10. Hear real people sharing their bona fide sexual exploits in ten minutes or less. Storytellers are an eclectic mix of authors, poets, comedians, actors, and regular people, including Tim Barsky, Stephen Elliot, Johnny Funcheap, Jow Klocek, Joe Kukura, and Morgan.

THURSDAY 7

"Fierce" Visual Aid Gallery, Suite 905, 57 Post, SF; (415) 777-8242. 5:30pm, free. This exhibition comments on the horror of the AIDS pandemic by showing work by two artists whose lives were cut short by AIDS. Featuring John B. Davis’ (1964-1992) photographs based on images of his own body titled, "Fearless Gaze," and two Sylvain Klaus’ (1959-1996) mixed media paintings from the series titled, "Mourning Wall." Hosted by Visual Aid, a non-profit that helps support artists living with life-threatening diseases.

National Cemetery Walk San Francisco National Cemetery, 1 Lincoln, SF; (415) 561-4323. 10am, free. Learn about the interesting lives of the people buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery, including a Union spy, an Indian scout, Buffalo Soldiers, and 28,000 U.S. Servicemen and Servicewomen, 35 of whom received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Call to make a reservation.

FRIDAY 8

Day of the Dead Exhibition SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF; (415) 552-1770. 6pm, free. The father and son curatorial team of Rene Yañez and Rio Yañez, with assistance from architect Nick Gomez, challenge artists to use their creative visions to look at personal loss, as well as local and global issues. This year, over 70 artists will create installations about contemporary issues. Through November 2, the Day of the Dead.

SATURDAY 9

"Art Publishing Now" Southern Exposure, 3030 20th St., SF; (415) 863-2141. Sat. 11am-10pm, Sun. 11am-6pm; free. This two-day event is dedicated to the investigation and showcasing of art publishing practices in the Bay Area including a summit on Saturday featuring a panel discussion with leading creators of print, online, and experimental publications, and an art publishing fair on Sunday that will showcase upcoming projects.

Four Short Docs San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4400. 11am, free. Attend this screening of four short documentaries from the National Geographic All Roads Film Festival, including Owners of the Water: Conflict and Collaboration over Rivers, Daughters of the Revolution, Earth Day in Attawapiskat, and Weaving the Wisdom.

Lit Crawl Various venues along the Valencia Street Corridor in the Mission District, SF; www.litquake.org. Phase I 6pm-7pm, Phase II 7:15pm-8:15pm, Phase III 8:30pm-9:30pm; free. Get your fill of literary entertainment at galleries and bars across the Mission, where each phase offers crawlers a choice of attending readings happening simultaneously at over a dozen venues. With best-selling authors, poets, professors, bawdy story-tellers, amateurs, and professionals, it’ll be tough to choose three.

"Loneliest Species on Earth" Presidio Native Plant Nursery, 1244 Appleton, SF; www.wildequity.org. 10am; free, RSVP required. Hear the story of the last wild Presidio Manzanita plant, learn how the last one was discovered, and learn about the efforts biologists are taking to germinate the Manzanita’s seeds in order to continue the lineage. Part of the Golden Gate National Park Endangered Species Big Year series.

Nude Peace Day East side of Baker Beach, Presidio, SF; www.fkkfreebodyculture.com. Noon, free. Following the 2010 Nude Beach Olympics, join other Free Body Culture enthusiasts for a day of body paint, no tan lines, and community in the name of freedom and peace. Adults of all genders and orientations welcome.

BAY AREA

Oaktoberfest Fruitvale at MacArthur, Oakl.; (510) 839-3100. 11am-6pm, free. Walk around the sunny East Bay and try beer from over 20 local craft breweries, including Pyramid, Lagunitas, 21st Amendment, Triple Rock, Pacific Coast, Drake’s Brewing Company, and more. Featuring live music bringing the traditional sounds of Munich to Oakland, street food, including traditional German dishes, an eco fair, and more.

SUNDAY 10

Social Justice with Claudette Colvin San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin, SF; (415) 557-4400. 1:30pm, free. Attend this social justice event featuring a conversation between Enid Lee and Civil Rights legend Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat to a white person on a Montgomery bus in 1955 and was the star witness in the federal case Browder v. Gayle, which desegregated the Montgomery buses. Also featuring a performance piece by Awele Makeba and a performance by poet, activist, and spoken word artist Bryonn Bain.

