Mayor Archives — Page 106 of 148 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

The people’s election

November 11, 2008

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By midnight Nov. 4, the drama was long over: John McCain had conceded, Barack Obama had delivered his moving victory speech — declaring that “change has come to America” — and the long national nightmare of the Bush years was officially headed for the history books.

But in San Francisco, the party was just getting started.

Outside of Kilowatt, on 16th Street near Guerrero, the crowd of celebrants was dancing to the sounds of a street drummer. In the Castro District, a huge crowd was cheering and chanting Obama’s name. And on Valencia and 19th streets, a spontaneous outpouring of energy filled the intersection. Two police officers stood by watching, and when a reporter asked one if he was planning to try to shut down the celebration and clear the streets, he smiled. “Not now,” he said. “Not now.”

Then, out of nowhere, the crowd began to sing: O say can you see /By the dawn’s early light …

It was a stunning moment, as dramatic as anything we’ve seen in this city in years. In perhaps the most liberal, counterculture section of the nation’s most liberal, counterculture city, young people by the hundreds were proudly singing The Star Spangled Banner. “For the first time in my life,” one crooner announced, “I feel proud to be an American.”

Take that, Fox News. Take that Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and the rest of the right-wing bigots who have tried to claim this country for themselves. On Nov. 4, 2008, progressives showed the world that we’re real Americans, too, proud of a country that has learned from its mistakes and corrected its course.

President Obama will let us down soon enough; he almost has to. The task at hand is so daunting, and our collective hopes are so high, that it’s hard to see how anyone could succeed without a few mistakes. In fact, Obama already admitted he won’t be “a perfect president.” And when you get past the rhetoric and the rock star excitement, he’s taken some pretty conservative positions on many of the big issues, from promoting “clean coal” and nuclear power to escautf8g the war in Afghanistan.

But make no mistake about it: electing Barack Obama was a progressive victory. Although he never followed the entire progressive line in his policy positions, he was, and is, the creature of a strong progressive movement that can rightly claim him as its standard-bearer. He was the candidate backed from the beginning by progressives like Supervisors Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi (a Green). And only after his improbable nomination did moderates like Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sen. Dianne Feinstein jump on the bandwagon.

From the start, the young, activist, left wing of the Democratic Party was the driving force behind the Obama revolution. And while he has always talked to the Washington bigwigs — and will populate his administration with many of them — he would never have won without the rest of us. And that’s a fact of political life it will be hard for him to ignore, particularly if we don’t let him forget it.

For a few generations of Americans — everyone who turned 18 after 1964 — this was the first presidential election we’ve been able to get truly excited about. It was also the first presidential election that was won, to a significant extent, on the Internet, where progressive sites like dailykos.com raised millions of dollars, generated a small army of ground troops, and drove turnout in both the primaries and the general election. The movement that was built behind Obama can become a profound and powerful force in American politics.

So this was, by any reasonable measure, the People’s Election. And now it’s the job of the people to keep that hope — and that movement — alive, even when its standard-bearer doesn’t always live up to our dreams.

The evidence that this was the People’s Election wasn’t just at the national level. It showed up in the results of the San Francisco elections as well.

This was the election that would demonstrate, for the first time since the return of district elections, whether a concerted, well-funded downtown campaign could trump a progressive grassroots organizing effort. Sure, in 2000, downtown and then-Mayor Willie Brown had their candidates, and the progressives beat them in nearly every race. But that was a time when the mayor’s popularity was in the tank, and San Franciscans of all political stripes were furious at the corruption in City Hall.

“In 2000, I think a third of the votes that the left got came from Republicans,” GOP consultant Chris Bowman, who was only partially joking, told us on election night.

This time around, with the class of 2000 termed out, a popular mayor in office and poll numbers and conventional wisdom both arguing that San Franciscans weren’t happy with the current Board of Supervisors (particularly with some of its members, most notably Chris Daly), many observers believed that a powerful big-money campaign backing some likable supervisorial candidates (with little political baggage) could dislodge the progressive majority.

As late as the week before the election, polls showed that the three swings districts — 1, 3, and 11 — were too close to call, and that in District 1, Chamber of Commerce executive Sue Lee could be heading for a victory over progressive school board member Eric Mar.

And boy, did downtown try. The big business leaders, through groups including the Committee on Jobs, the Chamber, the Association of Realtors, Plan C, the newly-formed Coalition for Responsible Growth, and the Building Owners and Managers Association, poured more than $630,000 into independent expenditures smearing progressive candidates and promoting the downtown choices. Newsom campaigned with Joe Alioto, Jr. in District 3 and Ahsha Safai in District 11. Television ads sought to link Mar, John Avalos, and David Chiu with Daly.

Although the supervisors have no role in running the schools, the Republicans and downtown pushed hard to use a measure aimed at restoring JROTC to the city’s high schools as a wedge against the progressives in the three swing districts. They also went to great lengths — even misstating the candidates’ positions — to tar Mar, Chiu, and Avalos with supporting the legalization of prostitution.

And it didn’t work.

When the votes were counted election night, it became clear that two of the three progressives — Avalos and Chiu — were headed for decisive victories. And Mar was far enough ahead that it appeared he would emerge on top.

How did that happen? Old-fashioned shoe leather. The three campaigns worked the streets hard, knocking on doors, distributing literature, and phone banking.

“I’ve been feeling pretty confident for a week,” Avalos told us election night, noting his campaign’s strong field operation. As he knocked on doors, Avalos came to understand that downtown’s attacks were ineffective: “No one bought their horseshit.”

A few weeks earlier, he hadn’t been so confident. Avalos said that Safai ran a strong, well-funded campaign and personally knocked on lots of doors in the district. But ultimately, Avalos was the candidate with the deepest roots in the district and the longest history of progressive political activism.

“This is really about our neighborhood,” Avalos told us at his election night party at Club Bottom’s Up in the Excelsior District. “It was the people in this room that really turned it around.”

The San Francisco Labor Council and the tenants’ movement also put dozens of organizers on the ground, stepping up particularly strongly as the seemingly coordinated downtown attacks persisted. “It was, quite literally, money against people, and the people won,” Labor Council director Tim Paulson told us.

Robert Haaland, a staffer with the Service Employees International Union and one of the architects of the campaign, put it more colorfully: “We ran the fucking table,” he told us election night. “It’s amazing — we were up against the biggest downtown blitz since district elections.”

The evidence suggests that this election was no anomaly: the progressive movement has taken firm hold in San Francisco, despite the tendency of the old power-brokers — from Newsom to downtown to both of the city’s corporate-owned daily newspapers — to try to marginalize it.

Political analyst David Latterman of Fall Line Analytics began the Nov. 5 presentation at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association election wrap-up by displaying an ideologically-coded map of San Francisco, drawing off of data from the Progressive Voter Index that he developed with San Francisco State University political science professor Rich de Leon. The PVI is based on how San Francisco residents in different parts of the city vote on bellwether candidates and ballot measures.

“Several of the districts in San Francisco discernibly moved to the left over the last four to eight years,” Latterman told the large crowd, which was made up of many of San Francisco’s top political professionals.

The two supervisorial districts that have moved most strongly toward the progressive column in recent years were Districts 1 (the Richmond) and 11 (the Excelsior), which just happened to be two of the three swing districts (the other being District 3–North Beach and Chinatown) that were to decide the balance of power on the Board of Supervisors this election.

Latterman said Districts “1, 3, and 11 went straight progressive, and that’s just the way it is.”

In fact, in many ways, he said this was a status-quo election, with San Francisco validating the progressive-leaning board. “A lot of people in the city didn’t see it as a chance for a drastic change citywide.”

In other words, keeping progressives in City Hall has become a mainstream choice. Whatever downtown’s propaganda tried to say, most San Franciscans are happy with a district-elected board that has brought the city a living-wage law and moved it a step toward universal health insurance.

The fate of the local ballot measures was another indication that Newsom, popular as he might be, has little ability to convince the voters to accept his policy agenda.

Voters rejected efforts by Newsom to consolidate his power, rejecting his supervisorial candidates, his Community Justice Center (as presented in Measure L), and his proposed takeover of the Transportation Authority (soundly defeating Proposition P) while approving measures he opposed, including Propositions M (protecting tenants from harassment) and T (Daly’s guarantee of substance abuse treatment on demand).

Asked about it at a post-election press conference, Newsom tried to put a positive spin on the night. “Prop. A won, and I spent three years of my life on it,” he said. “Prop B. was defeated. Prop. O, I put on the ballot. I think it’s pretty small when you look at the totality of the ballot.” He pointed out that his two appointees — Carmen Chu in District 4 and Sean Elsbernd in District 7 — won handily but made no mention of his support for losing candidates Lee, Alicia Wang, Alioto, Claudine Cheng, and Safai.

“You’ve chosen two as opposed to the totality,” Newsom said of Props. L and P. “Prop. K needed to be defeated. Prop. B needed to be defeated.”

Yet Newsom personally did as little to defeat those measures as he did to support the measures he tried to claim credit for: Measures A (the General Hospital rebuild bond, which everyone supported) and revenue-producing Measures N, O, and Q. In fact, many labor and progressives leaders privately grumbled about Newsom’s absence during the campaign.

Prop. K, which would have decriminalized prostitution, was placed on the ballot by a libertarian-led signature gathering effort, not by the progressive movement. And Prop. B, the affordable housing set-aside measure sponsored by Daly, was only narrowly defeated — after a last-minute attack funded by the landlords.

All three revenue-producing measures won by wide margins. Prop. Q, the payroll tax measure, passed by one of the widest margins — 67-33.

Latterman and Alex Clemens, owner of Barbary Coast Consulting and the SF Usual Suspects Web site, were asked whether downtown might seek to repeal district elections, and both said it didn’t really matter because people seem to support the system. “I can’t imagine, short of a tragedy, district elections going anywhere,” Latterman said.

Clemens said that while downtown’s polling showed that people largely disapprove of the Board of Supervisors — just as they do most legislative bodies — people generally like their district supervisor (a reality supported by the fact that all the incumbents were reelected by sizable margins).

“It ain’t a Board of Supervisors, it is 11 supervisors,” Clemens said, noting how informed and sophisticated the San Francisco electorate is compared to many other cities. “When you try to do a broad-based attack, you frequently end up on the wrong end (of the election outcome).”

We had a bittersweet feeling watching the scene in the Castro on election night. While thousands swarmed into the streets to celebrate Obama’s election, there was no avoiding the fact that the civil-rights movement that has such deep roots in that neighborhood was facing a serious setback.

