I attended SPUR’s regular post-election wrap-up yesterday, which was a bit irregular in that it was almost a week after the election (owing to the delayed election results) rather than the next day and it wasn’t hosted by respected local pollster David Binder. Instead hosting duties were split three ways among consultant Jim Stearns (engineer of the big win this election, Yes on A/No on H), consultant and number cruncher David Latterman, and pollster/hired gun Ben Tulchin of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, whose work I have quibbled with in the past.
And once again, Tulchin claimed to be objective and pointed out that he doesn’t work for Newsom before going on to play the spinning pro-Newsom partisan. “It was historic, it was a landslide, and the mayor and his team deserve a lot of credit,” Tulchin gushed, going on to argue that this election showed the mayor had coattails and was now a force to be reckoned with — all evidence to the contrary.
Mayor
Spinning Newsom
The vacationing mayor
This hasn’t been that big a deal in the local press, but isn’t it pretty screwed up that the mayor of San Francisco, the day after an oil spill that was causing catastrophic environmental problems in his city. took off to Hawaii on vacation?
I mean, he’s supposed to be in charge here, supposed to be a leader. He could have postponed his trip a few days, right?
Newsom keeps dropping
New election results are out, and Mayor Gavin Newsom’s winning percentage continues to drop. He’s gone from the high 70s in early returns to 68 percent now. Quintn Mecke is now in second place, with almost 8 percent, and Harold Hoogasian is in third with 6.5 percent. These numbers will change more, and probably not in Newsom’s favor: Although the results page says that 94 percent of the precincts have been counted, only about half of the mayoral votes are tallied so far. That’s because the counting machines don’t handle ranked-choice voting the way they’re supposed to, so unless a voter fills in three choices for mayor, the machine kicks the ballot out and it has to be hand counted.
So look at Newsom coming in with a final vote of less than 65 percent. It’s almost certain that he’ll get fewer votes than he did last fime around (although that was a tightly contested election.)
Prop. A continues to widen its margin of victory. Oddly, though, and quite inconsistent with my election-night proclamations, Prop. E, the question-time measure, is actually LOSING votes as the election-day precinct totals come in. That’s a surprise — typically progressive measures that lag in the absentee count pick up several points, and sometimes more, when the precincts are tallied.
It’s not over yet — there are still 40,000 more absentee votes out there.
Latest returns support Yes on A/No on H campaign
Guardian illustration by Danny Hellman, from our Oct. 31 cover story
The big story of this election was the improbable triumph of environmentalists over car culture and grassroots activism over downtown’s money, a story being played out in the likely approval of the Muni reform measure Prop. A and lopsided defeat of the pro-parking Prop. H.
The latest elections results show Prop. A extending its narrow election night lead to a seven point margin and Prop. H being rejected by almost 64 percent of voters, despite its poll-tested simplicity and big time backing from Don Fisher and other downtown conservatives.
As expected, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s election night high of 77.46 percent of the early absentee votes has fallen to 72.47 and will probably continue its downward trend, while progressive favorite Quintin Mecke is slowly climbing out of the electoral cellar to third place with 6 percent now, a trend also likely to continue. Harold Hoogasian has 6.83 percent and Wilma Pang dropped to 5.6 – expect both to keep falling.
Prop. E, the question time measure where Newsom invested all his political capital trying to defeat, could still go either way: 48.7 percent say yes and 51.3 percent no. That will be a big test of whether Newsom has any political pull at all, capping off a string of electoral failures since he took office.
But as I said, the big story is the Yes on A/No on H campaign, which threw a jubilant party at the El Rio last night.
Newsom’s party
By David Crockett
In what was maybe the least surprising news story since that guy from ‘N Sync announced he was gay, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom seemed headed for an easy reelection, even with the sparse returns on election night, when he and his supporters gathered at the Ferry Building.
“The best is yet to come,” Newsom told his followers, at the beginning and end of his speech, adding, “As great as we are, we can still be so much more.”