BAY AREA

Say No to Torture Revolution Books, 2425 Channing, Berk.; (510) 848-1196. 7 p.m., $5-$10 sliding scale. In honor of anti-torture week hear authors discuss their work and findings on the topic of torture. Featuring investigative journalist Justine Sharrock, author of Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things, and journalist and historian Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files.

TUESDAY 12

Left in the Dark City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, SF; (415) 362-8193. 7pm, free. Authors R.A. McBride and Julie Lindow celebrate twentieth century movie theatres and movie going in this book titled, Left in the Dark: Portraits of San Francisco Movie Theatres, a collection of personal essays and fine art photographs that casts the theatres as characters within the city’s cultural landscape.

Hotel plan revives old question: Can the Presidio Trust be trusted?

Sasha Cuttler
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2
Hotel plan revives old question: Can the Presidio Trust be trusted?

In San Francisco’s Presidio, one of the few national parks that is mandated to pay for its operations with the proceeds from development, historic preservation is often undermined by commercial concerns. And critics contend the proposal for a big new hotel at the Main Post is a prime example of that model’s shortcomings.

The Presidio Trust, a seven-member board that presides over the historically significant park, is considering a proposal by the Larkspur Hotel Group to build an 88,000-square-foot luxury hotel complex of 12 new buildings and another two current and historic buildings that would be remodeled as part of the project. Opponents say the project runs counter to the Trust’s mandate of protecting the historical and environmental character of the Presidio’s Main Post.

Originally, the Trust set out a management plan that allows for only minor construction projects at the Main Post, but the body is now seeking to amend the plan to include the massive new hotel development. When it announced its plans at a recent public meeting, it was met with overwhelming opposition from neighborhood and local preservation groups

Gary Widman, president of the Presidio Historical Association, sees the move to amend the plan as emblematic of the Trust’s refusal to work collaboratively with the community. “People are frustrated by what they see as the Trust trying to put this amendment into place in a ‘stealth’ move. The Trust is not holding hearings explicitly on its proposed amendments,” he said.

Widman was also concerned with the impact that the hotel and the changes to the Presidio would have on the environment, calling the changes “consumptive, anti-sustainable and not in line with them claiming to be a green organization.”

Another opponent of the plans for the hotel is Boyd de Larios, a representative of Descendants of the Anza and Portola Expeditions (DAPE), who expressed concerns about local heritage being lost forever if the trust went ahead with its plans.

“Presidio doesn’t need a hotel. People aren’t looking for another Coney Island,” he said. “They do some wonderful things but no one trusts the trust anymore.”

After the base closure in 1994, the Trust was set up to make the park self sustainable by 2013 through the use of real estate leasing and renovations to the post buildings to make the park more desirable for the private sector. Among the projects added to the park in recent years is the Walt Disney Family Museum.

Trust officials did not responded to repeated Guardian calls for comment on the issue and any additional future plans. Similarly, others have been unable to get the answers they are searching for from the trust. One community member, Richard Hanlin has been questioning the future of the Presidio for years but has still not found answers to his questions. Hanlon said he worries about the Presidio’s future.

“As it stands [the Trust] is in a very weak position,” Hanlin said, focusing on the ability of the trust to maintain and protect its valuable assets. Hanlin went on to predict the barracks buildings will be ensconced by fences and without any renovations by the end of 2013 when the federal subsidies of the Trust runs out. The lack of renovation and preservation of the old barracks buildings are particularly troubling to Hanlon, especially since they represent the roots of the Presidio as a strategically important military installation.

“History matters,” Hanlin said. “Lots of young men spent their last night there and never came back.”

 

Ebony Hillbillies string along Hardly Strictly’s biggest year yet

Andrew Lam
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1

Nine hundred thousand people and over 70 bands braved the drifting fog banks for this weekend’s 10th annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. With a crowd that size, you have to think logistics. So at my interview with HSB bankroller-birthday boy Warren Hellman well before the madness, I asked who were the up and comers to look out for. I chicken-danced our way through Speedway Meadows accordingly.