The Castro was where the late Sup. Harvey Milk started his ground-breaking campaign to stop the anti-gay Briggs Initiative in 1978. Defying the advice of the leaders of the Democratic Party, Milk took on Briggs directly, debating him all over the state and arguing against the measure that would have barred gay and lesbian people from teaching in California’s public schools.

The defeat of the Briggs Initiative was a turning point for the queer movement — and the defeat of Prop. 8, which seeks to outlaw same-sex marriage, should have been another. Just as California was the most epic battle in a nationwide campaign by right-wing bigots 30 years ago, anti-gay marriage measures have been on the ballot all over America. And if California could have rejected that tide, it might have taken the wind out of the effort.

But that wasn’t to be. Although pre-election polls showed Prop. 8 narrowly losing, it was clear by the end of election night that it was headed for victory.

Part of the reason: two religious groups, the Catholics and the Mormons, raised and spent some $25 million to pass the measure. Church-based groups mobilized a reported 100,000 grassroots volunteers to knock on doors throughout California. Yes on 8 volunteers were as visible in cities throughout California as the No on 8 volunteers were on the streets of San Francisco, presenting a popular front that the No on 8 campaign’s $35 million in spending just couldn’t counter — particularly with so many progressive activists, who otherwise would have been walking precincts to defeat Prop. 8, fanned out across the country campaigning for Obama.

“While we knew the odds for success were not with us, we believed Californians could be the first in the nation to defeat the injustice of discriminatory measures like Proposition 8,” a statement on the No on Prop. 8 Web site said. “And while victory is not ours this day, we know that because of the work done here, freedom, fairness, and equality will be ours someday. Just look at how far we have come in a few decades.”

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, joined by Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and Santa Clara County Counsel Ann C. Raven, filed a legal challenge to Prop. 8, arguing that a ballot initiative can’t be used to take away fundamental constitutional rights.

“Such a sweeping redefinition of equal protection would require a constitutional revision rather than a mere amendment,” the petition argued.

“The issue before the court today is of far greater consequence than marriage equality alone,” Herrera said. “Equal protection of the laws is not merely the cornerstone of the California Constitution, it is what separates constitutional democracy from mob rule tyranny. If allowed to stand, Prop. 8 so devastates the principle of equal protection that it endangers the fundamental rights of any potential electoral minority — even for protected classes based on race, religion, national origin, and gender.”

That may succeed. In fact, the state Supreme Court made quite clear in its analysis legalizing same-sex marriage that this was a matter of fundamental rights: “Although defendants maintain that this court has an obligation to defer to the statutory definition of marriage contained in [state law] because that statute — having been adopted through the initiative process — represents the expression of the ‘people’s will,’ this argument fails to take into account the very basic point that the provisions of the California Constitution itself constitute the ultimate expression of the people’s will, and that the fundamental rights embodied within that Constitution for the protection of all persons represent restraints that the people themselves have imposed upon the statutory enactments that may be adopted either by their elected representatives or by the voters through the initiative process.

As the United States Supreme Court explained in West Virginia State Board of Education vs. Barnette (1943) 319 U.S. 624, 638: ‘The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.'”

As Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin told the Guardian later that week: “Luckily, we have an independent judiciary, because the voters of California have mistakenly taken away a class of civil rights.”

But if that legal case fails, this will probably wind up on the state ballot again. And the next campaign will have to be different.

There already have been many discussions about what the No on 8 campaign did wrong and right, but it’s clear that the queer movement needs to reach out to African Americans, particularly black churches. African Americans voted heavily in favor of Prop. 8, and ministers in many congregations preached in favor of the measure.

But there are plenty of black religious leaders who took the other side. In San Francisco the Rev. Amos Brown, who leads the Third Baptist Church, one of the city’s largest African American congregations, spoke powerfully from the pulpit about the connections between the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and the fight for same-sex marriage.

The next time this is on the ballot, progressive and queer leaders will need to build a more broad-based movement. That is not only possible, but almost inevitable.

The good news — and it’s very good news — is that (as Newsom famously proclaimed) same-sex marriage is coming, whether opponents like it or not. That’s because the demographics can’t be denied: the vast majority of voters under 30 support same-sex marriage. This train is going in only one direction, and the last remaining issue is how, and when, to make the next political move.

The progressives didn’t win everything in San Francisco. Proposition H, the Clean Energy Act, was taken down by one of the most high-priced and misleading campaigns in the city’s history. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. spent more than $10 million telling lies about Prop. H, and with the daily newspapers virtually ignoring the measure and never challenging the utility’s claims, the measure went down.

“This was a big, big, big money race,” Latterman said. “In San Francisco, you spend $10 million and you’re going to beat just about anything.”

But activists aren’t giving up on pushing the city in the direction of more renewable energy (see Editorial).

Latterman said the narrow passage of Prop. V, which asked the school board to consider reinstating JROTC, wasn’t really a victory. “I would not call this a mandate. I worked with the campaign, and they weren’t looking for 53 percent. They were looking for 60-plus percent,” Latterman said. “I think you’ll see this issue just go away.”

Neither Latterman nor Clemens would speculate on who the next president of the Board of Supervisors will be, noting that there are just too many variables and options, including the possibility that a newly elected supervisor could seek that position.

At this point the obvious front-runner is Ross Mirkarimi, who not only won re-election but received more votes than any other candidate in any district. Based on results at press time, more than 23,000 people voted for Mirkarimi; Sean Elsbernd, who also had two opponents, received only about 19,000.

Mirkarimi worked hard to get Avalos, Chiu, and Mar elected, sending his own volunteers off to those districts. And with four new progressives elected to the board, joining Mirkarimi and veteran progressive Chris Daly, the progressives ought to retain the top job.

Daly tells us he won’t be a candidate — but he and Mirkarimi are not exactly close, and Daly will probably back someone else — possibly one of the newly elected supervisors.

“It’s going to be the most fascinating election that none of us will participate in,” Clemens said.

The danger, of course, is that the progressives will be unable to agree on a candidate — and a more moderate supervisor will wind up controlling committee appointments and the board agenda.

One of the most important elements of this election — and one that isn’t being discussed much — is the passage of three revenue-generating measures. Voters easily approved a higher real-estate transfer tax and a measure that closed a loophole allowing law firms and other partnerships to avoid the payroll tax. Progressives have tried to raise the transfer tax several times in the past, and have lost hard-fought campaigns.

That may mean that the anti-tax sentiment in the city has been eclipsed by the reality of the city’s devastating budget problems. And while Newsom didn’t do much to push the new tax measures, they will make his life much easier: the cuts the city will face won’t be as deep thanks to the additional $50 million or so in revenue.

It will still be a tough year for the new board. The mayor will push for cuts that the unions who supported the newly elected progressives will resist. A pivotal battle over the city’s future — the eastern neighborhoods rezoning plan — will come before the new board in the spring, when the recent arrivals will barely have had time to move into their offices.

Obama, of course, will face an even tougher spring. But progressives can at least face the future knowing that not only could it have been a lot worse; for once things might be about to get much better.

Amanda Witherell and Sarah Phelan contributed to this report.

Hank Wilson, queer activist, has died

November 10, 2008

By Tim Redmond

Hank Wilson, longtim e queer activist and overall wondeful guy, died yesterday of lung cancer. There’s a memorial for him tonight (Monday, Nov. 10) at 18th and Castro starting at 6 pm.

I always liked Hank; he was so upbeat, so full of energy.

A lot of people may not remember, but Hank was was also the one who started the amazing Tom Ammiano mayoral write-in campaign in 1999, when Ammiano agreed at the last minute to take on Mayor Willie Brown. Hank was the one standing in the Castro — all alone, at first — with the posterboard getting signatures; he was the one who really convinced Ammiano to run. I never forget him calling me the day Tom agreed to be a candidate and saying, with his usual excitement: “It’s real, it’s real, it’s going to happen.”

And that campaign — and the activists it brought out and the movement it helped spark — was as the heart of many of the progressive victories we’ve won since then.

“It’s a cliche, but with him they broke the mold,” Amminano just told me. “He was really one of a kind.”

We’ll all miss him.

Newsom laments Prop 8 win

November 5, 2008

by Amanda Witherell

newsom11.5.08.jpg
Mayor Gavin Newsom in the Prop 8 spotlight. Photo by Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal

Mayor Gavin Newsom expressed equal awe over seeing an African American elected president of the United States and a ban on gay marriage in California. “First and foremost it was an extraordinary night last night…for the country…and for civil rights,” he said at a crowded city hall press conference on the day after the election. But when it came to the rights of another population, he lamented, “I never thought in my lifetime that I’d see a constitution changed to take rights away.” He expressed particular dismay that California, “a state that has always been on the leading edge,” has become “the first state in the history of this country to take rights away.”

“Because they did nothing except fall in love and say ‘I do,’” he repeated several times.

He pointed out that the 2008 victory of Prop 8 passed with a slimmer majority than the last attempt in 2000. “We are moving in the right direction,” he said. “Millions and millions of people said it’s wrong to take rights away from people.” And he remained upbeat: “It doesn’t make me proud but it doesn’t make me, in any way, shape, or form, pessimistic.”

With some stirring words he connected the history of social change in America to the gay rights movement, concluding, “Everyone deserves the same opportunities, the same privileges, as everyone else. Separate is not equal.” For different genders, races, and ethnicities the basis of equality is a founding principle in the constitution, which has now been altered. He maintained that opponents of Prop 8 will someday be on the right side of history. “How can we, in 2008, argue for a separate track based on sexual orientation?”

And he cautioned Prop 8 supporters. “Don’t be gleeful at the expense of human beings whose lives have been devastated.”

When questioned, Newsom expressed support for City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s efforts to invalidate Prop 8. This morning Herrera, along with city attorneys from Los Angeles and Santa Clara, filed a writ of mandate with the California Supreme Court, arguing “that the California Constitution’s equal protection provisions do not allow a bare majority of voters to use the amendment process to divest politically disfavored groups of constitutional rights,” according to a press release.

Newsom cast off as “irrelevant” speculation that his run for governor would see some fallout from his vocal opposition to Prop 8, and said he hadn’t given much thought to what his continued advocacy for gay rights would be.

Newsom’s green words for Obama

November 5, 2008

by Amanda Witherell

pignewsom11.5.08.jpg
photo courtesy of Green Guerrillas against Greenwash

Environmental news web site, Grist, tapped a short list of people perceived as environmentalists and asked them to “imagine they found themselves in an elevator with the president-elect — giving them one minute of his undivided attention.”