Newsom kills the party
EDITORIAL It was a typical Halloween night this year in New York City: two million people in Greenwich Village, 50,000 participants in a wild costume parade, national media attention … and no real problems. Since 1973, New York has managed to handle a homegrown event that exploded into a tourist attraction in an urban neighborhood. It’s a signature part of the city’s landscape, something world famous that shows the best of the city to the eyes of the world and generates a small fortune in tourist revenue.
Why can’t San Francisco, which by all rights ought to have a claim on Halloween as a national holiday, seem to get it together enough to manage its version of this event? Why was the city’s response simply to give up, to kill the party, to send out so many cops that the Castro was effectively in lockdown? Why spend millions to keep an event from happening while giving up on the small businesses that depend on that night’s revenue?
The scene on Castro Street on Oct. 31 was surreal; at least 500 law enforcement officers kept the barricaded streets blocked off. Anyone who so much as stuck a toe off the sidewalk was harshly reprimanded and pushed back. Local restaurants were shuttered — and the few that tried to stay open faced reprisals. The would-be revelers tried to be festive, but they weren’t given much support. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Bevan Dufty had effectively cancelled Halloween.
They did so with little public input, operating mostly in secrecy, without revealing any specific plans to anyone in the community. It was a startlingly un–San Franciscan way of doing business, autocratic and mean-spirited. In fact, Newsom’s press secretary, Nathan Ballard, was almost mocking of any community concern; when we asked if the mayor or any of his staff would be holding any press events to discuss Halloween plans or let the community know what was in store, he tersely responded, "Halloween has been cancelled."
Newsom referred to the evening as "an incredible success," and if the goals were to make sure that nobody had any fun, nobody spent any money, and the Castro District was largely dead, it’s hard to argue with his logic.
On the other hand, if you think it ought to be possible for San Francisco to host a big party without creating panic and fear — that Halloween ought to be something to improve on and fix, not utterly shut down and abandon — then Oct. 31 was a civic embarrassment.
In a city where thousands of homeless people still wander the streets, where the price of housing is driving families out of town, where the homicide rate is soaring, the fate of a party is hardly the top issue on anyone’s agenda. And it’s tempting to give up, focus on more important things, and let the city’s tradition of wild Halloween fun just die.
But this is part of a larger trend that’s been happening in this town, and it’s directly related to the gentrification that’s changing the face of San Francisco. We’ve called it "the death of fun" — anything that might make a little noise and bother some well-off neighbor, anything that might create a little mess, anything that’s just a little out of control … the folks in the Newsom administration would just as soon see it go away. These days permits for live music events are tougher to get. Street fairs are facing prohibitive fees and regulations. Dance clubs are being told to quiet down. And we’re getting sick of it.
Next year Halloween will fall on a Friday, and the Castro simply can’t shut down then. Even Dufty admits something different will have to be done, and there’s no shortage of ideas. A Halloween street fair — perhaps with a modest donation asked of anyone not wearing a costume — shouldn’t be impossible to manage. A parade, similar to that of the New York gala’s, could start in the Castro and wind down at Civic Center, thus eliminating the problems that have some neighbors up in arms. But any solution will require extensive community input, and the mayor and Dufty need to set up a legitimate community task force — now, not next summer — to start talking about plans.
Some people suggest that the mayor needs to create an office of special events, which isn’t a bad idea. But he needs to do something else first: say that he’s not dead set against fun.
The Yes on A victory
Lots of celebration at the Yes on A/No on H party at El Rio. Robert Haaland, who ran the field campaign, was justifiably exuberant — the passage of A and defeat of H, which appears all but certain, was a demonstration that even in a low-turnout election, progressives can prevail. The labor-and-environmental-backed campaign did an extensive absentee-voter effort, extensive get-out-the-vote and effective mail. It helped that Sup. Aaron Peskin helped raise more than $400,000 for the battle.
Peskin said the results were a great victory for the battle against global warming, which is true — but it was also a victory for the president of the board — and for the idea that policy in San Francisco remains centered at the Board of Supervisors.
The polls that political consultants rely on show that the board’s popularity is low compared to the mayor — but on the ground, where it mattered, that wasn’t the case tonight.
Results — big surprise!