“The Ebony Hillbillies,” Hellman told me, chuckling over lead singer – and as the band’s press kit explains, “bones” of the group — Gloria Gassaway’s penchant for abrupt audience interaction. The HSB performance would be its first in the Bay Area, and Hellman was happy to have been its means of infiltration, particularly for Gassaway’s no-nonsense stage presence. “She’s quite a woman,” he said.

Quite a woman indeed. the Hillbillies, hailing from Jamaica, Queens, are helping to sustain the tradition of African-American string bands that started with the genre’s inception in the Appalachians in the 1920s. Black pioneers in the music can seem ironic now, particularly at events like Hardly Strictly where the audience is majority white. 

But so it goes — and some of the weekend’s most exciting shows flew from the fiddles, banjos, and diddly bows of black groups like the Hillbillies and Carolina Chocolate Drops, firmly establishing that bluegrass (and neo-bluegrass, and string bands, and jazz, blues, rockabilly, country, rock ‘n’ roll, everything else that falls under “hardly) doesn’t have to be just for the honkies.

“I love making the audience have a good time. You come to see the show, you want to be entertained, but you also want to enjoy yourself,” Gassaway tells me when we catch up with her after the group’s set on Friday. 

Sporting matching moccasins with fiddle player Henrique Prince, and with purple feathers threaded into her hair, the ebullient Gassaway exchanged my compliment on her flair with an insight into her cultural heritage. Although they were born with blood from the Catawba tribe of the South and North Carolina borderland, Gassaway’s father instructed Gassaway and her siblings never to reveal the secret of their Native-American-ness to teachers at school so that they could avoid possible discrimination. 

“He told us, tell them you’re from Mexico, or African-American, or something – just not Native,” she says. She says she held onto that learned denial until a trip to Europe, during which she realized the beauty of her background. Now Gassaway sports turquoise jewelry onstage while playing the string music that her Black and Native ancestors must have heard almost a hundred years ago. “I’m Native, and I wear my heritage proudly,” she tells me.

Although the Hillbillies’ current configuration experienced its debut in San Francisco this weekend, it was by no means the first time individual band members had played in the City by the Bay. Bass player William Saltner recalled his last time here in the early ’60s. Saltner, a two-time Grammy winner for songwriting – he wrote “Where is the Love?” and co-wrote “Just the Two of Us” – was working with Miriam Makeba, who at the time was exiled from her home in apartheid South Africa. 

“We don’t play bluegrass, we play old tyme music,” Saltner clarifies backstage. “But we claim bluegrass in this crowd,” he continues with a sly smile.

That kind of genre-bending, always evident at HSB, continued throughout the three days of 2010’s festival. MC Hammer kicked off the weekend at his yearly performance at the middle-schooler’s show on Friday morning. Randy Newman, a newly bluegrass-friendly Elvis Costello, Robert Earl Keen, the Avett Brothers, Joan Baez, and Patti Smith all turned in stellar sets that could hardly fall into the “strictly” category. The diversity was reflected in the varying age demographics of the crowd, who for the most part eschewed the sanctity of the blanket that had reigned in years past – those faithful early risers that spread their tarps in front of stages in the small hours of the morning saw their space quickly infiltrated by standing room-only, stage-switching attendees. 

Temperatures in the high 60s did nothing to stem the tide of music fans that flooded the peaks and valleys of Golden Gate Park for the free festival, but they did threaten the Hillbillies’ chances of starting up a dance party with their stomp-ready old tyme strings with their opening act at the Banjo Stage on Friday. “Are you cold?” Gassaway inquired from her seat on stage. “Because I sure am!”

The cold weather seemed to make it difficult to keep strings in shape – the action stopped a few times so that a stoic Norris Bennett could tune his diddley bow, and then later his banjo to perfection. But the challenge seemed to energize the group’s firestarter. Of course, it doesn’t hurt when you can pull Hellman onstage for a little unscheduled entertainment, which Gassaway managed to accomplish in a moment when she spotted the man enjoying the show from the stage’s sidelines.