Top of their list: our Mayor Gavin Newsom. Despite his lack of support for local environmental initiatives, in the national spotlight Newsom offers more comprehensive suggestions than many of the others posted by Grist.

They include following up on that $150 billion promise to invest in clean technology, more aggressive national efficiency standards for automobiles, buildings, and appliances, national cap and trade for carbon emissions, bilateral energy summit with China, green collar jobs, and financial support for local greening initiatives.

Read them all here.

A night for progressives

November 4, 2008

By Tim Redmond

The amazing thing tonight is that district elections — celebrated in the Harvey Milk movie, brought back by Tom Ammiano — continues to work.

I ran into Republican consultant Chris Bowman early this evening, and he told me that he thought the 2000 election, which brought a progressive majority to the Board of Supervisors, was an unusal event, driven by anger at then-Mayor WIllie Brown. This time around, he was expecting a more moderate slate to win.

But guess what: Organizing on the ground still beats big money when you elect supervisors by district.

Bait and switch

November 4, 2008

> sarah@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency has endorsed a draft financing plan for Lennar’s massive proposed Hunters Point Shipyard/Candlestick Point development project, one that increases the company’s housing entitlements and profits.

The agency’s endorsement came during a hastily convened Oct. 27 special meeting, raising the eyebrows of Lennar’s critics. So did the details of the agency’s non-binding financial agreement with Lennar, which two citizens’ committees in the Bayview–Hunters Point community had jointly endorsed a week earlier.

Bayview–Hunters Point resident Francisco Da Costa claimed that "there was almost no public notice of the plan," while Leon Muhammad, who sits on the Bayview–Hunters Point Project Area Committee, fretted that some committee members have business ties and connections with Lennar.

"A group that supposedly represents the interests of the community needs to have transparency and full disclosure," stated Nation of Islam Rev. Christopher Muhammad, who has been a staunch critic of Lennar ever since the developer failed to properly monitor and control asbestos adjacent to his group’s K-12 University of Islam school.

"Lennar never intended to do anything with this land but bank it," Muhammad opined about the public land that Lennar is getting for free. "And now they are hoping to squeeze more profit out of the deal, so they can hedge to where they can make it more attractive to sell."

Alicia Schwartz of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER) observed that the deal is likely being driven by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s unrequited desire to see the Olympics come to San Francisco — a dream that was squashed two years ago, Schwartz recalls, "amid a hoopla around toxicity at the shipyard."

Sup. Chris Daly, who has argued that Lennar’s recent $500,000 settlement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District over Lennar’s asbestos violations was "too small and poorly handled," said he wasn’t surprised by the latest deal: "That Lennar wants to pull a fast one is not news."

But with the financing deal likely headed for the full Board of Supervisors this month, Lennar’s critics are worried that the city is being rushed into a deal that has already changed since voters approved Proposition G in June, supporting the vague outlines of Lennar’s project.

They note that while Prop. G specified that the project would create "between 8,500 and 10,000 homes" in the depressed southeast sector, the financing deal that Redevelopment endorsed last week specifies 10,500 homes —and a demand that the agency and the city cooperate to help increase Lennar’s annual rate of return.

Stephen Maduli-Williams, the agency’s deputy executive director, told the Guardian that it was always the agency’s intention to finalize Lennar’s draft financing plan by the end of 2008. Asked if Lennar increased the number of proposed housing units by reducing unit size or increasing building height, Maduli-Williams told us, "They did it by finding a way to squeeze more units into the existing space. They redesigned one of the roads."

"Things are probably going to change again in the next year or two," Maduli-Williams said. "This is a living document. And overall, it is a really nice real estate deal."

Yet critics of Lennar are openly wondering whether it’s nice for the beleaguered company, which had rapidly plummeting stock value even before the recent real estate meltdown, or nice for the city. Maduli-Williams said the deal works for all parties.

"We have strong financial partners," he said. "Any investors that look at the deal know that is it really solid. It includes mostly $600,000 homes, which are cheap by San Francisco standards. And we are not looking to break ground for another three years, by which time the economy, hopefully, will be in good shape."

Maduli-Williams also observed that despite nationwide housing woes, San Francisco remains "one of two or three top destination spots where there is only so much land left and where folks have very high incomes."

But the health of the San Francisco real estate market (compared to the rest of the nation) combined with Lennar’s ongoing financial woes, including a June 8 bankruptcy at Mare Island, is precisely why some folks are questioning Lennar’s increased profit demands. But Maduli-Williams said, "San Francisco cannot be compared to Mare Island."

According to the draft financing deal (which is non-binding), Lennar, the city, and the agency "will work cooperatively to reduce risks and uncertainties" and "find additional efficiencies and values," to achieve Lennar’s proposed 22.5 percent annual profit margin.

As Maduli-Williams explained, if the developer puts up $800 million in equity and wants a 22 percent return, it would have to get $1.2 billion in land sales. "And just like any developer, they want to get the highest return possible," he said, adding that the project’s proposed community benefits are "hard wired into the deal" and thus are "not threatened" by Lennar’s proposed target return increase.

Lennar’s proposal, which represents a 7.5 percent increase over current project projections, has also received validation from CBRE Consulting, which is a subsidiary of CB Richard Ellis — a global real estate firm headed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum.

In an Oct. 15, 2008 memo (coincidentally written the day President Bush announced a partial nationalization of the US banking system) to Michael Cohen, who heads the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, CBRE’s Mary Smitheram-Sheldon and Thomas Jirovsky observed that, "Based on Consultants’ extensive experience in evaluating large scale mixed-use developments, including military base reuse plans, we are of the opinion that the proposed 22.5 percent per annum target return …is reasonable."

Earlier this year, as Lennar spent $5 million to support Prop. G, CBRE declared that 50 percent affordability in Lennar’s proposed mixed-use development at the shipyard, as was being recommended in Daly’s Prop. F, was "not financially feasible."

At the city’s request, CBRE analyzed Prop. F and concluded in a memo to Cohen that it would reduce Lennar’s revenue by at least $1.1 billion. Reached by phone this week, Jivorsky acknowledged that his firm has done work for different developers around the country for years, including Lennar.

"But we are not working on anything for Lennar in San Francisco," Jivorsky told the Guardian. "Our client is the city of San Francisco and we take our job very seriously. We would never make recommendations that we didn’t believe were in the city’s best interests."

Meanwhile, Cohen told the Guardian that the strain for real estate capital is likely going to push the rate of return demand up even more. Noting that the city agreed to 25 percent returns at Lennar’s previous Treasure Island and Hunters Point Shipyard deals, Cohen said, "Real estate is considered to be a greater risk than it was six months ago, even in San Francisco. So, it’s not so much that we have to negotiate this as have to understand what is required for private capital to invest."

Cohen believes that when the construction plans — which currently have few details spelled out — get more detailed, they will help increase the project’s rate of return. "Which is why," Cohen added, "the developer’s partners are willing to spend a boatload of money."

On Aug. 19, the Redevelopment Agency approved the addition of Kimco Developers and MACTEC Development Corporation as Lennar BVHP’s retail and infrastructure partners, and Scala Real Estate Partners, Hillwood Development, and Estein Associates USA Ltd. as Lennar BVHP’s equity partners.

Cohen also hopes that the 49ers’ intentions towards San Francisco will be resolved by November 2009, when Lennar hopes to enter into an agreement with the football team. The 49ers continue to pursue plans to relocate to Santa Clara, and have not signaled any desire to remain here.

To date, Lennar’s draft financing plan includes an agreement that the developer will contribute $100 million in cash toward construction of a new 49ers stadium, and that the city will enter a long-term $1 ground lease with the 49ers for a 17.4-acre Hunters Point Shipyard site.

Meanwhile, disgruntled community advocates claim that since January, when Feinstein, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Mayor Gavin Newsom announced $82 million in federal funding for the cleanup of the Hunters Point Shipyard site, those funds have gone primarily to cleaning up the potential 49ers site.

Power possibilities

November 4, 2008

By Amanda Witherell

› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY San Francisco’s energy future is in flux. On Nov. 4, voters decided the fate of Proposition H, a plan for 100 percent renewable energy by 2040. On the same day, the Board of Supervisors was set to consider a proposal from Mayor Gavin Newsom to retrofit the 32-year-old Mirant Potrero power plant to meet a state mandate for local electricity generation.

The results of both votes occurred after the Guardian deadline, but either way, the city’s energy policy is uncertain, particularly after serious doubts about the viability of the mayor’s proposal were raised at an Oct. 22 Land Use and Economic Development Committee hearing.

The retrofit was hastily developed as an alternative to longstanding plans to replace heavily polluting units of the Mirant plant with new, cleaner, city-owned peaker plants. That plan was derailed after a meeting in May between Newsom and seven Pacific Gas and Electric Co. executives, who were apparently concerned about the city generating its own power.

The Mayor’s office calls the retrofit a "bridge" to a renewable energy future and contends it can be cheaper than and as clean as the city’s peakers. Yet at the hearing, Mike Martin, who’s evaluating the retrofit project for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, said no retrofits have ever reached the emissions goals cited in Newsom’s proposal.

Jeff Henderson, senior project manager for Mirant, defended the $80 million price tag for the project (which is about $30 million cheaper than the city’s plan) but also said that they were "giving a price on a project that’s never been done before." Martin said the permits alone would be twice the price stated in a Mirant-commissioned feasibility study.

Chair of the committee Sup. Sophie Maxwell, who represents the district where the plant is sited, cast cost aside, saying that human lives and the lowest possible emissions were more important to her. Her district has the highest incidences of asthma and cancer in the city.

The retrofit would still emit more nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter than the city’s peaker plants but the Mayor’s Office is banking on it operating less, thus emitting less overall. The numbers crunched for the study by CH2M Hill presume Mirant operating about 156 hours a year, though it is permitted for 877 hours. The city has sued the company in the past for exceeding its permitted hours.

When questioned if the 97 percent emissions reduction proposed was possible, Henderson said, "The only thing that leads us to believe that is we had vendors who would say they could meet that under contract."

Maxwell invited three potential vendors to the hearing. All said the industry standard was 90 percent emissions reduction and that it was infeasible, if not technically impossible, to reach 97 percent. To try may even result in a net gain of particulate matter emissions because the plant would need more ammonia catalyst.

But the Mayor’s Office remained confident in the project. "The experts that presented before the committee were all experts attached to the CT project, so I would not consider them independent third-party experts," Newsom’s director of government affairs Nancy Kirshner-Rodriguez told the Guardian.

Bruce Schaller, vice president of Kansas-based power company Sega, said he wouldn’t bid on this job under the current parameters because, "We would be associated with a project that was a failure."