Early results are in, and the mayor’s race is no real surprise — Gavin Newsom’s at 77 percent, which is just the absentees, and that will drop. But the big news: In the very conservative absentees, Prop. A is just slightly behind — and Prop. H is actually LOSING. That’s over, and it’s over big — in the most important race for progressives, it looks like a clear and convincing victory. You can take this one to the bank — Don Fisher has lost, big, and Prop A, the competing transit measure, has won.
The other big surprise: Prop. E, the measure that wll require — and I said WILL require — Gavin Newsom to appear before the Board of Supervisors for “question time” looks like it’s going to pass. So Newsom wins — but he’s going to have to answer to his critics.
Newsom’s guy touts the Guardian
Eric Jaye, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign manager, was quoted by C. W. Nevius in today’s Chronicle as saying,
“However many votes we get, we know the Bay Guardian will say it wasn’t enough.” He’s right. B3
Mandate watch
The question of the day, of course, is What’s the Number? What percentage of the votes does Gavin Newsom get, and what does that mean?
The last time a mayor of San Francisco had such weak opposition was in 1983, when Dianne Feinstein ran all-but unopposed. It was a bleak time in the city, with the mayor openly selling the city to developers and the left lacking a contender who could take her on. Feinstein had just crushed a batty recall effort by a finger group of leftist gun nuts called the White Panther Party.; the White Panthers were mad that Feinstein had singed a bill controlling handguns in the city. The recall lost overwhelmingly, and left Feinstein appearing unbeatable.
Newsom isn’t in quite the same position; there are actually some candidates who have a bit of traction. The progressives are way better organized than we were in 1983 – and this race has a lot more, well, character.
I think Steve Jones is pretty much on point; I’ll go a step further. Let’s assume that 100,000 people vote; it may be a bit more, but I think 120,000 is tops. Say Quintin Mecke, the progressive front-runner, gets 15,000 votes, or 15 percent – not an unreasonable guess. He’s been working hard, had Chris Daly’s endorsement, and has a lot of boots on the street. I say Chicken John gets 10 percent anyway; he’s got a solid base in the artist/counterculture/weirdo community, and that’s a significant number of people. Between them, Ahimsa Sumchai and Josh Wolf get maybe 7,000 votes. Harold Hoogasian is the only Republican in the race, and has great name recognition because of his flower business; besides, the people who think Newsom is too liberal will vote for Hoogasian. That’s got to be worth 3,000 votes. So that’s already 35 percent – and there are quite a few other candidates who will pick up a few hundred votes here and there. By the time the counting is finished, Newsom may be stuck around 60 percent – hardly a stunning victory.
Election night parties
Start the night off at the Bay Guardian’s “Don’t Dodge the Drafts” party at Doc’s Clock, 2575 Mission Street, between 21st and 22nd Streets, from 7-9 p.m. Music and drink specials for attendees who bring their “I voted” sticker or ballot stub.
Right next door at 12 Galaxies, mayoral candidate Chicken John Rinaldi will be throwing his “Loser’s Ball” election night party. He hasn’t made many details available, but knowing Chicken, expect the evening’s most fun and unconventional party.
Most parties start at 8 p.m., hit a premature climax at 8:30 when absentee results (the only numbers of the evening due to state-mandated manual ballot checks) are announced then continue well into the evening, to varying degrees. Some of the parties:
· Quintin Mecke for Mayor: Peacock Lounge, 552 Haight Street
· Yes on A/No on H: El Rio, 3158 Mission Street
· Gavin Newsom for Mayor: Ferry Building, Embarcadero at Market Street
· Kamala Harris for DA: Tosca Café, 242 Columbus
Mayor’s race predictions
“However many votes we get,we know the Bay Guardian will say it wasn’t enough.” That’s what Mayor Gavin Newsom’s campaign manager Eric Jaye said in the intro of today’s C.W. Nevius column in the Chronicle, so I thought I might as well address it and get into the political prediction game.
Also in the column, consultant Jim Stearns said of Newsom, “I would expect that he gets 75-85 percent easily.” Stearns is probably the best consultant in town, so I don’t dismiss his numbers, but if Newsom really gets that much, the Bay Guardian will definitely say, “Whoa, that’s a lot.” Even against a weak field, if Newsom gets 80 percent of the vote, he’ll have his voter mandate and be in a strong position to set the agenda in the coming years.
