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James Madison Freedom of Information Award Winners

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The Society of Professional Journalists’ Northern California Chapter has been handing awards for 22 years to journalists, educators, public officials, and citizens who best exemplify the importance of open and accountable government and a free and diligent press. And every year the Guardian recognizes the winners and helps highlight the important issues that they raise for the Bay Area and beyond. Here are this year’s winners:

Norwin S. Yoffie Career Achievement Award

ROWLAND "REB" REBELE


Three few years ago the Oakland Unified School District announced that, due to budget constraints, it was shutting down all the student-run newspapers in the district. Rowland "Reb" Rebele lives in Aptos, but he read about the shutdown in a San Francisco Chronicle column.

He picked up the phone, made some calls, and found out the situation was desperate and how much money was needed. He then wrote a check sufficient to resurrect the student newspapers for a year. Then he kept on writing checks to keep the papers going last year and again this year. This was typical of Rebele. No one asked him for help. He received virtually no acknowledgment for his gift. But his timely action turned the lights back on for fledgling newspapers that were out of money and, it seemed, out of luck.

Rebele is a First Amendment mensch (a description that James Madison, had he any familiarity with Yiddish, would have approved of). In his half century of publishing community newspapers that he owned and operated in Coalinga, Chula Vista, and Paradise in California and across the country, he was energetic, inspiring, and devoted to his readers and his communities, and a demon in pushing for open government and accountability. He pursued the same policies as a stalwart for half a century in the California Newspaper Publishers Association and as an activist president who brought key reforms and exceptional leaders to the organization.

Rebele has been a director of the California First Amendment Coalition for a decade. He quickly became the one truly indispensable member of the organization, pushing it, pulling it, holding it together, and cajoling it to broaden its activities because he felt the organization and its mission were vital.

He has also launched an innovative internship program at Stanford University. Rather than just give money to the school, he and his wife, Pat, created a program that has enabled dozens of students to get hands-on experience writing for real newspapers in California. Quietly and selflessly, Rebele has spent his newspaper career fighting the good fight for First Amendment and public interest principles. (Bruce B. Brugmann)

Beverly Kees Educator Award

ROBERT OVETZ


Art Institute of San Francisco instructor Robert Ovetz was fired after he criticized the administration for confiscating a magazine his students produced for his class last December.

Ovetz, who had taught at the institute for three years, told his students to create a "culturally critical" magazine as their final project for a cultural studies class he taught last fall. They produced a 36-page zine called Mute/Off.

Less than 24 hours after he and students distributed 500 copies of the magazine, which Ovetz printed with the institute’s copy machine, most were gone. Ovetz initially attributed their disappearance to popularity, but he soon learned from students that the administration of the school, which was purchased by Goldman Sachs and General Electric last year, had removed them from its campuses and even literally pulled them out of students’ hands.

"This is an example of how a corporation is not held accountable for upholding basic constitutional rights [to] free speech. This is a private company that’s operating as an institution of higher learning," Ovetz told the Guardian. "Its only interest is its bottom line, and its bottom line is profit."

Ovetz complained to the administration about vioutf8g the students’ freedom of speech and received his pink slip Dec. 20, 2006. Dean of Academic Affairs Caren Meghreblian told Ovetz the magazine possibly violated copyright law by reproducing corporate logos without permission and had grammatical errors. She also said a story in the magazine called "Homicide," about three white kids playing a video game as black gangsters, might be racist.

After Ovetz and students complained and the media reported the story, the administration allowed students to redistribute the magazines, but it still refuses to give Ovetz his job back. (Chris Albon)

To size up the magazine yourself, visit www.brandedmonkey.com/muteOffLowRes.pdf.

Citizen

RYAN MCKEE


The object of the California Public Records Act is to ensure the people’s right to know how their state and local governments are functioning. Newspapers are often the entities that test the limits and loopholes of the law. But in January 2006 an 18-year-old college student, Ryan McKee, undertook an audit of each of the 31 California state agencies that was the first of its kind. McKee tested how these agencies, which he personally visited, responded to simple requests to view and get copies of readily available public documents. The results revealed a disturbing pattern. Several agencies performed miserably, including the Department of Justice, which counsels and represents many other state agencies on the Public Records Act, and all of the agencies violated at least one aspect of the law. Common problems included asking for identification, making illegal charges, and taking longer than allowed to release information. McKee undertook the audit while volunteering for Californians Aware, a nonprofit where his father, Richard McKee, is president. A copy of the audit, including its results and grades, was sent to each agency to help it better understand and adjust to its responsibilities. (Sarah Phelan)

Journalists

MICHELE MARCUCCI AND REBECCA VESELY, ANG NEWSPAPERS


ANG Newspapers regional reporters Rebecca Vesely and Michele Marcucci are being honored for the series "Broken Homes" and their unflinching pursuit of public records that exposed negligent care administered to people with autism and other forms developmental disabilities. The series highlighted problems ranging from a lack of proper supervision to unlicensed officials working at health care facilities. Some of these offenses were then linked to patient deaths.

The award recognizes the daunting and tedious task that befell the journalists: 15 months of scouring thousands of hard-copy papers from dozens of sources that included licensing agencies, multiple law enforcement bureaus, and coroner’s offices. The results were entered into a database and cross-checked against other sources of information.

"It’s not like we work at the New York Times, where you can lock yourself in a room for a year. This is one-stop shopping here," Marcucci told the Guardian, noting that both reporters continued their daily beats while working on the project. The series was well received and helped prompt state officials to reinstate inspections of licensed facilities that had been eliminated due to budget cuts. (Christopher Jasmin)

ANDREW MCINTOSH AND JOHN HILL, SACRAMENTO BEE


Two reporters from the Sacramento Bee, Andrew McIntosh and John Hill, get Freedom of Information props for exposing the cronyism and the corruption of the California Highway Patrol.

The two wrote a series of articles detailing how the CHP violated state and department regulations in awarding contracts for items ranging from pistols to helicopters.

"The CHP spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year on equipment and goods," McIntosh told the Guardian. "That’s taxpayer money."

McIntosh said he and Hill took a systematic look at the department’s bidding process and found it was not competitive. The investigation led to the suspension of one officer, Gregory Williams, who the reporters found had awarded $600,000 worth of contracts to his daughter’s company for license plate scanning devices, $500,000 of which was canceled after the reporters exposed the scandal.

The reporters also found the CHP, which controls signature gathering at the Department of Motor Vehicles and other state buildings, denied more than 100 applications for permission to register voters or solicit signatures. Other stories pushed Senate majority leader Gloria Romero and Assemblymember Bonnie Garcia to call for a state audit of the CHP.

McIntosh told us the investigation showed "the CHP is not above public scrutiny or the law when it comes to business dealings." (Albon)

MEERA PAL, CONTRA COSTA TIMES


A good mayoral race isn’t really fun unless a bit of scandal emerges, like it did in Pleasanton two weeks before the November 2006 election.

Meera Pal decided to research the roots of a story that was handed to her by city council member Steve Brozosky, who was challenging incumbent mayor Jennifer Hosterman. Brozosky gave Pal e-mails his campaign treasurer obtained through open-records laws that showed Hosterman may have used her city e-mail account to solicit campaign donations and endorsements, a violation of state law.

But Pal went beyond Brozosky’s story and submitted her own public records requests for the city e-mail account of the mayor, as well as a year’s worth of e-mail from Brozosky and the three other council members.

Pal’s public records request revealed that Brozosky’s inbox was completely void of any e-mail, something neither he nor the city’s IT manager could explain. Brozosky is a computer expert who runs a company that vends city Web site software, so his technical expertise made the situation even more suspicious.

Investigations revealed it was just a setting on his computer that was inadvertently scrubbing the e-mail from the city’s server. Though both violations aren’t necessarily serious crimes, the race was close enough that dirt on either side could have had a profound impact on the outcome, and the results show 68,000 voters who were truly torn during the last two weeks before election day while Pal was reporting these stories. Hosterman eventually won by just 188 votes. (Amanda Witherell)

SUSAN SWARD, BILL WALLACE, ELIZABETH FERNANDEZ, AND SETH ROSENFELD, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE


In the wake of 2003’s so-called Fajitagate police scandal — in which San Francisco officer Alex Fagan Jr. and others were accused of assaulting and then covering up their alleged vicious beating of innocent citizens — the San Francisco Chronicle uncovered records showing that Fagan’s short history on the force was marked by regular incidents of abusive behavior, the kind of records that should have served as a warning for the problems to come.

"We decided to take a look to see how common it was. And we spent a lot of time doing that," Steve Cook, the Chronicle editor of what became last year’s five-part "Use of Force" series, told the Guardian. The team used the Sunshine Ordinance to gather boxloads of records on use-of-force incidents, which it organized into a database that was then supplemented and cross-referenced with a wide variety of other public records, along with old-fashioned shoe leather reporting, all the while fighting through bureaucratic denials and delays.

Despite an embarrassing mislabeled photo on the first day of the series that served as fodder for attacks by the Police Department and Mayor’s Office, the series made clear that rogue cops were abusing their authority, totally unchecked by their supervisors. "We were proud of what we were able to show," Cook said. "We showed a department in need of some basic reforms."