Tom Flagg, president of Equipment Source Company, said the project was "completely illogical and impossible to do." He pointed out that emissions vary widely. "You have surges in emissions levels. Sometimes it’s 94 percent, sometimes it’s 84 percent … A 97 to 98 percent reduction is impossible because in order to maintain that they have 100 percent reduction at times. It’s an average."

The need for new power generation in San Francisco has been pushed by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), but environmental groups have urged the city to challenge that mandate. Former California Public Utilities Commission president Loretta Lynch, who spoke against the retrofit plan at the hearing, told the Guardian afterward, "The ISO are ideologues, not engineers. They have no basis in fact that we need any peninsula power production."

Supervisors passed a resolution asking the SFPUC to develop a transmission-only plan to meet Cal-ISO’s reliability demands. The SFPUC said it will present something within the next couple of months.

Avalos looks strong in key D11 race

November 4, 2008

By Steven T. Jones

John Avalos and his small army of campaign volunteers entered Bottom’s Up bar as Barack Obama was giving his televised acceptance speech. It was a buoyant moment. Avalos had the lead with the absentee votes and he said that his team’s exit polling at the precincts had him about 20 points up at the polls.
“I’ve been feeling pretty confident for about a week,” Avalos told me.
After getting hammered by downtown’s well-funded attacks and a strong campaign by the mayor’s candidate, Ahsha Safai, labor came on strong for the Avalos campaign, which already had been waging a sustained volunteer effort with deep connections to the district.
“This is really about our neighborhood,” Avalos said. “It was the people in this room that really turned it around.”
And he said the attacks by groups like the Association of Realtor backfired: “No one out here believed that horseshit.”

Election day luncheon in SF

November 4, 2008

Former Mayor Willie Brown, with luncheon co-hosts Angelo Quaranta (left) and Alex Clemens (right) behund.

By Steven T. Jones

I ran into Willie Brown as we were both headed into today’s Election Day luncheon at the California Culinary Academy – a two-decade-long tradition hosted by political power brokers Angelo Quaranta and the late Bob McCarthy (with Alex Clemens now stepping into that host role) – and asked for his electoral predictions.

“There’ll be no surprises,” Brown told me, “not a one.”

I took that as a hopeful sign that Barack Obama will win the presidency by an electoral landslide and Democrats will add significantly to their congressional majorities, but it didn’t tell me much about tonight’s nail biters, including the fate of the same sex marriage Proposition 8 or the balance of power on the Board of Supervisors.

Inside, many of the political luminaries expressed real anxiety over Prop. 8, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who warned Brown and the media against any early Obama victory parties that might hurt Prop. 8, the high-speed rail bond measure Prop. 1A, or the other crucial measures that need every Obama supporter they can muster.

The Chron’s supervisors

October 31, 2008

By Tim Remond

Interesting endorsements from the Chron.. I’m not surprised they gave Ross Mirkarimi the nod in D5; he has no real competition, and has done a great job in office from almost any perspective. But the nice words

he’s shown an ability to find common ground on many issues – and has pushed the mayor for more police foot patrols, authored a crackdown on rogue pot clubs and led efforts to ban plastic bags.

fit in with the Chron’s obvious bias in this election. Although Mirkarimi can push the political edge as well as anyone on the board (jeez, did the Chron even support the plastic-bag ban?), the daily paper lauds him for “an ability to find common ground.”

That seems to be why the Chron, which is typically in lock step with downtown’s agenda on local issues, chose Mark Sanchez, another Green, in D9. Sanchez, the paper says, has

proved to be a reasonable consensus builder as president of the Board of Education, and he’s promised to make civility and compromise a priority as supervisor.

I think civility is the word he used with us, and it’s a fine one (actually, I think all three of the D9 progressives can claim they’ll bring civility to the board). But what the Chron wants is “compromise,” which is a buzz word for getting along with, and not defying, the mayor.

It’s not exactly what I think of when I think of Sanchez, who as a progressive on the school board fought bitterly with Arlene Ackerman when she was school superintendent. And in fact, I just called Sanchez and he told me that “I didn’t use the word compromise.” But he did point out that he has a good relationship with the mayor on education issues, and that glimmer of hope was apparently enough for the Chron.

In D 11, the endorsement of Ahsha Safai comes as no surprise, but it’s a bit warped. The district, the Chron says,

needs an active leader who can work with other supervisors and City Hall figures.

(Who do you suppose those “other City Hall figures might be?)

The problem is that Safai has no real political experience and isn’t going to get along at all with the progressives on the board. He won’t even talk to us.

And in D3, Denise McCarthy gets the nod because

In facing a worsening city budget, she’s willing to consider the tough options of budget cuts and layoffs. Though her policy position put her on the left of the spectrum, she is open to other viewpoints and groups in this fractious corner of the city.

You see a pattern here?

The Chron wants people who will avoid fights and all play nicely with Newsom. That’s not what the legislative branch of government is supposed to do, particularly with a mayor who is so focused on running for governor that he isn’t spending much time running the city.

I’m not sure Sanchez is really going to be as willing to compromise as Chron seem to think… but then, I’m not sure the Chron endorsement means that much in D9.

Yes on Prop H rally at PG&E’s house

October 29, 2008

by Amanda Witherell

Clean Energy Act supporters gathered in front of Pacific Gas & Electric corporate headquarters on Wed., Aug. 29, to mock the $10 million the utility company has spent opposing the legislation.

Dressed as construction workers, activists from the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Green4All, and Green Guerrillas against Greenwashing, successfully erected three wind turbines in front of the PG&E building.

PG&E employees, penned behind a barricade and standing underneath a “Stop the Blank Check” banner watched the activists wrestle with enormous burlap bags of money, signifying the millions PG&E has dumped into the campaign opposing the measure that would move San Francisco more rapidly toward 100 percent renewable energy. PG&E alleges the measure is a blank check for supervisors because it allows them to issue revenue bonds to finance renewable power infrastructure. In fact, PG&E has written the entire check for the No on H campaign. As we pointed out in this week’s issue, it’s also shunting some of that money into supervisors’ races to support Mayor Gavin Newsom’s picks for the Board in districts 1, 3, and 11. Besides the fact that Newsom’s campaign director, Eric Jaye, also runs PG&E’s No on H committee, why might it be important for PG&E to have friends on the Board of Supervisors?

Well, if Prop H does pass, unlike the “blank check” lies PG&E is telling you about it, the SFPUC will conduct a study to explore the best way toward 100 percent renewables. If that includes a publicly-owned utility system (that would, by default, put PG&E out of business in San Francisco) the supervisors will still have to vote for it and vote for the bonds to do it. So, PG&E needs a board that’s friendly.

Tom Ammiano and the Greens

October 29, 2008

By Tim Redmond

I respect the Green Party. We’ve endorsed a lot of Greens, from Matt Gonzalez to Ross Mirkarimi to Medea Bejamin. We even endorsed Nader the first time around. In San Francisco, the Greens are doing the right thing — they’re running local candidates for local office and building a base that way before they get all agitated about statewide and national races.

And if the Green Party wants to take the position that it endorses only Greens and not Democrats in partisan races, that’s fine, too.

This fall, though, the Greens endorsed Mark Leno for state Senate, saying that

We are pleased that Mark Leno has represented our Key Values well in the State Assembly, and therefore we endorse him for a promotion to the State Senate.

Again, that’s fine — we endorsed Leno, too, and he’ll be a great state Senator and will do his best to promote the progressive values that the Greens and I share.

So why did the party decline to endorse Tom Ammiano for state Assembly?

I mean, with all due respect to Leno (and I mean that, sincerely), Ammiano has always been more a leftist than Leno, and closer to the Greens core values. Leno endorsed Gavin Newsom for mayor. He’s supported more moderate Democrats in a lot of races. That’s not to say he isn’t a good legislator and shouldn’t get the Green nod — but if he’s good enough for the Greens, then Ammiano sure ought to be.

The party’s take on Tom?

We are disappointed that Ammiano has not followed Supervisor Mirkarimi’s lead in pushing for a Green approach to improving law enforcement, particularly as Mission residents feel that City officials have overlooked growing concerns about crime and public safety. Ammiano has also taken an increasingly partisan tone in recent years, and may as a result be ineffective in passing progressive legislation in Sacramento.

Gimme a Green Fucking Break, folks. Ammiano has been right there with Mirkarimi on foot patrols, against the ICE crackdown on immigrants, for progressive approaches to crime — certainly as much as Leno has. And “too partisan?” I’ve never, ever heard the Greens argue that one before.

No, I think this is simple: Leno endorsed Mark Sanchez, a Green, for supervisor. Ammiano endorsed a Sanchez rival, David Campos. Both are qualified candidates for supervisor; it would be entirely appropriate and reasonable for any progressive to support either of them. Penalizing Ammiano for not supporting Sanchez makes no political sense.

It’s a silly thing to fight about because both Leno and Ammiano are going to win overwhelmingly anyway, and I have no right to tell the Greens what to do with their endorsements — but this just looks awful. It looks petty and yes, partisan, and frankly, drives a wedge between the Greens and the left wing of the local Democratic Party, which is the last thing we need.

Grow up, Greens.

Backroom brokers

October 28, 2008

› tredmond@sfbg.com

It’s not the invisible hand of Adam Smith tossing hate mail on your doorstep this fall like ugly confetti. It isn’t a distinct and independent group of candidates and civic organizations that just happen to be saying the same things, either. There is a carefully orchestrated campaign going on to undermine the progressive agenda, block affordable housing and clean energy, and give Mayor Gavin Newsom a majority on the Board of Supervisors.

It’s well funded; it’s serious; it’s based on lies — and it’s a threat to rent control, sustainable environmental policies, universal health care, the city’s living wage law, and the rest of the accomplishments and goals of the progressive majority on the board.

If that sounds overblown, listen to what the organizers of this campaign are saying themselves.

On Aug. 15, after progressives took control of the Democratic County Central Committee and installed Sup. Aaron Peskin as chair, John Keogan, the head of a year-old organization called the San Francisco Coalition for Responsible Growth, a pro-downtown group founded to counter the progressive movement, announced his intentions in a letter to allies.

"CRG are [sic] preparing for an all-out attack with other like-minded groups and now is our time to stand-up [sic] and be counted," Keogan wrote. He asked members to support "taking SF on a sharp turn to the right."

Those "other like-minded groups," according to campaign finance reports, are a Who’s Who list of downtown-based organizations that have consistently fought to roll back tenant protections and slash government spending on social services: the Building Owners and Managers Association, the Committee on Jobs, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the Association of Realtors, the Chamber of Commerce, Plan C, and the Police Officers Association.