Does that mean the Guardian will roll over and support that agenda? If he does things like legalize gay marriage, support the labor movement, and offer universal health care, you bet. We’ve always been supportive of the mayor when he’s done the right thing, but unfortunately, that doesn’t happen very often, which is why we didn’t endorse him. And we won’t support his efforts to subvert progressive values, no matter what kind of mandate he claims.
But I also think this is a moot point, because my prediction is that he won’t get anywhere near 80 percent.
Vote!
Turnout was pretty light in my Bernal Heights precinct this morning. Some projections say as few as 100,000 people will bother to vote. That would be less than 25 percent of the electorate choosing the next mayor and making key decisions on transportation policy. Which is exactly what Don Fisher and the downtown types hope for — in fact, the only way something as dumb and regressive as Prop. H could ever pass is San Francisco is in a very-low-turnout election.
So if you’re reading this, take a few minutes and go vote. Our endorsements are here.
**Commenting is temporarily disabled
Bechtel and Newsom: a fine pair
What do Newsom and Bechtel have in common?
They both oppose Prop. E, which requires the next Mayor of San Francisco to appear before the Board of Supervisors for public policy discussions.
Up until now, Newsom has been framing Prop. E as work of Sup. Chris Daly that will only lead to “political theater.”
Then, boom, four days before the election, Bechtel goes and plonks down $5,000 to defeat Prop. E, on top of the last-0minute plonking down of $10,000 from Republican Warren Hellman, $20,000 from the San Franciscan Association of Realtors, $25,000 from the Committee on Jobs Government Reform Fund, and $1,000 from socialite Dede Wilsey.
Looking at all these “No on E” money bags, it’s hard not to conclude that what Newsom’s No on E “Let’s Really Work Together Coalition” is really working together on is avoiding having to publicly debate tough issues, like the lack of affordable housing, or the rising tide of violence, or mental health issues among the homeless–issues that folks who aren’t millionaires and realtors would like to see their elected representatives hash out with the Mayor, but that rich folks can chat privately with the Mayor over fund raising dinners.
What’s bizarre about all this is that when you actually get Newsom talking, he seems perfectly capable of carrying out a well-argued and coherent debate.
So why don’t his handlers want their boy to be drawn into public debates? Could it be that they understand that once you get drawn into an argument, and express your opinion, people will take sides? That’s it safer to maintain a remote, inaccessible position, while you prepare for the next big thing, like governor, senator, or President?
But this is San Francisco, where people thrive on debate. So here’s hoping that the next Mayor of San Francisco spares us the fake question time and does as voters requested last fall: show up before the Board and answer their gosh darn questions.
Will & Willie are back!
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Will and Willie are back!
“Keeping it Real” with Will Durst and Willie Brown is now in podcast form at WillandWillie.com. Hear it at the link below.
Clear Channel Communications, the media megaconglomerate with l0 lousy radio stations in the Bay Area, made a terrible decision back in September 2006 when it killed the “Keepin’ It Real with Will and Willie” early morning radio show on its 960 a.m. Quake station.
The show, created by the talented radio producer Paul “The Lobster” Wells, featured Comedian Will Durst and former mayor Willie Brown playing themselves and taking on the issues of the day in the spirit and style of the old Herb Caen columns in the old San Francisco Chronicle. They were fun to listen to, brought on guests that nobody else would touch (Peter Phillips from Project Censored, Noam Chomsky, Marie Harrison from the Hunters Point power plant opposition, etc.), sketched out issues the mainstream media ignored, and provided witty conversation and “Bursts of Durst” every week day morning from 7 to l0 p.m.
I was even encouraged to come on the program and blast away at PG&E, its illegal private power utility, and other Guardian issues. Willie promptly suggested on the air that the program stage a debate with PG&E and me. Fine, I said, but they have never agreed to a debate with me since the Guardian started its public power campaign in l969 and I doubted if they ever would. Willie claimed surprise and said he would work on it. Nothing of course happened.