The series helped spur the early intervention system that was recently approved by the Police Commission. It’s a good first step, but one criticized by the Chron and the Guardian for failing to include some key indicators used in other cities (see our editorial "Fix Early Warning for Cops," 2/28/07), something that Cook said requires ongoing vigilance by the press, to bring about needed reforms: "Only the news media is really going to accomplish this, if they stay with the story." (Steven T. Jones)

Legal counsel

DAVID GREENE


The First Amendment was never about money. Free speech is supposed to be free. But these days threats to the First Amendment are growing, more and more people who lack the resources of a major media outlet are in need of help — and there aren’t many places dedicated to offering that assistance, free.

That’s where David Greene and the First Amendment Project come in.

Since 1999, as a staff attorney and executive director, Greene has helped dozens of freelance journalists, students, nonprofit organizations, and independent media outlets protect and expand their free speech and open government rights.

The operation he runs is totally independent. That’s a key point in an era of massive media consolidation: when the Guardian sought earlier this year to find legal representation to force open the key records in a lawsuit over Dean Singleton’s local newspaper merger, we found that just about every local media law firm represented at least one of the parties to the case and thus was conflicted. The FAP was not.

Greene and the FAP have represented blogger Josh Wolf and freelancer Sarah Olson in landmark subpoena cases. Greene, with the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, wrote the amicus brief on behalf of noted literary artists in the California Supreme Court case In re George T., in which the court, relying heavily on the FAP brief, overturned the conviction of a juvenile who made threats to other students with a poem. And the struggle just goes on. The FAP is funded largely by private donations and always needs additional support.

"Unfortunately," Greene told us, "we have to turn away a lot more cases than we can take." (Tim Redmond)

News media

SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS


After years of last-minute backroom deals at San Jose’s City Hall, things came to a head when the City Council rubber-stamped proposals to give a $4 million subsidy to the San Jose Grand Prix, $80 million for a stadium to keep the Earthquake soccer team from leaving town, and $45 million for new City Hall furniture.

Clearly, something had to give. But it was left to San Jose Mercury News editorial writers to push for transparent and accessible government and better enforcement of the state’s open government laws.

First they shamed the city, pointing out that "San Francisco, Oakland, even Milpitas have better public-access laws." Next they hammered then-mayor Ron Gonzales for saying that calls for more open government were "a bunch of nonsense." Then they printed guiding principles for a proposed sunshine ordinance that they’d developed in conjunction with the League of Women Voters and Mercury News attorney James Chadwick.

When city council member Chuck Reed was elected mayor on a platform of open government reforms, the paper still didn’t give up. Instead, it’s continuing to champion the need to bring more sunshine to San Jose and working with a community task force on breaking new ground, such as taping closed sessions so they can one day be made available when there’s no further need for secrecy.

Somehow the Merc also managed to pull off another amazing feat: the paper built public understanding of and support for sunshine along the way. (Phelan)

SAN MATEO COUNTY TIMES


When outbreaks of the highly contagious norovirus sprang up in a number of California counties, San Mateo County was among those hit. Public health officials, however, would not release the names of the facilities where numerous individuals became infected, citing concerns about privacy and not wanting to discourage facility managers from contacting health officials.

Nonetheless, the San Mateo County Times ran a series of reports on the outbreaks in the named and unnamed facilities. After publishing reports on unnamed facilities, the news staff began to receive phone calls from residents who wanted to know the names of the facilities. Times reporter Rebekah Gordon told us it became clear that the public wanted to know this information, and the paper fought the county’s secrecy.

Gordon learned that facilities are required by law to report outbreaks, regardless of the potential for media exposure. Times attorney Duffy Carolan sought out and won the disclosure of the names of four facilities.

"The county’s initial nondisclosure decision evoked public policy and public safety concerns at a very broad level, and nondisclosure would have had a very profound effect on the public’s ability to obtain information that affects their own health and safety. By persisting in the face of secrecy, the Times was able to establish a precedent and practice that will well serve to inform their readers in the future," Carolan told us.

The paper learned the outbreak was far more widespread than the county had admitted, finding 146 cases in six facilities. Gordon said, "The numbers were so much higher than we were ever led to believe." (Julie Park)

Online free speech

JOSH WOLF


Even as he sits inside the Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, where he’s been denied on-camera and in-person interviews, jailed freelance journalist Josh Wolf manages to get out the message. Last month Wolf, who is imprisoned for refusing to give up video outtakes of a July 2005 anarchist protest in the Mission that turned violent, earned a place in the Guinness World Records for being the journalist to have served the longest jail term in US history for resisting a subpoena.

His thoughts on the agenda behind his incarceration were read at press conferences that day, reminding everyone of the importance of a free press. Meanwhile, Wolf has managed to continue operating his blog, www.joshwolf.net, by sending letters to family, friends, and fellow journalists, including those at the Guardian.

Wolf has also managed to create two other Web sites: www.mediafreedoms.net, which supports journalists’ resistance to government pressure, and www.prisonblogs.net, which allows prisoners to air thoughts and grievances. If Wolf can do all this from behind bars, imagine what he’ll do when he finally gets out. As Wolf would say, if we could only speak to him without reserving a phone interview 48 hours in advance: "Free press? Then free Josh Wolf!" (Phelan)

Public official

JOHN SARSFIELD


As district attorney for San Benito County, John Sarsfield upset the political applecart when he tried to prosecute the County Board of Supervisors for ignoring the Brown Act’s prohibitions on private communication and consensus building among board members on matters that involved employment decisions, personnel appeals, contracting, and land use–growth control issues.

His decision didn’t sit well in a county where battles over the future of the land have spawned Los Valientes, a secret society that has targeted slow-growth advocates and anyone who gets in its way — including believers in open government. So the board retaliated by defunding Sarsfield’s office, forcing the DA to file for a temporary restraining order against the board, the county administrative officer, and the county auditor, a countermove that kept his office operating and the investigation alive — until he lost his reelection bid to the board’s chosen candidate in January 2006.

One of Los Valientes’s targets, Mandy Rose, a Sierra Club member and slow-growth advocate, recalled how people on the outside warned Sarsfield what he was up against, "but he insisted on working within the system. It was what he believed in. Someone even said he was a Boy Scout."

For his efforts, Sarsfield’s life was turned into a living hell that cost him his dogs, his marriage, and eventually his job. But now, with this award, he gets some small recognition for fighting the good fight. And he has also been appointed special assistant inspector general within the Office of the Inspector General by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Phelan)

Special citations

LANCE WILLIAMS AND MARK FAINARU-WADA, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE


Investigative reporter Lance Williams and sportswriter Mark Fainaru-Wada joined forces in 2003 to take on what became one of the biggest — and most controversial — local news stories of the past five years.

The investigation of the Burlingame-based Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, better known as BALCO, and the larger scandal of widespread steroid use among baseball players was, the San Francisco Chronicle editors decided, too big for one reporter.

In fact, it turned out to be big enough for a series of stories, a book, and a legal battle that almost sent the two writers to federal prison. The duo admits today it was mostly the fear of getting scooped that drove them through the story’s dramatic rise.

"I’m a baseball fan in recovery," Williams told the Guardian. "I used to think I knew the sport. I didn’t have a clue about this stuff. I’m not kidding you. I had no idea how much a part of baseball steroids had become … that whole sort of seamy underside of the drug culture and the game. I just didn’t know it was like that, and I think most fans don’t either."

Although prosecutors seemed to be focusing on BALCO executives, everyone following the story wanted to know what witnesses — in this case top sports stars — told a federal grand jury investigating the company. The outfit had allegedly distributed undetectable steroids and other designer drugs to some of the world’s greatest athletes, including Giants slugger Barry Bonds, who is on his way to making history with a new home run record.

In 2003 the Chronicle published lurid details of the grand jury’s investigation based on notes Williams and Fainaru-Wada had obtained from court transcripts leaked by an anonymous source. Bonds denied knowingly taking any steroids, but prosecutors waved in the air documents allegedly confirming his regular use of substances banned by Major League Baseball.

Furious prosecutors launched an investigation into the leak of secret grand jury transcripts. The reporters were called on to testify but refused — and so joined two other reporters last year threatened with jail time for resisting subpoenas. A lawyer stepped forward last month and admitted leaking the documents, but Williams and Fainaru-Wada came dangerously close to landing in the same East Bay lockup where blogger Josh Wolf is held for refusing to cooperate with a federal grand jury.

The rash of recent attacks on reporters by federal prosecutors has First Amendment advocates up in arms. After all, no one’s going to leak crucial information if the courts can simply bulldoze the anonymity that journalists grant whistleblowers. Fainaru-Wada and Williams have since inspired a bipartisan proposal in Congress to protect journalists at the federal level (dozens of states already have variations of a shield law in place).

"People roll their eyes when you start talking about the First Amendment," Fainaru-Wada said. "But the First Amendment is not about the press, it’s about the public."

In addition to the James Madison Freedom of Information Award, Williams and Fainaru-Wada’s coverage of the BALCO stories earned them the prestigious George Polk Award. But the story took a dark, unexpected turn last month.