By law, political candidates can only raise and spend limited amounts of money. But organizations like BOMA, the Realtors, and Plan C can put as much cash as they want into supporting and opposing candidates — as long as the efforts are "independent."

But the orchestration of the attacks on supervisorial candidates Eric Mar, John Avalos, and David Chiu, and the support for their conservative rivals, Sue Lee, Ahsha Safai, and Joe Alioto, is so sophisticated it’s impossible to believe that these groups and candidates aren’t working together.

Between Sept. 9 and Oct. 20, public records show, the groups spent a combined $363,754 ($178,177 in District 1, $104,308 in D3, and $81,269 in D11) on independent expenditures attacking Avalos, Mar, and Chiu and supporting their opponents. They also spent $20,000 supporting Eva Royale in her long shot race for the solidly progressive District 9 seat.

The landlords and downtown aren’t the only ones organizing. All that spending, and the threat of even more to come considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars these downtown groups still have in the bank, has served to unite tenant and labor groups in ways unseen in previous San Francisco elections.

"There’s an unprecedented coalition between tenants and labor," labor activist Robert Haaland told us. "We’re working together to defeat the landlord candidates, who are also anti-labor."

"We have a tremendous fear that the spending and progress on health care and social services will be rolled back," Tim Paulson, president of the San Francisco Labor Council, told us. "Anything less than our candidates [being elected in each of the three swing districts] will pose a real danger to the movement."

NEWSOM’S SLATE

One of the central players in this attempt to take the city away from the progressives and hand it over to downtown is Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is actively supporting Alioto, Lee, and Safai.

Eric Jaye, the mayor’s chief political advisor, has no formal role in the three district campaigns, but Newsom rarely makes a move in local politics without consulting Jaye. In fact, when reporters call the mayor’s press office to ask for comments on local candidates and initiatives, they are typically referred to the private consultant.

Jaye told us he’s talked to all of Newsom’s candidates. "I told them to run on district issues," he said.

The mayor and the latest member of the Alioto clan to seek office (Joe’s sister, Michela, is already on the board) have walked precincts together. And Newsom is so involved with the downtown effort he’s skipping a major Democratic Party gala (where he was slated to get an award) to spend time instead with the Republican-led Coalition for Responsible Growth (CRG).

Jaye’s main job this fall is running the PG&E campaign against the Clean Energy Act, Proposition H. So far PG&E has spent more than $10 million on the effort, and that number will grow in the final week before the election. Part of that same campaign has been propping up Newsom ally Carmen Chu, who has benefited from thousands of dollars of PG&E spending on her race. Chu’s face is all over PG&E’s No on H fliers.

Another central operator is Alex Tourk, the former Newsom aide who resigned after learning that the mayor had been sexually involved with Tourk’s wife. Tourk is now running the CRG operation.

"They brought me on board to do a volunteer campaign that, yes, they funded, but which seeks to inform voters in a non-partisan fashion where the candidates in D1, 3, and 11 stand on key issues," he said.

That campaign’s goal was to get 10,000 people to mobilize — he called them, using a term popularized by Richard Nixon, the "silent majority."

Tourk maintains that door-hangers the group has been distributing don’t endorse any candidates or push any initiatives. But the messages fit exactly with the overall downtown strategy — they seek to discredit the progressives by linking them with controversial ballot measures such as Proposition V, which would urge the School Board to save the military recruitment program, JROTC.

The supervisors have nothing to do with JROTC, but downtown and the Republican Party are using it as a wedge issue.

CRG is facing some political heat of its own: SF Weekly reported in its Oct. 22 issue that CRG’s recently elected president, engineer Rodrigo Santos, accepted money for professional work from someone who had business before the Building Inspection Commission while he served as commission president. Santos is a Republican, like several key Newsom appointees.

Making matters worse are revelations that Mel Murphy, vice president of the inspection commission and a CRG member, distributed invites in City Hall to an Oct. 17 CRG fundraiser for Safai and Alioto. City officials aren’t supposed to do political work at City Hall.

Alioto’s filings show that on Oct. 17, he received $500 from the firm of Santos and Urrutia’s structural engineer Kelton Finney and $250 from S&U engineer Calvin Hom.

PG&E’S FAKE DEMOCRATIC CLUBS

Political consultants Tom Hsieh Jr. and Jim Ross are involved in the District 1 race (Hsieh also responded to the Guardian on Safai’s behalf) — and are using PG&E and downtown money to support Sue Lee.

Beyond Chron reported Oct. 27 that Hsieh has been sending robocalls in Cantonese to voters saying that Lee is endorsed by the "San Francisco Democratic Party Club." Actually, the Democratic Party endorsed Mar.

What is this new "party club" anyway? Well, the Web site reported, the club started raising money just two weeks ago, and already has collected $30,000 from PG&E, $2,000 from the Chamber of Commerce, $5,000 from GGRA (Golden Gate Restaurant Association), and $70,000 from the Committee on Jobs. Another new club, called the Richmond Reform Democratic Club, is opposing Mar — and has $18,000 from the Committee on Jobs, $5,000 from PG&E, and $2,000 from BOMA.

In television ads paid for by the Realtors, a voiceover tries to link Mar, Avalos, and Chiu to Sup. Chris Daly, whose popularity outside his district is low — although neither Mar nor Chiu has much of a discernable connection to Daly. Avalos was a Daly City Hall aide.

One of the Realtors ads was so utterly inaccurate and deceptive — it claimed Chiu and Avalos support decriminalizing prostitution, when both have publicly opposed the decriminalization ballot measure — that Comcast pulled the ad off the air when Chiu filed a complaint.

Fog City Journal uncovered what appears to be illegal collusion between the police union and Safai. Although candidates are barred from coordinating with groups making independent expenditures on their behalf, POA president Gary Delagnes told FCJ editor Luke Thomas that Safai had given the group a photo of him to use on a mailer, a copyrighted image that Thomas took. Safai denied wrongdoing, but refused to answer further inquiries about the matter.

It’s a pitched battle — labor, the tenants, and the Democratic Party against the landlords, PG&E, downtown interests, and the Republicans. It’s pretty clear which side you want to be on.

Steven T. Jones, Sarah Phelan, and Amanda Witherell contributed to this report.

Housing for whom?

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October 28, 2008
0

› news@sfbg.com

San Francisco is currently experiencing an unprecedented shortage of affordable housing, a reality that threatens to change the city’s socioeconomic character. If city officials stay the course, building mostly market rate housing, even more lower and middle-class families will be forced to move elsewhere.

Proposition B would stabilize — and probably increase — affordable housing funds by setting aside 2.5 cents out of every $100 in property taxes, or about $30 million a year, in a specific affordable housing account. Prop. B would not create any new taxes, and would allow for public participation in deciding how funds are spent. A long-term revenue source seems the only way to combat the affordable housing problem, yet Mayor Gavin Newsom has called the measure "unnecessary" and "ballot-box budgeting at its worst."

Newsom’s Oct. 15 press conference announcing that San Francisco is on pace to build a "historic number" of affordable homes by 2010 is likely an attempt to dissuade voters from voting for Prop. B. Newsom cited a dizzying array of statistics to support his claim that Prop. B is unwarranted: with 13,000 new affordable homes currently in the works, he insinuates, there is no need for such a measure.

Yet he doesn’t address the question of how the city will facilitate such an affordable housing boom without Prop. B. According to Doug Shoemaker, deputy director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing (MOH), the city spends around $220 million a year on affordable housing from multiple sources in multiple programs. He admits that this money is essentially impossible to track; which means it’s equally impossible to judge how productive the programs actually are or how much money is left.

Based on the San Francisco Planning Department’s preparation to update its Housing Element next year, as well as information provided by the MOH, Newsom’s statistics are grossly exaggerated. The discordance between Newsom’s embellished statistics and the department’s numbers illustrates that we need a more coherent solution — whether that means more funds, more organization, or both — to solve the affordable housing crisis.

In his press conference, Newsom asserted that "newly adopted and pending neighborhood plans will create over 13,000 new affordable homes." Although he failed to specify exactly when these homes would be completed, one would assume he meant by 2010, since the press conference was an update on the Home 15/5 initiative (which vows to produce approximately 15,000 new housing units between 2005-10).

According to affordable housing activist Calvin Welch, this plan is "an outrageous lie, a cynical lie, based on [Newsom’s] absolute and complete certainty that no one will understand what that means." The SF Planning Department’s Housing Need Assessment backs Welch’s sentiment: from 1999-2006, the city only produced about 800 low- and very-low affordable housing units a year. It would take more than 16 years to produce 13,000 new and affordable homes at that rate, leaving aside the question of how to pay for them.

Think it’s unfair to judge Newsom’s statements based on the past? Newsom also said in his press conference that "1,547 affordable homes have been completed since 2006." But statistics provided by the Mayor’s Office of Housing show that only 646 of these 1,547 housing units are below or at 50 percent of the area median income, or AMI. In other words, most of these units aren’t as affordable as one might think.

These dismal statistics prove that the Home 15/5 initiative so far has failed to significantly increase the city’s production of affordable housing. Since Newsom opposes Prop. B and has refused to spend affordable housing money allocated by supervisors in the past, it’s unclear how he plans to create 13,000 affordable housing units anytime soon.

Newsom also said that the Home 15/5 plan "increases the city’s production of housing affordable to low- and very-low income households to the highest levels ever, comprising 33 percent of all new homes built." This percentage is similar to the SF Planning Department’s production goals for 2007-14: the city strives to create 31,000 housing units, 39 percent affordable. Both aims fall far below the SF Housing Element’s objective, which states that 64 percent of the city’s housing units should be affordable. But they’re a start, or would be — if they actually come true.

A look at the SF Planning Department’s housing production statistics show that only 4,705 low- or very-low affordable housing units had been built as of June 2008. That’s a mere 19 percent, a far cry from Newsom’s 33 percent assertion. It wasn’t just a slow year — the number of moderate and market-priced housing built over the same period surpassed target production goals by more than 500 units. If San Francisco continues to produce at this speed, the city will not only fail to produce enough affordable housing units, but will increase the ratio of the very rich among city residents.

With help from Prop. B, the city could start working its way toward meeting the mandate of the city’s Housing Element, which states that two- thirds of city housing should be affordable. Unfortunately the Housing Element may also be under attack this November: the Planning Department is holding a public scoping meeting Nov. 6 — two days after the election — to discuss preparations for an environmental impact report.