But this was the kind of fun the program encouraged and I, and many others around town, enjoyed going on the show and making points and arguments we could make on no other local show and certainly not in the San Francisco Chronicle and probably not even in Caen’s column (even he was wimpy on PG&E).
Clear Channel just killed the show outright, with no warning, no real explanation, and no real appreciation for what the show had accomplished in a short period of time. And it left the city without a voice or venue on this Progressive station, just as “San Francisco values” became a national phrase and the war and Bush rhetoric heated up, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi ascended to the speakership. Instead, we got all kinds of Quake talent with the sensibility of other places (Al Franken from Minnesota and Stephanie Miller from Los Angeles) and none from San Francisco. (Newsman John Scott does his best, on “The Progressive News Hour” from 4 to 6 p.m., but it isn’t the same.)
The good news is that Will and Willie are back, with producer Paul Wells, in podcast form. Their inaugural episode is the first gathering of Will, Willie, and Paul since the cancellation. They are in good form discussing the San Francisco election and Mayor Newsom running without real progressive opposition and the problem with parking downtown and and and. Their next episode will take on the upcoming Presidential election and other national events.
Cheer them on! Hear them by visiting the following link HERE and going to the Will&Willie podcast. Log in and give them feedback. B3
Don Fisher attacks the supes
The Chron story Sunday portrayed the battle over transportation policy in San Francisco as Don Fisher vs. Aaron Peskin, but actually, Fisher is going further. He’s mounting an all-out attack on the Board of Supervisors — and a pro-Newsom campaign committee is helping out.
Fliers that went to the west side of town attack the supervisors as childish — and attack Prop. A as “another transportation solution from the Board of Supervisors.” The first flier is from the campaign against Prop. E — that’s question time, the measure that would require the mayor to appear before the board once a month. The second is from Fisher’s campaign against Prop. A.
The nearly identical messages aren’t a coincidence — the fliers have the same return address (150 Post St. Suite 405, the office of campaign lawyer Jim Sutton) and both were done by Rich Schlackman, a campaign consultant who is working with both No on A and No on E.
The plan, clearly, is to make people think the supes are idiots — then saddle Prop. A with that image. The fact that Schlackman, who is one of nation’s top direct-mail experts and who also works with Nathan Nayman and the Committee on JOBS, has adopted this strategy signals downtown’s continuing effort to go after the district-elected board. Expect more of this crap in the months to come.
BY THE WAY: The battle over Props. A and H is still close. Labor and environmental groups had 250 people out on the streets talking up Yes on A and No on H over the weekend, but if people don’t turn out to vote, Don Fisher could get his way.
The Yes on A/No on H party is Tuesday night at El Rio.
That Guardian doorhanger
Just for the record, because there’s always some confusion this time of year:
The Guardian doesn’t distribute doorhangers or political fliers. We don’t print them, we don’t pay for them.
We don’t object to them, either.
Every year, someone we’ve endorsed wants to get the word out, and prints up a guardian slate card. That’s fine with me; I want our endorsements distributed as widely as possible. I’m happy that people want to reprint them. We do a lot of work on this stuff; the more people who see it, the better.
In this case, the Quintin Mecke for mayor campaign put the doorhanger together, with some financial help from other candidates. I didn’t see it in advance; if I had, I would have pointed out an error. The flier has our position as NO, NO, NO on Prop. F. We actually support that one. Not a huge deal, since Prop. F – a minor police pension issue – isn’t terribly controversial and is going to pass anyway. If you aren’t sure, just download our official slate here.
The main point is that the Mecke card pushes Yes on A and No on H, and promotes our three alternatives to Gavin Newsom. We didn’t do it, but I hope it helps.
Endorsements: Local offices
We’re having some trouble with our Web site — until it’s fixed, here’s our complete local offices endorsements for the Nov. 6 elections. For more endorsements, please visit our 2007 Guardian Election Center, or for quick refence see our Clean Slate printout guide.