Defense attorney Troy Hellerman, who represented one of the BALCO executives, pleaded guilty Feb. 15 to contempt of court and obstruction of justice charges and could serve up to two years in prison for admitting he twice allowed Fainaru-Wada to take notes from the grand jury’s sealed transcripts.

Just as he was spilling details in 2004, Hellerman demanded that a judge dismiss charges against his client, complaining that the leaks prevented a fair trial. He even blamed the leaks on prosecutors. A deputy attorney general called the moves "an especially cynical abuse of our system of justice."

Media critics lashed out at Williams and Fainaru-Wada for exploiting the leaks before and after Hellerman moved for a dismissal. Among those attacking the Chron reporters were Slate editor Jack Shafer and Tim Rutten at the LA Times, who described the conduct as "sleazy and contemptible."

Williams and Fainaru-Wada today still won’t discuss specifics about their sources, but Williams said without the leaks, names of the athletes involved would have otherwise been kept secret by the government even though the grand jury’s original BALCO investigation was complete.

"The witnesses didn’t have any expectation of privacy or secrecy of any kind," he said. "They were going to be trial witnesses. It was in that context that our reporting got under way. I am sensitive to the need of an investigative grand jury to remain secret. And I’m respectful in general of the government’s secrecy concerns. But it’s not the reporter’s job to enforce that stuff." (G.W. Schulz)

SARAH OLSON


When Oakland freelance writer and radio journalist Sarah Olson stood up to the Army by resisting a subpoena to testify in the case of Iraq war resister First Lt. Ehren Watada, she faced felony charges as well as jail time. But Olson understood that testifying against a source would turn her into an investigative tool of the federal government and chill dissent nationwide. "When the government uses a journalist as its eyes and ears, no one is going to talk to that journalist anymore," Olson told the Guardian.

She also objected to journalists being asked to participate in the prosecution of free speech. "The problem I have with verifying the accuracy of my reporting is that in this case the Army has made speech a crime," Olson said. Watada, whom Olson interviewed, has been charged with missing a troop movement and conduct unbecoming an officer, because he publicly criticized President George W. Bush and his illegal Iraq War.

In the end, Army prosecutors dropped the subpoena once Watada agreed to stipulate that Olson’s reporting was accurate. Olson, for her part, attributes the dropping of the subpoena to the support she received from media groups, including the Society for Professional Journalists. (Phelan)

Student journalist

STAFF OF THE LOWELL


The 2006 school year got off to a rough start for Lowell High School, one of the top-ranked public high schools in the country and certainly San Francisco’s finest. The school’s award-winning student newspaper the Lowell was covering it all.

After the October issue went to press, the school’s two journalism classes, which are solely responsible for writing and editing content for the monthly paper, received a visit from the school’s interim principal, Amy Hansen. Though Hansen says there was no attempt to censor the paper and the classes agree that no prior review was requested when it appeared that the students would be covering some controversial stories, the principal questioned their motivations as journalists and asked them to consider a number of complicated scenarios designed to make them second-guess their roles as reporters. The principal told the student journalists they had a moral responsibility, not to turn out the news, but to turn in their sources and information.

In separate meetings with each journalism class, Hansen questioned them about when it was appropriate to lay aside the pen and paper in the name of the law. The students maintained that as journalists they are in the position to report what happens and not pass moral judgment. Additionally, their privileged position as information gatherers would be compromised if they revealed their sources.

The lectures from Hansen did not deter the journalism classes from their basic mission to cover school news as objectively and thoroughly as possible. Even when police were called in to question Megan Dickey, who was withholding the name of a source she’d used in a story about a tire slashing, she still refused to say what she knew. (Witherell)

Whistleblower

MARK KLEIN


Mark Klein knew there was something fishy going on when his boss at AT&T told him that a representative of the National Security Agency would be coming by to talk to one of the senior technicians. Klein was a union communications tech, one of the people who keep the phone company’s vast network going every day. The NSA visitor stopped by, and before long Klein learned that AT&T’s building on Folsom Street would have a private room that none of the union techs would be allowed to enter.

Klein kept his eyes open and learned enough from company memos to conclude that the government was using AT&T’s equipment to monitor the private communications of unsuspecting and mostly undeserving citizens. When he retired in May 2004, he took a stack of material with him — and when he read in the New York Times a year and half later that the NSA had indeed been spying on people, he decided to go public.

The 62-year-old East Bay resident had never been a whistleblower. "I didn’t even know where to begin," he told us. So he surfed the Web looking for civil liberties groups and wound up contacting the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

It was a perfect match: the EFF was about to file a landmark class-action lawsuit against AT&T charging the company with collaborating with the government to spy on ordinary citizens — and Klein’s evidence was a bombshell.

"Mark Klein is a true American hero," EFF lawyer Kurt Opsahl told us. "He has bravely come forward with information critical for proving AT&T’s involvement with the government’s invasive surveillance program."

Federal Judge Vaughn Walker has kept Klein’s written testimony under seal, but the EFF is trying to get it released to the public. The suit is moving forward. (Redmond)

SPJ-NorCal’s James Madison Awards dinner is March 13 at 5:30 p.m. at Biscuits and Blues, 401 Mason, SF. Tickets are $50 for members and $70 for the general public. For more information or to see if tickets are still available, contact Matthew Hirsch at (415) 749-5451 or mhirsch@alm.com.

The ethics of flacks

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› steve@sfbg.com

They go by many names: public relations professionals, spokespeople, public information officers, press secretaries, liaisons, public affairs practitioners, press agents, or — the widely used slang — flacks. They are the gatekeepers of records and access to their powerful bosses, either a conduit or barrier for those seeking information.

A spotlight was shined on the role of flacks in San Francisco last month when Peter Ragone, then the influential press secretary for Mayor Gavin Newsom, was caught posting comments under fake names on some local blogs and then lying about it to journalists.

The incident prompted Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin to call for Ragone’s ouster (which Newsom resisted, before last week transferring Ragone to his reelection campaign team, where he’s not dealing directly with the press or public) and to craft legislation creating standards of conduct for the city’s public information officers.

"There are bright ethical lines that cannot be crossed," Peskin told the Guardian. "Passing this is a wake-up call to people so busy playing politics that they’ve forgotten their moral responsibility."

The code calls for the city’s public information officers to be honest and accessible and to "advance the free flow of accurate and truthful information to the public and the press."

The legislation, which will soon be heard in the Rules Committee before going to the full board, notes that "it is critically important that Public Information [Officers] are viewed by citizens and the media as honest and trustworthy brokers of information" and "deception and disinformation severely damages the public trust and limits the City’s ability to serve the public."

Many activists and journalists say that’s a serious problem right now, particularly in the Mayor’s Office of Communications, which has become known for aggressively pushing deceptive political spin and repeatedly blocking the release of public documents, according to rulings by the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force. In addition to Ragone, deputy press secretary Jennifer Petrucione is widely seen by those she deals with as a less than forthright and forthcoming broker of information.

But new press secretary Nathan Ballard, whose first day was March 5, said he supports the Peskin legislation and promises to maintain high ethical standards. "My overall philosophy is I’d like an accessible press office. You should be able to get the information you need with dispatch," he told us. "The public has a right to receive information from us that is true, accurate, and fair."

He made a distinction between private-sector public relations people and public-sector information officers, noting that the latter should be held to a higher standard of conduct because they work for taxpayers, not corporations or just politicians. It was a point echoed by City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey, one of the most widely respected flacks in San Francisco.

"I have a duty to taxpayers and citizens to provide information, whether it’s good for my client or not," Dorsey told us. "Even when you’re working for an elected official, it’s the taxpayers who pay you."

Dorsey accepts that it’s the nature of the job and a free democratic society that sometimes his boss will take lumps in the press, but he said, "I will never hold it against a journalist for portraying the city attorney as a bad guy when we do look like the bad guy."

Eileen Shields, spokesperson for the Department of Public Health, agreed: "I don’t think of my client as the Department of Public Health of Mitch Katz. I think of it as the people of San Francisco."

But other flacks, such as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s Maggie Lynch, have a more adversarial relationship with the press and have been known to chew out journalists who write unflattering stories, although she agrees that flacks should maintain high ethical standards.

"It’s my job to point out what’s good about what the agency does," Lynch told us. "I pride myself on my directness and my honesty…. I think the standards should be the same for reporters and public information officers, that you need to be honest."

As the tenor of her comments indicates, there can be a dynamic tension between flacks and journalists that sometimes gets testy. And that can be exacerbated when the flack works for an agency under strong public scrutiny, such as Muni or the Mayor’s Office.

That’s why Peskin said his code is important. "Transparency in an electoral democracy is what keeps the system honest," said Peskin, who agreed that the issues associated with the Mayor’s Office of Communications go beyond the lie Ragone told about his blogging. "There is no question the Mayor’s Office has repeatedly failed to adhere to the Sunshine Ordinance."

Without commenting on the past, Ballard pledged to cooperate in the future. "We will comply with the spirit and the letter of the Sunshine Ordinance."

In addition to Peskin’s legislation, City Attorney Dennis Herrera has announced a new program that offers expanded training for the city’s flacks, covering Sunshine Ordinance compliance, legal guidance, and ethical guidelines. "It would be up to policy makers whether they want to make it mandatory," Dorsey said.