Although 64 percent affordability may seem like a lofty goal now, a decrease in Housing Element aims and the lean budgetary years ahead could mean a continuation of policies that build mostly market-rate housing that remains unaffordable to most San Franciscans.

Voting to save the local economy

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October 28, 2008
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EDITORIAL On Oct. 21, a string of economists and advisors from the Newsom administration, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau appeared before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to present a picture of the local economy that was stunning in its lack of reality.

The experts talked about how San Francisco isn’t really hurting that much right now. They said the downturn would hit eventually, but that housing and jobs are still relatively strong here. And what we need to do to boost the economy, the mayor and his experts said, is to promote downtown business, cut fees — and further reduce the city budget.

Cut taxes? Cut spending? Boost big business? That sounds a lot like the economic prescriptions we’ve been hearing from the right wing of the Republican Party for decades. And it hasn’t exactly worked out well.

In fact, for many San Franciscans, the recession is already here — and is deep and painful. Small businesses are struggling. People are losing jobs and finding it hard to pay the rent. Like Washington, DC, San Francisco needs to be taking this seriously — but what we’ve seen from Mayor Gavin Newsom is a bunch of hot air. The mayor wants to accelerate capital spending. Fine. But he’s counting on projects like rebuilding Airport Terminal Two that rely on bond sales — and this isn’t a great time to be selling bonds — and that create jobs mostly for big out-of-town construction firms. And he wants to cut fees on business — which has never proven to be an economic stimulus, but would require deeper cuts in city programs and layoffs of city staffers. The worst thing you can do in a recession is cut public jobs.

At the Oct. 21 hearing, the supervisors were a bit dubious. "We need to be straightforward and real," said Board President Aaron Peskin. "Not half-baked schemes and empty promises." But if Newsom and his downtown and landlord allies get their way, the board that takes office in January could be very different. The progressives who have held the line on cuts, pushed for higher taxes on the wealthy, and promoted measures that will actually help the economy could wind up in the minority. And we could see a dramatic shift to the right in economic policy.

The November election is critical — and the top of the ticket isn’t the only vote that matters. Preserving the progressive majority on the board and passing the key ballot measures will take the city a long way toward avoiding the worst of what could be a catastrophic economic downturn.

Let’s look at the ballot from that perspective:

•<\!s> Proposition H would inject millions into the economy. San Francisco residents and businesses pay some of the highest electric rates in the country, and money that goes to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is sucked right out of town and invested elsewhere. Since electricity is a necessity, cutting electric rates would instantly inject cash into the economy. In fact, a 2002 study by Hofstra University economist Irwin Kellner showed that public power expanded the economy of Long Island. by $10 billion over the first four years after that region got rid of its private electric utility.

Based on his methodology and calculations, we estimated in 2002 that PG&E cost the local economy $620 million over the previous two years (see "The $620 million shakedown," 10/4/02). Updating those figures today shows a dramatic impact: In the past decade, PG&E rate hikes have taken 1.015 billion out of the local economy. And if, as we have estimated, a public power agency could cut rates by 15 percent, that would inject $477 million a year into the local economy (see sfbg.com for a detailed calculation). That’s a lot more money than the city would see from any of Newsom’s proposals.

• Proposition B would create thousands of new jobs. Building a new terminal at the airport attracts big national construction companies. Affordable housing in a much more home-grown operation. The nonprofits that build below-market housing in San Francisco hire local construction workers, at union scale; that money stays in the economy. Affordable housing also helps stabilize and upgrade neighborhoods, adding small business and cultural institutions that create more jobs and economic impact. "It’s a monster source of jobs," Rene Cazenave, who is working on the Yes on B campaign, told us. In fact, Prop. B alone would create a lot more jobs than the mayor’s entire economic stimulus plan.

• Propositions N, O and Q would save jobs. As the city’s budget deficit continues to grow, Newsom is talking about cutting more services — and that means cutting public sector jobs. Many of those workers live in San Francisco; eliminating jobs hurts the local economy. Prop. O would prevent the city from losing $80 million in tax revenue every year; Props. N and Q would bring in millions more. That would save jobs and help stave off a deeper recession.

• Preserving an independent board will keep Newsom’s worst economic policies in check. If supervisorial candidates Sue Lee, Joe Alioto, and Ahsha Safai win in Districts 1, 3 and 11, Newsom will have a loyal majority — and the city’s economy will be in trouble. The mayor of San Francisco is a Democrat, but his economic policies are much closer to what John McCain is proposing — and they won’t work. San Francisco needs a strong independent board to keep asking the tough questions and demanding alternatives. It’s critical to elect Eric Mar, David Chiu, and John Avalos in those swing districts.

There’s so much at stake in this election. Vote early, vote often, and vote all the way to the bottom of the ballot.

Family act

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October 28, 2008
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> sarah@sfbg.com

District 3 supervisorial candidate Joe Alioto Jr., 36, has stated repeatedly on the campaign trail that he is not running on his family’s name.

But his lack of policy or political experience, combined with his campaign’s close ties to his sister, District 2 Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier — the most conservative and reactionary member of the Board of Supervisors — has progressives fearing he’ll be even more hostile to their values than his sister if he is elected this fall.

Records show that Alioto-Pier, 40, who was appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004, consistently votes against the interests of tenants, workers and low-income folks. She recently sponsored legislation that passes increased water and sewer rates along to tenants. In the past, she has voted against relocation money for no-fault evictions and against limits on condominium conversions. And that’s just her record on tenants’ rights.

"Michela makes Sup. Sean Elsbernd look like a progressive," said Board President Aaron Peskin, who is termed out as D3 supervisor and has endorsed David Chiu as his preferred candidate to represent this diverse district, which encompasses Chinatown, North Beach, Fisherman’s Wharf and Telegraph Hill.

Alioto, who bought a $1.3 million Telegraph Hill condominium in 2004, has said in debates that he was proud to serve on the Telegraph Hill Dwellers Board for three years, citing his alleged involvement in stopping the Mills Corporation’s development at Piers 27 and 31, improving the Broadway corridor, and working on neighborhood parks.

But a former THD Board member says Alioto’s claims are wildly overstated.

"He did not achieve anything in North Beach as a board member," our source said. "His attendance was poor, he lacked leadership, and when he was asked to head a Broadway corridor subcommittee to tackle the Saturday night issue, he said no, he was too busy. He was on the opposite side of all our policies and goals. There were even questions whether he was residing in the district, when he house-sat for his parents in the East Bay."

In a March 2006 e-mail to THD members, Alioto acknowledges that he and his wife had indeed been house-sitting in the East Bay for months while his parents were in Italy. "Of course, I have never intended to stay in the East Bay, my being there for simply a temporary period," Alioto wrote, referring to the Supreme Court’s definition of residency, which he said he "relied on to continue to contribute to THD activities."

THD board members aren’t the only ones accusing Alioto of stretching the truth.

The Sierra Club’s John Rizzo is irate over the use of the club’s name in a recent Alioto campaign mailer in which Alioto claims that he helped create the San Francisco Climate Challenge "in collaboration with the Sierra Club and DF Environment."

"What he says is highly misleading," Rizzo told the Guardian. "It makes it sound like an ongoing effort he cofounded with the Sierra Club, but it was a one-time effort that, while worthwhile, only lasted a month and is over and done with."

Rizzo further noted that Alioto did not complete or return the Sierra Club’s candidate questionnaire, as is requested of candidates seeking the club’s political endorsement. Alioto also has ruffled feathers by claiming that he prosecuted criminal cases while working in the Alameda County District Attorney’s office in 1999.

Alameda County Senior Deputy District Attorney Kevin Dunleavy told the Guardian that Alioto was, in fact, "a summer intern, a student law clerk working under supervision" in 1999. "He got to prosecute a few cases under our supervision, including a misdemeanor jury trial, but he never worked as an actual deputy DA," Dunleavy said.

But Alioto’s alleged distortions have tenants’ rights advocates like Ted Gullicksen of the San Francisco Tenants Union wondering if Alioto will preserve rent control and try to abolish the Ellis Act, as he has promised on the campaign trail. Alioto never completed a Tenants Union candidate endorsement questionnaire, and has a massive amount of financial backing from the same downtown real estate and business interests that support his anti-tenant sister, Alioto-Pier.

Campaign disclosures show that Alioto’s campaign consultant, Stephanie Roumeliotes, led the Committee to Reelect Michela Alioto-Pier in 2006. Roumeliotes is also working on two other political campaigns this fall: No on B, which opposes the affordable housing set-aside, and Yes on P, which supports giving Mayor Newsom even greater control of how transportation funds are allocated and spent, and which even Alioto-Pier joined the Board of Supervisors in unanimously opposing.

Public records show that the Alioto siblings have 160 of the same campaign contributors. These include Gap founder Donald Fisher, wealthy socialite Dede Wilsey, and Nathan Nayman, former executive director of the Committee on Jobs, a downtown political action committee funneling big money into preferred candidates like Alioto.

All of which has progressives worrying that Alioto and his sister could become the Donny and Marie Osmond tag team for the same Republican downtown interests that are seeking to overturn the city’s universal health care and municipal identity card programs.

Talking by phone last week after months of stonewalling the Guardian’s requests for an interview, Alioto told us that he admires his sister very much, but that does not mean he shares her beliefs. "She has been through more in her relatively short life than most of us, and she does a great job representing her district," Alioto said. "But we are not the same people. Just because we are siblings does not mean we think the same."

Noting that, unlike his sister, he supports Proposition M, (which would protect tenants from landlord harassment), Alioto said, "If Michela ever proposed legislation that I thought was bad for the district and city, I’d vote against it."

Asked why he opposes the affordable housing measure Prop. B, Alioto told us that he doesn’t think that "locking away any more of our money helps … but I support affordable housing for low-income folks, including rental units, and we need more middle-income housing for police officers, firefighters, nurses and teachers."

As for his endorsement by the rabidly anti-rent control SF Small Property Owners, Alioto said, "I think people are supporting me because I’d be fair and reasonable."

Alioto, who attended Boalt Hall School of Law at UC Berkeley and works as an antitrust lawyer at the Alioto Law Firm with brother-in-law Tom Pier, insists that he never claimed he’d been a deputy DA, "but I have a proven record of being interested in putting criminals behind bars."

Noting that he supports the property tax measures on the ballot, "notwithstanding the fact that some real estate interests supporting my campaign are opposed," Alioto further claimed that estimates that a third of his campaign money is from real estate interests are "severely overblown."

"I think they must have been including architects," he told us.

Asked about the Golden Gate Restaurant Association’s lawsuit against the city’s universal health care ordinance, Alioto said he supports Healthy San Francisco, "but I am concerned a little about putting the burden on small business."