Perhaps he had it coming for hyping Gassaway’s sass. Hellman did his best to represent the honkies though, bowing out his legs and wagging his elbows in a “broke-legged chicken” dance on her command. But for all his obedience, he’s got a ways to go as far as Gassaway is concerned. A fact which she let him (and us now) know in the intro of a song entitled “Big Fat Men,” an ode to the joys of obese lovers.

Which the wiry Hellman could hardly be described as. Yet. But he’s got a good coach. “I’ve been feeding him cheesecake,” Gassaway tells me. Blow out the candle first, Warren – number ten was a good year for Hardly Strictly.

 

Hotel Frank fires key union organizer

Sasha Cuttler
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6

Managers at Hotel Frank, who have been sparring with their employees since taking over the financially troubled hotel following a bank foreclosure earlier this year, last week fired an outspoken union organizer on the day after the hotel was targeted by a boisterous picket line. But the employee, longtime bellman Marc Norton, said this transparent effort to intimidate the workers won’t work.

“They think if they get rid of me their problems will go away, but it’s closer to the opposite that’s true,” Norton, a longtime local progressive activist, told the Guardian. “They think they got rid of me, but now they’ve turned me into a full-time organizer.”

Norton and his union, Unite-Here Local 2, will fight back starting tomorrow (Tues/5) with another protest in front of the hotel, 386 Geary Street, starting at 4:15 pm. Hotel Frank, which was named after notorious landlord Frank Lembi, is one of 10 local hotels on the boycott list of Local 2, whose workers have been agitating for a new contract since theirs expired last year.

The Hotel Frank and its sister Hotel Metropolis in May were taken over by Wells Fargo, which turned over management to the Portland, Ore-based Provenance Hotels, whose local managers unilaterally increased workloads and slashed employee benefits at the unionized hotels, according the employees and their union. Provenance officials refused to comment for my last story and did not return another phone call today on the firing of Norton and another union organizer.

In addition to the protests, Norton has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that his dismissive was illegal retaliation for legally protected union organizing, a complaint that Norton believes will be decided in his favor: “It’ll happen, it’s just a matter of when.”

Appetite: The green fairy transforms

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Appetite: The green fairy transforms

Absinthe is on the move from its initial novelty phase once finally legalized in the US in 2007 into an era where appreciators of fine drink are gaining greater education and refinement on the subject. No, it is not a hallucinogen (more on that in a minute), and no, it’s not the artificially sweetened and colored liqueurs flooding the market (but labeled as absinthe). When made as it has been historically, it’s a natural, herbal spirit with a rich culture surrounding it. 

We owe increasing knowledge to artisan producers of absinthe near and far. Some are local guys, like Lance Winters of St. George Spirits, the first producer in the US when the ban was lifted, or more recently, Davorin Kuchan of Old World Spirits, producing green (verte) and bleue (white) absinthes. Then there’s absinthe historians and experts like Peter Schaf and John Troia of Tempus Fugit Spirits who import some of the best absinthes from France and Switzerland, such as Duplais’ brilliant verte and blanche (white) versions. Schaf also created Vieux Pontarlier, a classic-style absinthe made in Pontarlier, France, from local wormwood, long considered the finest grown in the world (where most wormwood was sourced over 100 years ago). Schaf, Winters and Ted Breaux of Lucid, formed a recent panel during SF Cocktail Week, a two hour session (and tasting) on the green fairy (read about it here).

Another source for absinthe education is books, the latest being A Taste for Absinthe, by R. Winston Guthrie with James F. Thompson. Though predominantly a cocktail recipe source, this elegant new book, with photography by Liza Gershman, offers an encompassing summary of the history and culture surrounding absinthe, from its poster art, to the spoons, glasses, fountains and accouterments used to serve it. It’s an artful drink requiring leisure and attention, not a hallucinogen, a myth still falsely promoted around the world (thujone is the fragrant chemical found in wormwood and other plants, such as sage, believed to be a neurotoxoin in extremely high doses – governments have strict regulations on the levels of thujone allowed in the making of absinthe so it is not remotely dangerous yet qualifies as actual absinthe). Kudos for film anecdotes throughout the book on movies where absinthe is imbibed, classic films I grew up watching that are rare to run across now like Lust for Life and Madame X. 