Ironically, the Guardian attempted to interview someone from the Public Relations Society of America (whose code of conduct Peskin incorporated into his legislation) for this story, but we were unsuccessful despite days of trying. Judy Voss, the contact person listed in its code of ethics, referred me to Janet Troy, the vice president of public relations, who spent 10 minutes asking me questions about the questions I had and said she would have someone get back to me. Despite several days of my calling and e-mailing her, neither she nor anyone from the PRSA got back to me by press time.

Luckily, there are alternatives to the PRSA. The National Association of Government Communicators has an even stricter code of conduct for public-sector flacks. It includes this central tenet: "We believe that truth is inviolable and sacred; that providing public information is an essential civil service; and that the public-at-large and each citizen therein has a right to equal, full, understandable, and timely facts about their government." *

Tourk for mayor

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By Steven T. Jones
After an uncomfortable exchange with Mayor Gavin Newsom at the Project Homeless Connect event earlier in the day, Alex Tourk was out with friends (including a long list of prominent people, many still in Newsom’s camp) at Finnegan’s Wake last night celebrating his birthday and I happened to run into him. This guy’s a class act, standing tall and trying to do what’s right even after being so viciously betrayed by Newsom. We chatted a bit and he said that he appreciated how the Guardian has covered this episode. I asked how his job search was going and I emphasized my earlier published point that I hope he’s taking his sweet time given the fact that Newsom is paying his high salary until he finds one. But rather than soaking Newsom, Tourk said he was actively looking for work and eager to sever ties with his former mentor. I had just come from a dinner party where it was only half-jokingly suggested that Tourk run for mayor and I passed that along. And you know what? I sensed a twinkle in his eye and an openness to the idea. Wouldn’t that be something? Tourk was the guy who actually executed the things that Newsom will be claiming credit for this year, a genuine policy pro who has a sterling reputation and increasing name recognition to boot, not to mention the beautifully poetic narrative. If Jack Davis or any other political consultants are reading this, please, give Tourk a call.

Fast start in 9

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By Steven T. Jones
The next Board of Supervisors race would appear to be only a faint blip on the horizon — coming as it does after this year’s mayor’s race, the presidential primary a year from now, and the state primary fight in June ’08 that will feature the Leno-Migden battle royale — but contenders are already starting to position themselves. Nowhere is that happening quicker than in District 9, where Tom Ammiano will vacate his seat and try to smoothly hand it over to the man he considers his heir apparent, David Campos, who has been quietly lining up support all over town. Police reform advocates were happy to see Police Commissioner Campos hold out for a tougher early intervention system, a bold move that showed he’s not as afraid of the Police Officers Association as too many pols are here in town. And Campos is likely to have the queer community solidly behind him. But the heart of Dist. 9 is in the Mission and Campos is likely to face a strong challenger from longtime Mission activist Eric Quezada, and maybe day laborer advocate Renee Saucedo, who ran against Ammiano last time. And from the more conservative side of the equation, Miguel Bustos will also likely throw his hat into the ring, although this is one of the city’s most lefty districts. So, almost two years early, this is already looking like it’s going to be a Campos-Quezada slugfest. Dontcha just love politics?

Sorta, maybe an alcoholic

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

To read about Delancey’s finances, click here.

What exactly is Gavin Newsom doing at Delancey Street?

It’s not counseling, we’re told. It’s not rehab. It’s not detox. It’s not a typical course of treatment at the storied $20 million nonprofit. So what is it beyond a reprieve from the otherwise ugly headlines?

Newsom isn’t talking much about his program. But some mental-health professionals are raising serious questions about his regimen.

San Francisco’s chief executive declared several weeks ago in a public announcement to all the city’s department heads that he was seeking a diluted version of rehab at Delancey Street.

That struck more than a few people as odd. Delancey Street doesn’t do part-time or outpatient treatment. It only takes clients who agree to a long-term, full-time residential program geared entirely toward hardcore alcoholics, drug addicts, and criminals.

It’s not, in other words, a place where someone in Newsom’s condition would typically seek help. And it’s not a place designed to alleviate a comparatively minor thirst for white wine.

The news certainly appalled Dee-Dee Stout.

Stout is a City College of San Francisco professor and an adjunct faculty member at San Francisco State University. It’s her job to train city employees working in any major capacity that involves medically treating alcohol and drug abuse, from San Francisco General Hospital to Community Behavioral Health Services to the Adult Probation Department.

Stout, a certified drug and alcohol counselor, told us friends who’d seen the headlines said, " ‘Oh god, Dee-Dee’s going to hit the roof on this one.’ And they were right."

She struggled to figure out how she could broach the subject to one of her classes at City College — but a student beat her to it, quickly pointing out that it was unethical for credentialed treatment specialists to counsel their close friends. The two-year recertification required of caseworkers in the city includes an ethics update, Stout said.

Delancey Street’s executive director, Mimi Silbert, has been Newsom’s friend since he was a child and knows his father well. Silbert, in fact, has openly discussed Newsom’s progress with the press, including the Guardian, while the mayor’s own ear-piercing silence on the matter enables him to appear repentant.

Stout decided to offer the student extra credit if he drafted a letter outlining the concerns of the class, which she had colleagues review before sending it along to the entire Board of Supervisors, the Mayor’s Office, and pretty much every major newspaper in town.

"This relationship is not acceptable under any applicable code of professional ethics," the letter states. Hardly anyone bothered to write back, save for the auto-response letters Stout received from Sophie Maxwell and the Mayor’s Office, plus a letter from Bevan Dufty urging Stout and her students to empathize with Gavin during this difficult time.

Silbert, for her part, told the Guardian that ethics weren’t a concern for her because Newsom wasn’t a full-tilt drunk and hadn’t submitted completely to a detailed treatment plan when he approached her for help.

"The mayor is not a drug addict," Silbert said. "That’s not what he was looking for…. Having stopped drinking, he wanted to take a look at himself. He drank what people would call ‘socially.’ I’ve seen other people when they stopped drinking — even people who didn’t need detox — and there were physical signs of problems. That’s not the shape the mayor was in."

The mayor is attending both group and solo counseling sessions after work each day, a schedule that Silbert told us is still ongoing.

Dannie Lee, a former Delancey Street resident we interviewed, said that during his own stay he attended group therapy three days a week and they were generally no-holds-barred sessions. Lee lived at Delancey Street for three and a half years after spending much of his adult life in California’s prison system. While the program ultimately worked for him, he insists, he’s skeptical that it could benefit anyone who’s trying to attend as an outpatient.

"Maybe it would be great if [Newsom] was actually there as a client or whatever to really sit in a circle and really share his stuff and listen to the group and let the group really attack," said the 49-year-old Lee, who today is one of Stout’s students. "That probably would be fine. But I don’t see that happening…. I think he would really have to tell things I don’t think he wants to tell."

Press accounts have depicted Delancey Street as an abrasive scrub brush for Newsom’s sinful indulgences. "No Nonsense: Toughness Key to Delancey Street, Silbert’s Success," a Chronicle headline announced Feb. 7. Silbert herself told the Guardian, "No one would come near us if they weren’t serious. I’m old, crotchety, and very direct. I have no time to waste."

That may be true — and it’s clear Delancey Street has had some remarkable success in treating people with severe self-destructive impulses.

San Francisco, on the other hand, years ago eschewed the sort of harsh treatment techniques that have made Delancey Street famous.

H. Westley Clark, director of the federal Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and a one-time clinical professor at the University of California at San Francisco, told us that federal mental-health bureaucrats are less inclined today to fund groups that use confrontational methods for treating clients.

Any local nonprofit agency that wants to provide help to substance abusers using city money must comply with San Francisco’s harm reduction policy, which discourages hostile interview techniques and was set in stone by the San Francisco Health Commission seven years ago.

The letter from Stout’s class points out that treatment professionals are moving away from tough-love verbal upbraids such as those employed by the Delancey Street model.

" ‘Attack therapy’ often involves yelling at patients who have, in our view, a medical condition…. While we realize that some patients are helped by strong, confrontational methods, we believe that an evidence-based approach offers more consistent successful results."

Silbert’s techniques may be controversial, but she does move easily among Democratic Party rainmakers and philanthropists. Delancey Street enjoys wide popularity with the likes of Robert Redford, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Washington-based Eisenhower Foundation, and executives at the Gap, Pottery Barn, and Bank of America.

Silbert said the mayor deserves credit for whatever help he chooses to pursue. Other prominent friends of Delancey Street have called her before when they needed to "tune themselves up."

"I would never choose to criticize other people’s approaches, so I’m sorry if people are criticizing ours," she said. "We work hard. We do our best…. I’m glad these people feel they have a definitive answer. I don’t, and I’ve been doing it for 35 years."

If Newsom, as Silbert says, isn’t a serious alcoholic, Delancey Street is a peculiar place for him to seek help.

Most people entering the program have hit rock bottom, a step away from death or lifelong incarceration. They’re one-time prostitutes, drug pushers, robbers, and ruthless bangers. Since the organization was formed in the 1970s, it claims to have transformed the lives of 14,000 people through vocational and education assistance in addition to group counseling.