Claiming that he supports the mayor’s community justice center as well as "funding for whatever programs it diverts people to," Alioto talked about kick-starting the economy in blighted areas by creating jobs and incentives for small businesses in those districts. Alioto, who just saw the San Francisco Small Business Advocates kick down $9,500 in support of his campaign, also said he wants to increase the number of entertainment permits, add a movie theater, and decrease parking fees in Chinatown.

"And I support the [Chinatown] night markets," Alioto said, referring to a pet project of Pius Lee, whose Chinatown neighborhood association was found, during a 2006 audit instigated by Peskin, to have received excess city funds and allowed unlicensed merchants to participate in the markets.

But Lee is evidently now in good standing with Alioto and Mayor Gavin Newsom, since he accompanied both on a recent walkabout to boost Alioto’s standing with Chinatown merchants. And Alioto’s election is apparently very important to Newsom, given that the first public appearance the mayor made after returning from his African honeymoon was on behalf of Alioto’s campaign.

All of which seems to confirm progressives’ worst fears that Alioto, just like his sister before him, will become yet another Newsom call-up vote on the board. Three ethics complaints were filed against the Alioto campaign this week, and his detractors say he has a long history of questionable behavior, going back to 1996 when he had a severe ethical lapse while working on his sister’s campaign for Congress.

According to a July 27, 1996 Chronicle article, Alioto, who was then his sister’s campaign adviser, and their cousin, college student Steve Cannata, admitted they conspired to intercept the campaign material of Michela’s congressional opponent, Frank Riggs.

"If Miss Alioto tolerates this sort of deceit in her campaign, it is frightening to imagine how she would behave if ever elected," Riggs wrote at the time. Alioto-Pier lost that race. But if her brother wins this November, can progressives help but be a little frightened to imagine just how the Alioto siblings might behave?

As one observer who preferred to remain anonymous told us, "Alioto may be all Joe Personality on the campaign trail, and have the same photogenic smile as his sister, but in reality, he is a fraud."

The stealth candidate

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October 28, 2008
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› news@sfbg.com

Ahsha Safai is hoping to be elected to the Board of Supervisors without answering questions about his padded political resume of short-lived patronage jobs, greatly exaggerated claims of his accomplishments, history as a predatory real estate speculator, connections to and coordination with downtown power brokers, shifting and contradictory policy positions, or the many other distortions this political neophyte is offering up to voters in District 11, a crucial swing district that could decide the balance of power in city government.

Safai has refused numerous requests for interviews with the Guardian over the last two months. We’ve even left messages with specific concerns about his record and positions. But our investigation reveals his close political ties to the downtown interest groups that have spent close to $100,000 on his behalf and shows him to be a shameless opportunist who is apparently willing to say anything to achieve power.

There’s much we don’t know about Ahsha Safai, but there’s enough we do know for a consistent yet troubling portrait to emerge.

Safai moved to San Francisco from Washington, DC with his lawyer wife in 2000, and immediately began to ingratiate himself into the mainstream Democratic Party power structure, starting as a legislative liaison with the corruption-plagued San Francisco Housing Authority and joining Gavin Newsom’s mayoral campaign in 2003.

Safai became a protégé of Newsom’s field director Alex Tourk, who was a top Newsom strategist for several years until he abruptly resigned after learning that Newsom had an affair with his wife. With support from Tourk (who didn’t respond to our calls about Safai) and Newsom, Safai held a string of city jobs over the next three years, moving from the Mayor’s Office of Community Development to the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services to the Department of Public Works, all of which he touts on his Web ite, greatly exaggerating (and in some cases, outright misrepresenting) his accomplishments in each, according to those who worked with him. (Few sources who worked with Safai would speak on the record, fearing repercussions from Newsom).

THE CONNECT DISASTER

One project Safai doesn’t mention on his Web site is his work spearheading Community Connect, the most disastrous of Newsom’s SF Connect programs. "It’s the one Connect that the mayor will never talk about," said Quentin Mecke, who participated in the effort, on behalf of nonprofit groups, to create a community policing system. "The whole thing just devolved into chaos and there weren’t any more meetings."

In 2005, Safai and Tourk convened meetings in each of the city’s police precincts to take testimony on rising violence and the failure of the San Francisco Police Department to deal with it. Ultimately Newsom decided to reject a community-policing plan developed through the process by the African-American Police Community Relations Board. That set up the Board of Supervisors to successfully override a mayoral veto of police foot patrols.

"Ahsha’s approach was consistent with the Newsom administration, with folks that talk a good game but there’s no substance behind it," said Mecke, who ran for mayor last year, placing second.

Another realm in which Safai has claimed undeserved credit is on his efforts to save St. Luke’s Hospital from attempts by the California Pacific Medical Center (and CPMC’s parent company, Sutter Health) to close it or scale back its role as an acute care provider for low income San Franciscans.

"When I looked at his campaign material and he says he was a leader who saved St. Luke’s, I thought, ‘Am I missing something here?," Roma Guy, a 12-year member of the city’s Health Commission and leader in the effort to save St. Luke’s, told the Guardian. "Nobody thinks Ahsha has taken a leadership role on this. This is a significant exaggeration from where I sit."

Nato Green, who represents nurses at St. Luke’s within the California Nurses Association, went even further than Guy, saying he was worried about Safai’s late arrival to the issue (Safai wasn’t part of the group that protested, organized, and urged CPMC to agree to rebuild the hospital) and the fact that CPMC appointed Safai to its Community Outreach Task Force as the representative from Distrist 11.

"From our point of view, he is the CPMC’s AstroTurf program, simuutf8g community participation," Green told us. "It’s critical to us that we end up with a supervisor who is independent of CPMC and will go to the mat for what the community needs."

CNA has endorsed Avalos in the District 11 race.

"John was the only candidate in District 11 who came out and spoke at the hearings, attended the vigils, and walked the picket line during the strikes," Green said.

REAL ESTATE SPECULATION

Beyond his association with downtown power brokers and endorsement by Newsom, there are other indicators that Safai is hostile to progressive values. He said in a recent televised forum that he would work most closely with supervisors Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd, and Michela Alioto-Pier, the three most conservative members of the Board of Supervisors.

During an Oct. 14 Avalos fundraiser hosted by sustainable transportation advocates Dave Snyder, Tom Radulovich, and Leah Shahum, attendees expressed frustration at Safai’s tendency to pander to groups like the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, taking whatever position he thinks they want to hear without considering their implications or consistency with his other stands.

"It was a no-brainer for the Bike Coalition to endorse John," Shahum, SFBC’s executive director, said at the event, noting Avalos’ long history of support for alternatives to the automobile.

Avalos, who had been hammered all week by mailers and robocalls from downtown groups supporting Safai, said he was frustrated by the barrage but that "we can fight the money with people.

"Ahsha has done everything he can to blur the lines about what he stands for," Avalos said. "Whoever he’s talking to, that’s who he’s going to be. But we need principled leadership in San Francisco."

One area where Safai doesn’t appear to be proud of his work is in real estate, opting to be identified on voting materials as a "nonprofit education advisor." One of his opponents, Julio Ramos, formally challenged the designation, writing to the Election Department that the label "would mislead voters and is not factually accurate, the term ‘businessman’ or ‘investor’ denotes the true livelihood of candidate Safai."

Safai responded by defending the title and writing, "My dates of employment at Mission Language Vocational School were from August 2007 through February 2008." So, because of his seven-month stint at this nonprofit, voters will see Safai as someone who works in education, even though his financial disclosure forms show that most of his six-figure income comes from Blankshore LLC, a Los Altos-based developer currently building a large condo project at 2189 Bayshore Blvd. that is worth more than $1 million. (That’s the top value bracket listed on the form, so we don’t know how many millions the project is actually worth or how much more than $100,000 Safai earned this year).

But we do know from city records that Safai has personally bought at least three properties during his short stint in San Francisco, including one at 78 Latona Street that he flipped for a huge profit after buying it from a woman facing foreclosure, who then sued Safai for fraud.

The woman, Mary McDowell, alleged in court documents that real estate broker Harold Smith, "unsolicited, came to plaintiff’s residence and offered assistance to her because her homes were in foreclosure … [and said] she would receive sufficient money after sales commissions to reinstate the loans on the four other properties."

The legal complaint said Smith then modified those terms to pay McDowell less than promised and arranged to sell the home to Safai and his brother, Reza. "Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that defendants did not promptly list her residence on the multiple listing service to avoid larger offers on the home and conspired with the other defendants to purchase the home at a far less than market price," reads the complaint.

The case was originally set for jury trial, indicating it had some merit. But after numerous pleadings and procedural actions that resulted in the plaintiff’s attorney being sanctioned for failing to meet certain court deadlines and demands, the case was dismissed.
But whatever the merit to the case, records on file with the county assessor and recorder show that Safai and his brother flipped the property for a tidy profit. They paid $365,500 for the place in December 2003 — and sold it two year later, in December 2005, for $800,000.
Labor activist Robert Haaland told us that Safai can’t be trusted to support rent control or the rights of workers or tenants: "At the end of the day, he’s a real estate speculator."

The Clean Slate 2008

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October 28, 2008
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>>CLICK HERE FOR OUR LIVE ELECTION NIGHT COVERAGE!