On the recipe side, the book is broken down into five sections: classics, fruit and citrus, whiskey and gin, liqueurs and bitters, and modern classics. The recipes are compiled from some of our country’s best bartenders, including many SF locals. While straightforward classics like Death in the Afternoon (absinthe and champagne) and a bright Brunelle (lemon, absinthe, citrus) are all here, there are also modern takes such as Neyah White’s Green Goddess: absinthe, Square One cucumber vodka, simple syrup, lime fresh basil and thyme. There’s even dessert-like recipes… try an Absinthe & Old Lace: gin, absinthe, creme de menthe, cream, egg white and chocolate mole bitters. 

A Taste for Absinthe is clearly well-researched, with many of the sources above tapped to bring together a comprehensive book worthy of a place on the shelves of absinthe aficionados as well as novices. This Monday at Book Passage (6pm) is a book release event with the author, photographer, and an all-star line-up of bartenders at neighboring Slanted Door serving four cocktails from the book: 

The event is free… well, purchased drinks and the book are on your own dime, but that’s a small price to pay for a little education.
 

Monday, 10/4 – 6pm

 Book Passage

1 Ferry Building # 42


www.atasteforabsinthe.com

 

Downtown money hits district races

Zelda Bronstein
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Downtown money hits district races

Downtown cash is pouring into the district supervisorial races.

Ethics Department filings show that an alliance backed by the Chamber of Commerce, the SF Police Officers Association and United Health Care Workers West is dropping major money on Steve Moss in D10, Scott Wiener in D8 and Theresa Sparks in D6. 

Called the “Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth,” the coalition supports the building of a mega-hospital on Cathedral Hill.

The independent expenditure alliance puts UHW, part of the Service Employees International Union, in the odd position of using membership money to attack progressive politics in San Francisco – potentially undermining years of work by another SEIU affiliate, Local 1021.

Campaign disclosure forms show that the Chamber-Police-UHW alliance has spent $20,000 on bilingual (English/Chinese) door hangers for Moss that feature photos of Chamber of Commerce President Steve Falk and United Healthcare Workers political director Leon Chow.

These same interests also spent $20,000 on robo-calls for Moss, with a heavy focus on Visitacion Valley in an effort to secure the Asian vote in the crowded D10, where there is a strong likelihood that the race will be decided by second and third place votes

Word on the street in the Bayview is that former Mayor Willie Brown is pissed off that the Chamber is backing Moss, instead of African American candidate Lynette Sweet, and that termed out D10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell is angry that big corporations are trying to buy an election in the poorest and most ethnically diverse district in town.

But unlike the rumor mill, the money trail doesn’t lie. And from that perspective this is looking like a replay of the June 2008 election, when big businesses bought support for Lennar’s Candlestick Point/shipyard development by claiming it would create thousands of jobs building condos that most workers can’t afford—jobs that have yet to materialize.

This time the battle cry is for jobs building a massive hospital, even though few workers will likely get service from this hospital, which is designed to serve as a regional center for high-end health care.

So far, the same alliance of police and corporate money has plunked down $17,000 for bilingual (English and Chinese) door hangers in support of Theresa Sparks in D6 and another $17,000 for bilingual robo-calls in support of Sparks.

And so far, Scott Wiener has gotten the relatively short end of the corporate money stick: the Alliance has only spent $15,000 on a door hanger in support of Wiener.

This means that the alliance spent $90,000 in a two-week period in September. The numbers lend credence to DCCC Chair Aaron Peskin’s belief that the alliance has a war chest of $800,000, which it intends to use to put pro-downtown candidates into power.

Asked about the support of this alliance, Sparks, Wiener and Moss gave markedly different replies that reveal as much about each candidate as the money behind them.

D6 candidate Theresa Sparks suggested that the Alliance was spending more on her and Moss’ D10 campaign, because it felt Wiener was further ahead in the D8 race than she is in D6 or Moss is in D10.

And Sparks was openly supportive of the Cathedral Hill hospital project. “I’ve been very supportive of that project,” Sparks told us.

Sparks also observed that it was logical that the Chamber would support her.

“D6 has one of the largest numbers of small businesses and one of my biggest platforms has been economic growth, and I think the Chamber has been very supportive of job creation,” Sparks said.