Mayor
1. QUINTIN MECKE
2. AHIMSA PORTER SUMCHAI
3. CHICKEN JOHN RINALDI
Let us be perfectly clear: none of the people we are endorsing has any real chance of getting elected mayor of San Francisco. Gavin Newsom is going to win a second term; we know that, he knows that, and whatever they may say on the campaign trail, all of the candidates running against him know that.
It’s a sad state of affairs: San Francisco has been, at best, wallowing helplessly in problems under Newsom, and in many cases things have gotten worse. The murder rate is soaring; young people, particularly African Americans, are getting shot down on the streets in alarming numbers. The mayor has opposed almost every credible effort to do something about it — he fought against putting cops on foot patrol in the most violent areas, he opposed the creation of a violence-prevention fund and blocked implementation of a community policing plan, and he’s allowed the thugs in the Police Officers Association to set policy for a police department that desperately lacks leadership. The public transportation system is in meltdown. The housing crisis is out of control; 90 percent of the people who work in San Francisco can’t afford to buy a house here, and many of them can’t afford to rent either. Meanwhile, the city is allowing developers and speculators to build thousands of new luxury condos, which are turning San Francisco into a bedroom community for Silicon Valley. Newsom only recently seems to have noticed that public housing is in shambles and that the commission he appoints to oversee it has been ignoring the problem.
Halloween in the Castro: A scary kind of “success”
Photo from www.sfpartyparty.com
Was Halloween in the Castro this year a scary police state and fear-based waste of public resources, or was it an “incredible success” that San Franciscans should be proud of, as Mayor Gavin Newsom’s press secretary Nathan Ballard argues? Will we be trying to learn from a year when poorly communicated, top-down planning triggered resentments by many citizens and business people who were intimidated into shutting their doors? When and how will the city start planning for next year, when Halloween falls on a Friday, and will the public be allowed to participate?
I tried to get answers to these questions from Ballard and it wasn’t easy, as the following e-mail exchange shows.
The earthquake: l989 and 2007. How my old Royal typewriter saved the day and helped get the Guardian out on time
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Yes, that is correct. I put my trusty old Royal typewriter to work in the deadline emergency of the l989 Loma Prieta quake and it helped get the paper out on time. The rescue confirmed my argument that my typewriter was much more reliable than a computer in an earthquake emergency when the power goes out. But first let me give you some quake context.
Somehow, when the quake hits, I am always on the couch and get the full force of the jolt. Tuesday night, I was sitting on our couch in our West Portal home watching the Democratic presidential debate when the 5.6 quake hit at 8:04 p.m., several hours after our deadline and after our paper was safely in bed at the printers. The quake rattled the room a bit but there was no damage and nothing stirred in the neighborhood. On Oct. l7, l989, I was sitting on a couch in our old Guardian building, at l9th and York Streets in the Mission District, when the quake hit on our final deadline late in the afternoon. We had one page left to finish, a hole on page 4 for the “In this issue” column by Executive Editor Tim Redmond. The truck driver was anxiously standing by to drive the pages, or flats as we called them, four hours up the freeways to our printer in the northern California city of Paradise.
The issue was a classic Guardian investigative story with then Mayor Art Agnos on the cover, holding a blank check from Bob Lurie of the Giants, and a head that read “Blank-Check Mayor.” The subhead read, “If you still think Art Agnos’s downtown stadium is a good deal for the city, you haven’t read the fine print. Jim Balderston exposes the hidden details of a deal that could rival the Candlestick Park Swindle.” Another front page head introduced “Bay Area Censored,” the first annual Bay Area Censored project and six big stories that “were too hot for the local media to handle.” Normal Guardian fare. Obviously, we wanted the issue to come out on time the next morning, even though it was too late for us to do any real quake coverage.
Our building was rattled but there was no damage, though it was a two story unreinforced red brick building.
But the phones went dead, the power went out, our computers were down, and we had to stop work. So the staff poured onto the street, a little scared but in good spirits, to reconnoiter and figure out what to do next.
That meant heading to the Jay ‘n’ Bee Bar, our local pub, down the street a block. Balderston, then our city hall and investigative reporter, caught the spirit of the moment: “We better get down to the bar and get our drinks before the ice melts.”