NATIONAL AND STATE RACES
President: Barack Obama
Congress, District 6: Lynn Woolsey
Congress, District 7: George Miller
Congress, District 8: Cindy Sheehan
Congress, District 13: Pete Stark
Superior Court, Seat 12: Gerardo Sandoval
State Senate, District 3: Mark Leno
State Senate, District 9: Loni Hancock
State Assembly, District 12: Fiona Ma
State Assembly, District 13: Tom Ammiano
State Assembly, District 14: Nancy Skinner

STATE PROPOSITIONS
Proposition 1A: YES, YES, YES
Proposition 2: YES
Proposition 3: NO
Proposition 4: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 5: YES
Proposition 6: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 7: NO
Proposition 8: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 9: NO, NO, NO
Proposition 10: NO
Proposition 11: NO
Proposition 12: YES

SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
District 1: Eric Mar
District 3: 1. David Chiu; 2. Denise McCarthy; 3. Tony Gantner
District 4: Dave Ferguson
District 5: Ross Mirkarimi
District 7: Sean Elsbernd
District 9: 1. David Campos; 2. Eric Quezada; 3. Mark Sanchez
District 11: 1. John Avalos; 2. Randy Knox; 3. Julio Ramos

BOARD OF EDUCATION
Sandra Fewer, Norman Yee, Barbara Lopez, Kimberly Wicoff

COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD
Milton Marks, Chris Jackson, Bruce Wolfe

BART BOARD OF DIRECTORS
District 7: Lynette Sweet
District 9: Tom Radulovich

SAN FRANCISCO MEASURES
Proposition A: YES, YES, YES
Proposition B: YES, YES, YES
Proposition C: NO
Proposition D: YES
Proposition E: YES
Proposition F: YES
Proposition G: YES
Proposition H: YES, YES, YES
Proposition I: NO
Proposition J: YES
Proposition K: YES
Proposition L: NO
Proposition M: YES
Proposition N: YES, YES, YES
Proposition O: YES, YES, YES
Proposition P: NO, NO, NO
Proposition Q: YES, YES, YES
Proposition R: NO
Proposition S: NO
Proposition T: YES
Proposition U: YES
Proposition V: NO, NO, NO

EAST BAY RACES
Alameda County Superior Court Judge, seat 9: Dennis Hayashi
Berkelely Mayor: Tom Bates

BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL
District 2: Darryl Moore
District 3: Max Anderson
District 4: Jesse Arreguin
District 5: Sophie Hahn
District 6: Phoebe Ann Sorgen

BERKELEY SCHOOL BOARD
John Selawksy
Beatriz Levya-Cutler

AC TRANSIT BOARD OF DIRECTORS
At-large: Chris Peeples
Ward 2: Greg Harper

EAST BAY MUNICIPAL UTILITY DISTRICT
Director, Ward 5: Doug Linney
Director, Ward 6: Bob Feinbaum

EAST BAY REGIONAL PARKS DISTRICT
Director, Ward 1: Norman LaForce

EAST BAY MEASURES
Berkeley Measure FF: YES
Berkeley Measure GG: YES
Berkeley Measure HH: YES
Berkeley Measure II: YES
Berkeley Measure JJ: YES
Berkeley Measure KK: NO
Berkeley Measure LL: NO

Oakland City Council (At Large): Rebecca Kaplan
Oakland Measure N: YES
Oakland Measure OO: YES

ALAMEDA COUNTY MEASURES
Measure VV: YES
Measure WW: YES

>>CLICK HERE FOR PRINTOUT VERSION.

>>READ OUR COMPLETE 2008 ENDORSEMENTS HERE.

A PG&E VP at the door

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October 28, 2008
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Steven Hill, director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation (www.newamerica.net) and author of “10 Steps to Repair American Democracy” (www.10Steps.net), sent this over. It’s a fascinating story that shows how PG&E is not only slinging mud but refusing to debate the real issues of Prop. H.

The political mudslide threatening to drown us all

by Steven Hill

You know you are in the height of the political season when you start receiving activists knocking on your door for political campaigns. But I was taken aback recently when the activist at my door was a vice president for Pacific Gas and Electric.

He, of course, wanted to talk about Proposition H, the San Francisco ballot measure known as the “Clean Energy Act” for which PG&E is the main opponent. Before I provide details on that conversation, let me step back for a moment and get something off my chest.

I don’t know about you, but in watching the presidential campaigns wage their mudslinging hack-attacks against each other, it’s clear to me that such “win at all costs” tactics not only degrade the electoral process, but those who participate in and are forced to witness it. From the McCain campaign and their supporters we have heard that Obama is a pal of terrorists, a supporter of infanticide, and a tax-and-spend liberal, with subtle allusions to his race.

From the Obama side we have heard that McCain is too old, too crotchety and too out of touch with Main Street. Both sides feel that their characterizations are fair and accurate — or at least close enough to sling the mud.

But from the voter’s perspective, it’s hard to watch. Instead of finding out what’s good about each candidate, and what stirring vision they have for these difficult times, we are finding out the worst about them. And then, following the election, the tainted winner is supposed to rally the country behind him, even though half the country now detests him.

Something is very wrong with this picture. Sure, we can rationalize it, say that this kind of mudslinging has long been part of American politics. But perhaps that’s partly why the public is so cynical about politicians, and so anti-government. That attitude has contributed to Republicans’ relentless bashing of government, which became the basis for massive deregulation of all stripes, including the financial, banking and home mortgage industries. “Get government out of the way,” was their rallying cry.

So this mudslinging and distorting of facts and information is not harmless or innocent. Those who practice it know exactly what they are doing.

Which brings me back to my curious door-knocker, the vice president for PG&E. I politely greeted him, and he launched into a tirade against Prop H. If passed, he said, this clean energy legislation would “take away my right to vote” (his exact words), raise electricity rates and force San Francisco to buy PG&E’s system (which oddly he implied was antiquated and not worth the money). And besides that, “it’s a power grab by the Board of Supervisors.”

Whew. I had just been doing my own research on Proposition H and other ballot measures to figure out how I would vote. So I knew he was tearing a page out of the Karl Rove campaign handbook. Unlike with the presidential campaigns, however, which happens far away like we are spectators in the 42nd row, here was one of the “candidates” right at my doorstep. PG&E had been spending barrels full of money, over $5 million, to defeat this measure. This was my chance, I figured, to have a real dialogue.

“The proponents of this measure dispute your claims,” I told him. “They say Proposition H will make the City study all possible ways to get to 100% clean energy, and then create a plan to make it happen. PG&E’s system can be part of this plan if you figure out how to deliver low-cost, clean energy. They also say that any bonds issued would have to be approved by the City Controller and the Public Utilities Commission, who are all appointed by the mayor. The Board of Supervisors can’t do anything by itself. What’s your response to that?”

His response was the Sarah Palin “deer in the headlights” look. I don’t think he had been knocking on too many doors of people who had done some homework. Isn’t that what the mudslingers always rely upon?

I was ready to engage and discuss. But instead he said, “I have to go.” And that’s what he did.

In this political season, I urge all voters to do your research, and don’t automatically believe the candidates or their proxies. With the country facing deep economic challenges, too much is at stake to take the word of the sharks at your door or on your TV screens. And please vote Yes on Proposition H.

Are you worried yet?

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October 28, 2008
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My daughter says she say fliers everywhere in Berkeley yesterday, announcing that there will be no Halloween in the Castro.

Wait a minute! Does that mean that Berkeley is now home to the gang bangers and gay bashers that the Newsom administration reportedly wants to stop from coming to the Castro?

It makes you wonder just what is going on in the Mayor’s mind. Especially since it’s almost impossible to get a straight answer from his handlers. And especially if you had to sit through last week’s report to the Board of Supervisors on the impacts of the global economic meltdown on the San Francisco economy. There were lots of charts and statistics, mostly showing roller coaster plunges of one financial stripe or another, even though we were assured that there is no need to panic. At least not just yet.

But one of the predicted outcome, (In between fairly severe reductions to the City’s property tax transfer revenues, as people stop flipping homes so fast, I guess.), was a drop in international and business tourism, as European visitors and convention traffic are forced, for credit freeze reasons, to stay home or go elsewhere.

I listened as the Mayor’s people described how they want to attract local Bay Area residents, instead.

Why Newsom’s flak infuriates me

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October 27, 2008
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By Tim Redmond

Okay, here’s a legitimate issue. According to Paul Hogarth’s insightful piece on BeyondChron, Mayor Gavin Newsom has decided to skip a major fundraising dinner for the San Francisco Democratic Party, even though he is getting an award at the gala, and will instead show his face at an event across town hosted by the Coalition for Responsible Growth, a Republican-led outfit that is trying to push the city “on a sharp turn to the right.”

Why is Newsom skipping the annual Democratic Party event? I think it’s entirely because the party is now controlled by progressives who didn’t support the mayor’s candidates for supervisor. Since he didn’t get his way this year, he’s not going do a thing to help his own political party. CRG is raising and spending a lot of money to support Newsom’s allies in districts 1, 3 and 11, and the mayor is going to help.

If that’s the position Newsom wants to put out — he’d rather work with Republicans and big downtown interests than with elected Democrats who don’t always do what he wants — then he has every right to do so. But he ought to be honest about it.

Read the jump to see how Nathan Ballard, Newsom’s press flak, tried to duck the issue.

Mayor’s power plant plan flawed

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October 26, 2008
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by Amanda Witherell

Or, as Sup. Aaron Peskin put it one point during the dramatic Wed. Oct. 22 Land Use and Economic Development committee hearing, “The only thing holding this proposal together is the staple in the upper left hand corner.”

Under discussion was Mayor Gavin Newsom’s plan to retrofit 32-year-old Mirant Potrero power plant Units 4,5, and 6 to run on natural gas rather than diesel and be 97.5 percent cleaner than current operations – a retrofit and emissions reduction that’s never been accomplished and might be impossible, according to testimony from industry experts called in by committee chair Sup. Sophie Maxwell.

The plan arose in June, after a May 23 tête-à-tête between Newsom and seven Pacific Gas & Electric executives just as the Board of Supervisors was preparing to vote on a plan to construct a new power plant to replace Mirant and meet state energy requirements. PG&E opposed the new plant (referred to as the “CTs”) as it would have been owned by the city, eroding the utility company’s control of local energy resources. Prior to the May meeting, Newsom had been part of a coalition of city officials, which included city attorney Dennis Herrera and Supes. Maxwell and Peskin, who supported the new plant and had been fostering it forward for several years as a way to close down Mirant’s more polluting operations. Newsom pushed for support of retrofitting Mirant instead, billing it as a cheaper alternative that could be just as clean as the new city-owned combustion turbine facility that had been proposed.

But the results of a July feasibility study [PDF], completed by CH2M Hill and currently part of the SFPUC’s negotiations with Mirant, had Peskin comparing the idea to retrofitting a 1974 Chevy rather than going for a new Toyota Prius.

A score of issues came up as the study was discussed during what proved to be a very revealing hearing. They include an assumption of reduced air emissions for the retrofit based on reduced runtimes for a plant that the city has sued in the past for operating more than it was legally permitted, a possible ducking of CEQA environmental review, a lack of established regulatory oversight of the plant, an emissions control system that “predicts” rather than actually measures pollution, an understated project cost of $78,730,000 and the fact that executives from energy companies that routinely bid on such retrofit projects testified that they wouldn’t go anywhere near this one.

Landlords against Prop. F

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October 24, 2008
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I didn’t think Proposition F, which would move the mayoral races to the same year as presidential elections, was that big a deal for downtown. The left is somewhat split on it; we endorsed it, but some progressives say it’s a bad idea that will cause local issues to get lost.

But I’ve now received two slick fliers from the landlords urging No on F. I guess these guys really do think it might help a progressive get elected mayor.

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