Very few of those people come in for the sort of casual treatment Newsom is seeking. In fact, Delancey Street typically doesn’t accept anyone who isn’t planning on spending a couple years in residence.

Residents living at the Embarcadero Triangle provide labor for several businesses that buoy the nonprofit financially, from its famous Delancey Street Restaurant to a national moving and trucking service.

Newsom for the most part is refusing to answer questions about his now-public battle with booze.

But Stout suggests that Newsom, by allowing the entirety of his treatment to appear on a marquee, has brought the publicity on himself. "Frankly, I don’t think it’s any of our business if he goes to treatment," Stout said. "I wish he would have just quietly gone and did what he needed to do and said he just had some medical things he needed to take care of, period." *

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

It’s funny: the transcontinental railroad was born in San Francisco, and it transformed California. But the West Coast has pretty much lost the train thing. You want to go from here to Los Angeles, there are pretty much two choices: you can fly or you can drive. In theory, you can ride Amtrak, and I’ve done it, but it doesn’t run very often and takes about 12 hours. Fun, if you like that sort of thing, but not at all practical.

But on an early Sunday morning last week, I was traveling from Washington, DC, to Philadelphia, and between 8 a.m. and noon there were about half a dozen trains running on that route. The high-speed Acela got me to Philly in 90 minutes, downtown to downtown, way faster than I could drive. Another hour or so, and I could have been in Manhattan.

There are flights from Washington, DC, to New York, but these days it seems kind of silly to fly: by the time you arrive at the airport, get through security, go up, go down, deplane, and get from the airport to the city, you’re well beyond three hours. The train’s way cheaper too.

Yeah, I love trains (actual legroom, no seat belt signs, scenery, bar cars), so I’m biased, but it seems silly that California is spending billions of dollars on highway projects (including a new bore for the Caldecott Tunnel, a colossal waste if there ever were one), and we still aren’t talking seriously about high-speed rail to Los Angeles, which would probably bring more environmental and economic benefits than all of the other transportation projects in the state put together.

There are plenty of reasons to wring your hands over Assemblymember Mark Leno’s decision to challenge incumbent state senator Carole Migden in 2008. The race will almost certainly be bitter and ugly; both sides have an incentive to go negative. It could split the queer community, leave progressives wondering whom to support, and turn political allies into enemies.

Or maybe it won’t: I wonder if San Francisco’s progressive community is mature enough today to handle this without any bad long-term impacts. Some of the city’s left leaders will back Leno, and some will back Migden, but in the end, neither one of these candidates is the enemy, and if everyone keeps a sense of perspective (the way we were able to do in the District 5 race in 2004), it doesn’t have to be a bloodbath.

I realize that Leno is running in part because of term limits, which might not be the most noble of motivations. And I’m against term limits. But there’s actually a reason to be happy about this race: it’s a demonstration that old-style machine politics is dead in San Francisco.

Ten years ago this race would never have happened. Willie Brown was in charge — really in charge — and no local Democrat would have dared to defy his will. Brown didn’t like contested races between Democrats, and he would have told one of the two candidates to back off, and that would have been that.

We live in a different political world now. Mayor Gavin Newsom will probably support Leno, but he has way too much on his mind right now to be involved in any kind of backroom deal. Neither Migden nor Leno has the kind of clout to scare the other away, and nobody else in this town does either.

Democracy isn’t always pretty, but after living under the machine for a couple of decades, I find this almost refreshing. *

Newsom needs to come clean

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EDITORIAL It’s no surprise that Mayor Gavin Newsom doesn’t want to answer any more questions about his affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk. The polls suggest that most of the voters have either forgiven him or never really cared in the first place, so it’s in his interest to move on and try to keep this from becoming a campaign issue.

And if it were just about sex, that would be fine with us too.

But from the start this sordid episode had some bad elements that are every bit a matter of public interest. Rippey-Tourk wasn’t just the wife of one of Newsom’s friends; she was an employee of the city, and in a not so indirect way, Newsom was her boss. And with the evidence that has surfaced that Rippey-Tourk was paid $21,755 for work she didn’t do, including paid leave for the time she was in rehab (something other city employees don’t get), there are real questions that the mayor needs to answer.

Let’s run down the situation, as far as we can establish it:

• Rippey-Tourk and Newsom had an affair in 2005. That year she had 7 1/2 weeks of unpaid leave — a benefit that is not part of the standard package offered to city employees and not in any union contract.

• In May 2006, Rippey-Tourk went into substance abuse rehab and was out of work until July. She was still listed on the city payroll until Sept. 1, when she was cut a check for $10,155. Ultimately, she was paid for 13 1/2 weeks (or 67 1/2 days) of unpaid leave. She was entitled to 10 vacation days and 13 sick days. That leaves 44 1/2 days that she didn’t work and technically shouldn’t have been paid for.

• The Mayor’s Office says other city employees donated their unused vacation and sick time to her. It’s perfectly legal under city policy for employees to donate their paid time to a colleague who has to take a leave for a catastrophic, life-threatening illness. But alcohol and drug rehab don’t typically fall into that category.

• The law says the Department of Public Health must certify that a city employee faces an actual life-threatening illness before the catastrophic leave policy comes into play. And the employee’s supervisor has to sign off on the decision.

So somebody at the DPH must have approved a leave for a worker who almost certainly didn’t qualify, and Rippey-Tourk’s immediate supervisor at the time, then–chief of staff Steve Kava, had to have gone along.

It doesn’t take much speculation to figure out what likely went on here: Newsom had his chief of staff give an employee who had slept with the mayor a benefit that other city employees don’t get, and the director of public health, who (more or less) reports to the mayor, went along with it. And a bunch of city money was involved.

So far nobody at City Hall will answer questions about how this happened, saying that it’s a matter of employee privacy. We agree that Rippey-Tourk (the real victim in all this) has been through plenty, and the public has no business examining her medical records. But the mayor has made a nasty mess of the situation, and he can’t be allowed to just skate away without explaining whether his office in effect paid hush money out of the public till to someone he had treated shabbily — and who had strong legal grounds to sue the city and deeply embarrass the mayor in an election year.

If Newsom would show up at a Board of Supervisors meeting, the way he’s supposed to, and answer questions, the public might glean a bit more information. But he’s refusing — and while the City Attorney’s Office is conducting a confidential investigation, that’s not good enough.

The supervisors should launch their own investigation — and they need to demand to see the key documents, talk to the key players (starting with Newsom, Kava, and Public Health Director Mitch Katz), and determine if the mayor violated city law and then tried to cover it up. The budget analyst, Harvey Rose, should be directed to investigate the use of city money here — and whether this practice is going on anywhere else in the city. It won’t be easy — but the supervisors have the legal authority to issue subpoenas, and while that power is rarely used, this might be an occasion that justifies it.

The cover-up is almost always worse than the crime — and if Newsom and his senior aides won’t tell the truth about what happened, there is going to be serious fallout. *

A little help from their friends

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The San Francisco Chronicle’s intrepid reporters have insisted repeatedly in recent weeks that the Delancey Street Foundation accepts absolutely no government funds. “Instead, it relies on donations and the profits from its commercial enterprises,” San Francisco’s paper of record wrote on Feb. 6.

A simple search of the city’s vendor database, however, confirms that several local agencies in San Francisco paid Delancey Street amounts totaling well over $1 million for the last two fiscal years alone. The Department of Children, Youth & Their Families gave Delancey Street $98,000 in program grants for each of the last two fiscal years and by the end of 2007 will have given the nonprofit more than $300,000.

And the mayor’s office gave Delancey Street $435,000 in fiscal year 2006 and $483,000 in 2005, the records show.

The city has paid the foundation more than $200,000 so far this year, and there’s another $64,000 in outstanding payments. The Guardian obtained copies of the grant agreements through sunshine requests made last week.

Mayor Newsom is receiving “counseling” for a self-diagnosed excessive love of white wine from Delancey Street’s politically well-connected executive director, Mimi Silbert, who has known Newsom and his family for years.

The foundation’s easily accessible federal tax forms reflect the hundreds of thousands in annual government dollars paid to Delancey Street.

After local blogger Michael Petrelis began contesting the claims, a Chronicle reporter clarified for Petrelis following a call to Silbert that grant money from the city supports a charter school on Treasure Island called the Life Learning Academy. The academy is managed by Delancey Street and targets troublesome teens – half of them on probation – who have had problems elsewhere in the school district. Silbert told us that the school was designed in part to emulate Delancey Street by operating businesses like its organic produce subscription service and bike maintenance shop.

She said, as Delancey Street has for years, that program residents living at the nonprofit’s Embarcadero Street headquarters depend on one another to keep the place operating through its variety of undertakings.

“We structured it without a staff and without day-to-day funding so that people could help each other,” Silbert said. “And it’s in the helping of each other that you begin to find your strength. And since they run the organization and go from department to department to department, they eventually find what they are good at.”

But there’s more. According to Delancey Street’s tax forms and deed records maintained by the county recorder, the Mayor’s Office of Housing facilitated a $4 million loan for Delancey Street in 1989 using city money to help with the construction of its sprawling residential and commercial center on the Embarcadero, which cost $20 million to build, not including donated labor. As long as Delancey Street complied with a series of terms, the loan, plus interest, would be forgiven after 20 years. Free government money, in other words.