Joe the Bartender, as he was known, began rolling out the drinks for us with his usual panache (he shook splendid martinis with flourishes, no stirring). The television set was down, but a pub regular from a local machine shop brought in a generator and fired it up.
We watched the tv in growing shock. The news was grim and dramatic. The Marina was burning. The Oakland Bridge had collapsed with cars on it. The Giants/Oakland Athletics World Series game at Candlestick Park was hit and sportswriters suddenly became action reporters and put the story out play by play all over the world. Damage appeared to be extensive all over town and the area and fatalities and injuries were coming in.
We had our own problems. Among them, how to finish up the paper and get the flats in the truck and up to Paradise.
I offered my trusty Royal. Executive Editor Tim Redmond came back to the office and grabbed my typewriter and started batting away on the In This column. “There are times when modern technology just doesn’t make it,” he pecked out. “Like now.
“It’s about 6:45, and the sun is almost gone. I’m catching the last few rays of light through the front windows of the Guardian building, and Patricia (Filingame) is adding the glow of a flashlight to make sure I don’t make any typos.”
Tim typed on and ended up by writing that “By the time the shaking had stopped, there was no electricity at all–not to turn the typesetting machine, not to light up my windowless office…nothing to do but find the one functional office machine in the place, Bruce’s old Royal typewriter.
“We had a bit of trouble with the technological details (manual ribbon winding…) but it actually works. Remarkable.”
The page was pasted up, the flats were bundled into the truck, and the trucker headed out for the Golden Gate Bridge, which had held, and then up the freeway to Paradise and safety.
Balderston led a delegation back to the bar. Sfaffers who lived in the East Bay figured out whether to say in town or go home by way of the San Mateo Bridge, which had held. Julia Loftus, our classified director who lived in Silicon Valley and worried about a dangerous Bay Shore freeway, wingled and wangled her way slowly down the El Camino Real.
I drove Iris Maher, our circulation director, through intersections without lights and volunteer civiian traffic facilitators, to her apartment building on the slope of a Nob Hill illuminated against the sky by the blaze and smoke of Marina fires and God knows what else. People were streaming in and out of the Fairmont Hotel. So we decided to take a look. We spent the rest of the evening sitting on the floor of the lobby, chatting with hotel guests who were exchanging stories about what they were doing when and on what floor when the quake rocked the hotel. I bought a lot of drinks because the hotel wasn’t taking credit cards and the guests wouldn’t go back to their rooms to get cash. Some got a kick out of being part of earthquake history. Most of them were scared to death and trying to figure out how to get out of town fast.
The Chronicle, we heard, had no real backup generator and the word was that its staff was putting out the paper by flashlight. The driver made it to Paradise, the Guardian got printed, and the delivery trucks rolled into town the next morning on schedule over the Golden Gate Bridge. And we even had a few typewritten paragraphs of quake coverage.
And so, through the years between the quake of l989 and the quake of last Tuesday, 2007, I have kept my trusty Royal typewriter behind my desk, always at the ready for emergency duty. It still is. B3
We’re peaking
Oh, how I wish that the SF Public Utilities Commission meetings brought me to such a brink…
Not so much. But as far as the peaker power plants are concerned there were some interesting developments today. Mayor Gavin Newsom is definitely playing the white knight in this scenario, and he’s now brokering a deal in which the city fronts all the money to build the power plant, skirting the public-private partnership deal that’s been floated to date. According to Jesse Blout, from the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development, the city will now be issuing debt to finance the peaker plants and own them outright, rather than have the private company, JPower, act like they own them for 13 years and then hand them over to the city.
In this new deal JPower still operates and manages the three combustion turbines that will be sited in the city. (The airport CT will still be built, owned, and operated by JPower for 30 years before it’s turned over to the city, in order for them to make some $$$) The diff is that the city will own the Potrero plants straight-up, bypassing any sketchy loss of control or assets through the convolutions of a public-private partnership.
The PUC unanimously passed a really wordy resolution on all of this, and also asked Blout to check in with them every couple weeks to make sure all is on track. Blout, meanwhile, promised us a signing ceremony on an agreement that Mirant will shutter as soon as their contract is pulled and given to the city’s power plant instead.