By comparison, Scott Wiener told the Guardian that he has not taken a position on CPMC’s proposed mega hospital on Cathedral Hill.

“Those kind of issues could come before the Board, in terms of CEQA issues, and so I could be conflicted out,” Wiener said.

When the Guardian noted that the Alliance has so far not spent any money on phone banking for Wiener in D8, Wiener said, “I have volunteers doing phone banking.”

As for Moss, he told the Guardian that said he doesn’t have a position on the mega-hospital.

“I haven’t seen the plan,” Moss said. “But I understand that there seems to be an agreement that would maintain St. Luke’s with about 300 beds, but that there is a deep suspicion among the nurses that it’s not economically viable. And there seems to be a much greater need for a hospital in the southeast.”

Moss, however, is with downtown on other key issues: He supports the sit-lie legislation on the November ballot. He also reiterated that he likes the rabidly anti-tenant Small Property Owners Association, whose endorsement he called a “mistake” during a previous interview with the Guardian.

“Landlords feel that they are responsible for maintaining costly older buildings and that they are not provided with ways to upgrade their units in ways that share costs with tenants,” Moss, who sold a condo on Potrero Hill in 2007 for the same price that he paid for the entire building in 2001, and owns a 4-floor rent-controlled apartment building in D8, near Dolores Park, that he bought for $1.6 million in 2007, and where he lived from December 2007 to February 2010.

Moss refused to provide a copy of the lease on his current rental at Vermont and 18th St—something that the Guardian requested in light of an email from his wife that indicated that the family intended to move back to Dolores Park of Moss loses the race.
‘That’s private information,” Moss said, claiming that he does not plan to move back into his apartment building in D8, if he loses in November.

Moss claimed that UHW endorsed him because his position on politicians and unions.
“I agreed that politicians should get not involved in union politics,” Moss said. “The United Healthcare Workers seem to be a worthy group,” he added. “All they said was that they wanted to make sure that they had access.”

All this campaign money drama is playing out against the backdrop of a punishing battle between United Healthcare Workers West and the rest of SEIU. And as these recent filings show, UHW is spending a huge amount of its membership dues to undermine the city’s progressive infrastructure by trying to elect candidates who are not progressive, even though its progressive sister union has endorsed Rafael Mandelman in D8.

SEIU 1021 member Ed Kinchley, who works in the Emergency Room at SF General Hospital, is furious that UHW is pouring all its money into downtown candidates like Moss, Sparks and Wiener and trying to undermine everything that its progressive sister union is trying to do.

“UHW basically isn’t participating in the Labor Council, it’s just doing its own thing,” Kinchley said.

Kinchley noted that UHW is currently in trusteeship, and is being controlled by its International, and not its local membership, thus explaining why it’s doing this dance with forces like the Chamber and the Building Owners and Managers Association, which have long been the enemy of labor.

“Sutter wants a monopoly on private healthcare, and people like Rafael Mandelman in and Debra Walker have been strong supporters of public healthcare,” Kinchley said, Kinchley also noted that he wants supervisors who are willing to state their support for public health care, rather than dodging the issue and hedging their bets, right now.

“I want someone who can straight-up say, here’s what’s important for families in San Francisco, especially something as important as healthcare,” Kinchley said. “but it sounds like UHW is teaming up with the Chamber and supporting people who are not progressive.”

“And it’s not OK for somebody in D10 to say they haven’t seen CPMC’s plans, when people from D10 use St. Luke’s all the time for healthcare, because it sounds like Sutter wants to change St. Luke’s into an out-patient clinic for paying customers,” he continued.

SEIU 1021 activist Gabriel Haaland accused the Chamber, the Building Owners and Managers Association, UHW and the Police Officers Association of putting together a massive political action committee, “to try and steal the election through corporate spending.”

All this leaves the Guardian wondering how Leon Chow, the political director of UHW, who has done good work in the past on health care issues, is feeling about seeing his photograph spreads all over town alongside that of Chamber of Commerce President Steve Falk on door hangers in support of Sparks, Wiener and Moss.
 
As of press time, Chow had not returned our calls, but if he does, we’ll update this post.

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