The city’s mayor at that time was Art Agnos. Delancey Street leveraged $18 million more through the private sector to cover the rest of its construction costs for the Embarcadero Triangle Project, according to its tax forms.

They did so using a cash-generating scheme known as a “leaseback” agreement. A third party purchased the property for $18.7 million paid to Delancey Street and also covered the expense of the $4 million loan made by the city. The whole transaction took place only on paper, and in exchange, the third party got to take advantage of the property’s low-income housing tax credits by technically owning 600 Embarcadero St. while the nonprofit continued to operate Delancey Street at the location.

Silbert wields far-reaching connections inside the Democratic Party and among moneyed philanthropists including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen Dianne Feinstein and even Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair. When Silbert announced plans to expand nationally, Delancey Street’s longtime supporter, Feinstein, vowed to secure a $1 million grant from the U.S. Justice Department to help in the effort, according to a 2002 LA Times profile of the organization.

The foundation is headquartered in a burnt umber stucco building on Embarcadero Street fringed with decorative iron gates and planters beneath French-style windows. Overlaying the property is a grid of sun-baked courtyards. Its design complies neatly with the principles of New Urbanism encouraged in the northeastern neighborhood with a walkable row of ground-floor businesses and densely packed dwellings. According to lore, it was built entirely by residents of Delancey Street.

If you didn’t know it was a treatment center, frankly, you’d mistake it for another of the innumerable yuppie enclaves that have sprouted in the neighborhood over the last two decades.

Five hundred residents live on site and conduct all of the program’s day-to-day operations as part of their commitment to an intensive two-year program. They provide labor for several Delancey Street businesses that buoy the nonprofit, from its famous Delancey Street Restaurant to a national moving and trucking service.

Leaseback agreements, such as the one entered into by Delancey Street to build its hub on the Embarcadero, are a common financing mechanism for low-income housing construction. But the forgivable loan from the city shows that a little sleuthing on the part of reporters would have gone a long way in confirming the extent of the nonprofit’s professed independence

SUNDAY

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Feb. 25

EVENT

Pablo Heising Memorial

Even though the unofficial mayor of Haight Street, Paul “Pablo” Heising, had to move away from his beloved neighborhood due to rent increases, you could still find him daily at Café Cole. Cofounder of the 34-year-old Castro Street Fair, the 30-year-old Haight Ashbury Street Fair, and the three-year-old Asian Heritage Street Celebration, Heising has a legacy that goes beyond mural preservation, and his unexpected death Dec. 20, 2006, was widely mourned. Join his surviving family and friends, Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Tom Ammiano, and performers in re-creating an indoor minifair to celebrate the man. (Nicole Gluckstern)

1 p.m., free
Kezar Pavilion
455 Stanyan, SF
www.haightashburystreetfair.org

EVENT

Chinese New Year Celebration

Facts is facts: it isn’t Chinese New Year without a ton of firecrackers and lion dancing. Which isn’t exactly relaxing. However, the folks at the ACTCM have got you covered, because their event also features massage and acupuncture treatments, Tai chi and qigong workshops, and lectures on Chinese medicine. Not to mention refreshments – probably some soothing tea to work on that headache. (Duncan Scott Davidson)

Noon-5 p.m., free
American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine
555 DeHaro, SF
(415) 282-7600

Middle of the Pack

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by Amanda Witherell

The Earth Day Network just released its Urban Environment Report ranking the environmental conditions of the top 72 cities in the US. The study takes into account 200 different factors and ranks for best conditions regarding toxics and waste, air quality, health and human services, parks and recreation, quality of life, drinking water, and global climate change. Oh boy, you’re thinking. It’s going to be so cool to see how San Francisco stands out, with a Mayor who brags about how clean and green the city is.

Good thing he’s pledged to make it better. According to the weighted rankings, we’re just above average. See for yourself.

At least we beat Detroit!

Middle of the Pack

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by Amanda Witherell

The Earth Day Network just released its Urban Environment Report ranking the environmental conditions of the top 72 cities in the US. The study takes into account 200 different factors and ranks for best conditions regarding toxics and waste, air quality, health and human services, parks and recreation, quality of life, drinking water, and global climate change. Oh boy, you’re thinking. It’s going to be so cool to see how San Francisco stands out, with a Mayor who brags about how clean and green the city is.

Good thing he’s pledged to make it better. According to the weighted rankings, we’re just above average. See for yourself.

At least we beat Detroit!

Leno’s running against Migden

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By Tim Redmond

It’s official: I just spoke with Assemblymember Mark Leno, and he is, indeed, running for state Senate against incumbent Carole Migden. Leno will formally announce at a March 2 campaign kickoff fundraiser at Yerba Buena Gardens. But he’s in the race — and he told me very clearly that he’s in the race for good, even if the the voters overturn term limits for state legislators.

“I want to allow the voters of this senate district to have a choice,” Leno said. “My record of nine years in elected office demonstrates a very different style of inclusivity and respect.”

And that’s really what this race is going to be about: political style. There aren’t a whole lot of major issue on which Leno and Migden disagree, so while Leno told me he would “really be focussing on what I’m going to do positively,” there’s no doubt that the campaign will turn negative. Leno has to point to some of the problems Migden’s had in Sacramento — and Migden, who is a scrapper, will fight back.

The first big sign of how this race will play out will be who shows up to support Leno March 2. My bet: Mayor Gavin Newsom will be there (Leno is a big Newsom backer). Another guess: Sup. Chris Daly, who has been more friendly with Migden, will take a pass. So will Sup. Aaron Peskin.

In the end, this is going to be a bitter, ugly fight with San Francisco progressives on both sides (and caught in the middle). On the positive side, it’s a clear sign that the days of machine politics in San Francisco are over, dead, done for. Can you imagine Willie Brown letting an actual contested election happen on his watch?

And who knows; maybe Migden will decide she’d rather run for mayor.

I haven’t been able to get Migden on the phone directly, but she relayed this comment to me:

“I have not heard a credible justification for [Leno’s] candidadacy other than the fact that he’s out of a job.”

And so it begins.

You like me!

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DON’T FORGET TO THANK THE MOST HIGH "The Oscars of gay porn are coming! The Oscars of gay porn are coming!" I whinnied to my roommate Baby Char-Char, my girlish hands gesticuutf8g wildly. "Don’t you know what this means? Soon the streets will be absolutely crawling with porn stars!"

"So what else is new?" the lovely Char-Char humphed, settling back into his vegan chicken nuggets. Thus the rapturous ambivalence that greets the arrival of the GayVN Awards to San Francisco this Feb. 24. The GayVNs, which honor nominees in 38 categories — personal favorites: Best Music (really), Best Sex Comedy (you’re kidding), and Best Non-Sex Performance (you’re really kidding) — are awarded by the AVN Media Network, which also hosts the wild, mostly straight AVN Awards each year in Vegas.

AVN Media usually looses the GayVNs on a suspecting world in West Hollywood, but this year it’s holding them at the Castro Theatre. What does this mean, besides an influx of WeHo pay-for-plays with brassy home highlights shining like cross-eyed beacons through our February fog? For one, it means official recognition of San Francisco as the new ground zero of male-on-male video, the omphalos of anal erotica, if you will. For two, it means Craigslist will probably go down from all the traffic.

MCed by Kathy Griffin and also by the parts of Kathy Griffin made in South Korea ("I’m so glad that ‘My gays’ have asked me to join them for their big event," La Griffter declaims in press materials), the GayVNs — no relation to our fine mayor, alas — will keep fans and industry observers perched on the pinched tips of their seats to see just who’ll sashay away with a big fat rectangular piece of etched something in such categories as Best Actor (Shane Collins in Doggie Style? Justin Wells in Booty Thief ?) and Best Bisexual Video (Bi Back Mountain? Bi Bi American Pie 9?).

But really, isn’t it an honor just to be nominated? Sure it is!

I love gay porn — it’s ruined several of my more serious relationships, thank god — and it’s great to see the industry turn on its own and reward them. But the real question I have is what shall I wear to the ceremony? My Carnival of Venice mask with the ostrich plumes? My lace-up man corset with poly-mesh cape? One thing’s for sure: don’t even think about reaching for the leopard spots–zebra stripes guayabera–hot pants combo. Everyone will be wearing that. (Marke B.)

GAYVN AWARDS

Sat/24, 7pm, $100–$300

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.gayvnawards.com

>

Death drove a cliche

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With the mayor’s race opening up rather unexpectedly, the power-involved now have a little something extra to think about: should I or shouldn’t I, come autumn? I shouldn’t and won’t — though I love autumn — but if I did, my platform would include some provision to the effect that writers who use clichés should be put in prison. Well, not really. As a society, our fetish for putting people in prison is matched (and perhaps exceeded) only by our fetish for objects and acts military. Also, we would not have remotely enough prison capacity.

But reprieve or no from the next mayor, writers should shun cliché — even go to war against it, as the British writer Martin Amis suggested a few years ago. Clichés are cheap plastic doodads from seedy dime stores about to go out of business, and to write in cliché means to think in cliché, and that means shoddily. The cliché is prima facie evidence that the writer has failed to meet the basic obligations of all writing: to have valuable thoughts to impart and to impart them in language that is fresh, original, and alive.

Food writers might or might not be under a special obligation here, but I know that when I, as a reader of a food or restaurant piece, happen upon such phrases as "earned his chops," "finger on the pulse," "came on board," and "cutting-edge" — these are all real and recent examples, by the way, published locally — it’s as if I’ve struck a pothole and a wheel flies off and I hit the guardrail and flip over: the journey is over. One cannot keep one’s attention focused against a fusillade of prefabricated language and autopilot writing any more than one can take seriously a Hollywood set that consists of propped-up facades with a void behind them: a one-dimensional world whose only dimension is obviousness.

Deadlines impose their pressures and deformations, certainly, and it’s possible to defend some triteness as a kind of shorthand. We do all know what these threadbare expressions mean. Clichés also have real value to ironists; strings of tired words can acquire a comic sheen, like bits of kitsch, if placed in the proper surroundings. But there is an art to this, and it is the antithesis of the unthinkingness that propagates the clichés in the first place.

Paul Reidinger

› paulr@sfbg.com

The other shoe

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› steve@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom has never answered questions about his illicit affair with his appointments secretary Ruby Rippey-Tourk — and even now, with city money involved, he’s sticking to the stonewall.

The Guardian on Feb. 15 broke the story that the city had paid Rippey-Tourk more than $10,000 months after she left her job (see "Newsom Aide Got Paid," www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics).

But the mayor refused to even acknowledge questions I directly put to him earlier that day, just as he has since he confirmed media reports of the affair Feb. 1, when he issued a short statement and took no questions.

"We are confident that this matter was handled appropriately and humanely," he said in the prepared comments his Office of Communications put out.

But there are lots of legitimate questions that arise from payroll records we’ve obtained, which show Rippey-Tourk received more public money than she was entitled to during 2005, when the affair occurred, and 2006. Were public funds converted into hush money? Who was involved? What pressure was applied?

City Attorney Dennis Herrera offered some hope of accountability Feb. 15 when, in response to questions from the Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, and other media outlets about the payments, he announced an investigation.

"With the full cooperation of the city officials involved, the City Attorney has already begun the process of reviewing the paid leave to Ms. Rippey-Tourk to assure that it was done properly under City laws and procedures," Herrera’s office wrote in a statement as he left for vacation.

The payroll records show that she received $21,755 in paid leave last year for 534 hours of work that she didn’t do. That amounts to about 13 1/2 weeks of paid time off, well more than the 10 days vacation time and 13 days of sick leave to which she was entitled. And it includes a lump $10,155 payment that she received in September.

City law allows employees with "a life threatening illness or injury" to receive paid leave if coworkers are willing to donate their vacation and sick days to the cause. And Sam Singer, a spokesperson for Rippey-Tourk and her husband, Alex Tourk (who worked as Newsom’s deputy chief of staff and later as his campaign manager before resigning last month when he learned of the affair), said that’s what happened.

While Rippey-Tourk was in substance abuse treatment from May through July 2006, Singer told the Guardian, Tourk — who says he was unaware at the time that his wife had been having sex with the mayor — asked city officials whether there was a way to get paid for what began as a period of unpaid leave.

"Several of her coworkers donated their sick time to Ruby during this time of personal crisis," Singer told us.

Asked why Rippey-Tourk didn’t return to her good city job after leaving rehab in July, Singer said, "She just felt it was a chapter in her life that was over, and she wanted to move on." Asked whether Rippey-Tourk may have felt uncomfortable returning to work for a boss who had bedded her during a time when she was having problems with alcohol, Singer refused to comment.

But Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who has called for Newsom’s resignation, said the entire episode was unseemly and the mayor showed poor judgment for someone in a position of authority whom Rippey-Tourk trusted. "I think he took advantage of someone who was in a very vulnerable position," McGoldrick told us.

There are other questions about Rippey-Tourk’s tenure at the city. Payroll records show she never worked a full week in 2006. And her 7 1/2 weeks of unpaid leave in 2005 also appear to be more than she was entitled to. She received $80,195 in compensation in 2005, up from $63,522 the previous year, which was her first in the Newsom administration. The Chronicle also reports that more than half of Rippey-Tourk’s time sheets weren’t signed by her supervisor, as required.

And the Mayor’s Office has refused to answer questions about who donated their leave time to Rippey-Tourk, whether they were asked to and if they knew about the affair, and whether the city has been exposed to a sexual harassment suit by her or employment discrimination suit by other employees. *

Car-free support

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› steve@sfbg.com

Sup. Jake McGoldrick plans to reintroduce his Healthy Saturdays legislation this week and told the Guardian he’s confident that a new city study paves the way for its implementation by this summer.

Healthy Saturdays — which would create a six-month trial Saturday closure to cars on the same streets in the eastern portion of Golden Gate Park that are now closed Sundays — was approved by the Board of Supervisors last May but vetoed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who ordered a study of the impacts of the Sunday closure.

That study by the Transportation Authority and Department of Parking and Traffic brought great news for Healthy Saturday supporters, concluding that road closure is extremely popular with park users and has no significant negative impact to attendance at the park’s museums, access by those with disabilities, availability of adequate parking, or traffic congestion at the intersections around the park.

"It spells out a very positive picture," McGoldrick told us. "Anecdotally, we knew all this, but now we have the empirical data laid out."

The study found that closing the roads encourages 40 percent more nonvehicular trips to the park. Almost 40 percent of those surveyed said the road closure makes them more likely to visit the park, while 10 percent said it made them less likely, and the rest said it had no impact.

"I see no good reason why this shouldn’t fly through the board and Mayor’s Office," Leah Shabum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, told us. "The report shows without a doubt there are no negative impacts to creating car-free spaces in the park."

Yet the proposal last year drew strong visceral reactions from opponents in adjacent neighborhoods, some representatives for those with disabilities, and those affiliated with the de Young Museum and other cultural institutions in the park — some of whom say they still aren’t satisfied with the report’s conclusions.

A group called Park Access for All sent out a press release urging the city to reject closure. Member Ron Miguel of the Planning Association for the Richmond said the city shouldn’t do anything until the Academy of Sciences reopens late next year. And disabilities advocate Tim Hornbecker said he was concerned that the city still hasn’t put in place a tram and other improvements that were approved along with Healthy Saturdays last year.

Those improvements have stalled at the Recreation and Park Department, which answers to the Mayor’s Office. The Guardian asked Newsom about the report Feb. 15, and he said, "I haven’t seen that," and ignored further questions. Newsom spokesperson Peter Ragone told us, "We’re in the process of digesting it and deciding how to move forward."

But Healthy Saturdays advocates point to statements Newsom made after the veto, noting that the study seems to satisfy all the concerns he expressed. Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, told us, "It should be a no-brainer. All the original objections cited by the mayor are addressed…. At this point, holding it up would be obstreperous." *

The Healthy Saturdays report is available at www.goldengatepark.org.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I made it through the week without anyone calling to complain about my analysis of the mayor’s race, so maybe for once I got it right: unless Gavin Newsom drops out or a third strike drops and it’s pretty bad, we already know what things are going to look like in the fall.

So we might as well get on with it: Matt Gonzalez and Ross Mirkarimi should get together and talk it out, then one of them should just go ahead and announce.

For a long list of reasons, there has to be a real mayor’s race this fall — and Tony Hall plus a few nutcases against Mayor Newsom doesn’t count. The progressives need someone to rally around, to get the old troops out and in the streets and some new ones trained and energized. We need to keep Newsom on the defensive, to keep our issues out there, to hold him accountable not just to his donors but to the rest of the city.

Never discount what a good challenge can do: there are a lot of reasons why Sup. Bevan Dufty has moved a few steps to the left over the past few months, but one of them is absolutely the fact that he had a progressive candidate running against him in the fall.

Besides, I actually think Newsom can be defeated.

Just look at his record. Since he hasn’t accomplished much of anything, he’s vulnerable on almost everything. Other than same-sex marriage, his major legacy at this point seems to be trying to hand out the city’s information technology infrastructure to Google and EarthLink. Go team.

And the city’s two leading Greens both have a distinct advantage at this point — nobody is going to accuse them of jumping into the race to take advantage of Newsom’s personal problems. Long before city hall got all steamed up, Mirkarimi and Gonzalez were talking about running — on the issues.

Gonzalez can raise a lot of money. Mirkarimi has done something few progressives ever pull off: turning public safety into one of our top issues. Like almost all candidates, they both have strengths and weaknesses, but in the end, it looks like one of them is going to be our contender this fall, and that’s not at all a bad thing.

We went after District Attorney Kamala Harris a couple weeks ago when she tried to make some changes in the pretrial diversion program that would have cut back on its effectiveness. Harris did the right thing; she and Public Defender Jeff Adachi reached an agreement that preserved the best of the program, which tries to steer first-time misdemeanor offenders into counseling and out of the criminal justice system.

Harris didn’t have to do that; the program is entirely under her control, and she could have told Adachi (and us) to take a hike and done it her way. But she showed that she’s a reasonable DA who is willing to listen.

Now, however, the thugs at the Police Officers Association are attacking her for her willingness to include misdemeanor noninjury assaults on cops as crimes that are eligible for diversion. (This is typically stuff like someone spitting at an officer or brushing against him or her during an arrest. We’re not talking about serious assaults here.)

Harris is standing up to the POA, but the rest of the city, including the mayor, needs to get behind her. *

More on Tourk payments

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By Steven T. Jones
New information is still coming in on the breaking news that Ruby Rippey-Tourk got an extended paid leave from the city. I just spoke with Sam Singer, a spokesperson for the Tourks, who said that it was Alex Tourk who asked the city about getting paid compensation for his wife while she was in an alcohol and drug rehab center from May through July. At the time, he didn’t know that his wife had been having sexual relations with the mayor. “Several of her co-workers donated their sick time to Ruby during this time of personal crisis,” Singer said. According to the Controller’s Office, Rippey-Tourk’s final official day of employment was Sept. 1 and it was in September that she received a check for the leave that begun in May, initially as unpaid leave. Payroll records also show that Rippey-Tourk had 7.5 weeks of unpaid leave in 2005 — when her affair with Newsom reportedly took place — and that also appears to be more than she was entitled to. She received $80,195 in compensation in 2005, up from $63,522 the previous year, which was her first in the Newsom Administration.
Asked why Rippey-Tourk didn’t return to her good city job after leaving rehab in July, Singer said, “She just felt it was a chapter in her life that was over and she wanted to move on.” Asked whether Rippey-Tourk may have felt uncomfortable returning to work for a boss who had bedded her during a time when she was having problems with alcohol, Singer refused to comment. But Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who has called for Newsom’s resignation, called the entire episode unseemly and showing poor judgment by someone in a position of authority that Rippey-Tourk trusted. “I think he took advantage of someone who was in a very vulnerable position,” McGoldrick said.
Newsom has refused to answer questions about anything related to the affair. I’ve posed questions about this latest revelation to Newsom press secretary Peter Ragone and I’m awaiting a response.

More on Tourk payments

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By Steven T. Jones
New information is still coming in on the breaking news that Ruby Rippey-Tourk got an extended paid leave from the city. I just spoke with Sam Singer, a spokesperson for the Tourks, who said that it was Alex Tourk who asked the city about getting paid compensation for his wife while she was in an alcohol and drug rehab center from May through July. At the time, he didn’t know that his wife had been having sexual relations with the mayor. “Several of her co-workers donated their sick time to Ruby during this time of personal crisis,” Singer said. According to the Controller’s Office, Rippey-Tourk’s final official day of employment was Sept. 1 and it was in September that she received a check for the leave that began in May, initially as unpaid leave. Payroll records also show that Rippey-Tourk had 7.5 weeks of unpaid leave in 2005 — when her affair with Newsom reportedly took place — and that also appears to be more than she was entitled to. She received $80,195 in compensation in 2005, up from $63,522 the previous year, which was her first in the Newsom Administration.
Asked why Rippey-Tourk didn’t return to her good city job after leaving rehab in July, Singer said, “She just felt it was a chapter in her life that was over and she wanted to move on.” Asked whether Rippey-Tourk may have felt uncomfortable returning to work for a boss who had bedded her during a time when she was having problems with alcohol, Singer refused to comment. But Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who has called for Newsom’s resignation, called the entire episode unseemly and showing poor judgment by someone in a position of authority that Rippey-Tourk trusted. “I think he took advantage of someone who was in a very vulnerable position,” McGoldrick said.
Newsom has refused to answer questions about anything related to the affair. I’ve posed questions about this latest revelation to Newsom press secretary Peter Ragone and I’m awaiting a response.

Newsom aide got paid

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By Steven T. Jones
The Bay Guardian has learned that Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who left her job as Mayor Gavin Newsom’s appointments secretary last year after having a secret affair with the mayor, received $21,755 in paid leave last year for 534 hours of work that she didn’t do. That amounts to about 13.5 weeks of paid time off, well more than the 10 days vacation time and 13 days of sick leave to which she was entitled. There are provisions in city law whereby other employees may donate some of their vacation and sick time to fellow employees who go out on some form of medical leave, and Rippey-Tourk reportedly left her city job sometime before last May to enter treatment for substance abuse, although city officials may not comment on why an employee took leave for privacy reasons. But the arrangement raises questions about whether Newsom forced Rippey-Tourk from her job and/or pressured employees to give up their paid time off to help buy her silence, questions that Newsom and his administration have refused to address. In fact, they have never answered any questions about the affair or Newsom’s own substance problems from any media outlet. Newsom ignored Guardian questions on the subject earlier today and his spokesperson Jennifer Petrucione told us, “The mayor has spoken on this issue and he has said what’s he’s going to say.” The City Attorney’s Office has put out a statement on the matter, saying they can’t comment on the details for privacy reasons but, “With the full cooperation of the city officials involved, the City Attorney has already begun the process of reviewing the paid leave to Ms. Rippey-Tourk to assure that it was done properly under City laws and procedures.”

Newsom aide got paid

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By Steven T. Jones
The Bay Guardian has learned that Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who left her job as Mayor Gavin Newsom’s appointments secretary last year after having a secret affair with the mayor, received $21,755 in paid leave last year for 534 hours of work that she didn’t do. That amounts to about 13.5 weeks of paid time off, well more than the 10 days vacation time and 13 days of sick leave to which she was entitled. There are provisions in city law whereby other employees may donate some of their vacation and sick time to fellow employees who go out on some form of medical leave, and Rippey-Tourk reportedly left her city job sometime before last May to enter treatment for substance abuse, although city officials may not comment on why an employee took leave for privacy reasons. But the arrangement raises questions about whether Newsom forced Rippey-Tourk from her job and/or pressured employees to give up their paid time off to help buy her silence, questions that Newsom and his administration have refused to address. In fact, they have never answered any questions about the affair or Newsom’s own substance problems from any media outlet. Newsom ignored Guardian questions on the subject earlier today and his spokesperson Jennifer Petrucione told us, “The mayor has spoken on this issue and he has said what’s he’s going to say.” The City Attorney’s Office has put out a statement on the matter, saying they can’t comment on the details for privacy reasons but, “With the full cooperation of the city officials involved, the City Attorney has already begun the process of reviewing the paid leave to Ms. Rippey-Tourk to assure that it was done properly under City laws and procedures.”

Return of Healthy Saturdays

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By Steven T. Jones
The city’s long-awaited study of road closures in Golden Gate Park was released yesterday, offering clear evidence that closing JFK Drive to cars on weekends is extremely popular and has no significant negative impacts to attendance at the park’s museums, access by those with disabilities, or traffic congestion in the intersections around the park. Mayor Gavin Newsom last summer vetoed the Healthy Saturdays six-month trial closure after a deceptive opposition campaign that was waged by De Young Museum directors and advocates of unfettered automobile access to the park. At the time, Newsom pledged to study the issue and support it if there was empirical evidence supporting closure, which there now seems to be. Asked about the report today by the Guardian, Newsom said “I haven’t seen that” and ignored further questions on that and other topics. Newsom communications director Peter Ragone told us, “We’re in the process of digesting it and deciding how to move forward.”
Sup. Jake McGoldrick, who sponsored the legislation last spring, said he will reintroduce it at the board meeting this Tuesday and was confident that we’ll see Golden Gate Park partially closed to cars this summer. “It spells out a very positive picture,” McGoldrick told us. “Anecdotally, we knew all this, but now we have the empirical data laid out.”

More than clean

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› amanda@sfbg.com

Cleaner streets, crack-free sidewalks, an urban landscape unmarred by graffiti and made greener by leafy trees: that was the improved "quality of life" espoused by Mayor Gavin Newsom in his State of the City speech Oct. 26, 2006. And he’s put resources into delivering that pretty picture, with increases to the Department of Public Works (DPW) budget and funds allocated for sidewalk revitalization and the citywide Clean Corridors campaign.

But the city’s top-down approach to realizing the mayor’s goals — and the apparent lack of consideration for the implications of those priorities among ordinary people — has created a backlash from affluent District 7 (where Sup. Sean Elsbernd is upset over the fines being doled out to property owners for cracked sidewalks) to the working-class Mission District (where an aggressive new street cleaning regime has been proposed).

"This is something that just dropped out of the blue, and I think it’s unacceptable," Mission resident Peter Turner said at a Jan. 31 public hearing on the proposal to clean many streets in his neighborhood every weekday. "The city has shown a vast amount of disrespect to the Mission."

Others think there are more pressing problems.

"What is quality of life?" asked Vicki Rega, who lives at 21st and Bryant streets and spoke to the Guardian on her way out of the hearing. "Some trash on your street or a dead kid on your sidewalk?"

The signs started appearing a few weeks ago, posted on trees and lamp poles in the Mission. The type is a tiny 10-point font, often difficult to read through the plastic wrap that holds the paper to the pole. Even if you can make out the words, it’s still pretty unclear that they announce a proposal to ramp up mechanical street cleaning — from as little as one day a week to as many as five.

"The signs were very, very confusing," said Eric Noble, a Shotwell Street resident who was further insulted that postings weren’t made in Spanish and Chinese. "That’s really unconscionable in the Mission."

Beyond warning residents of the radical change to their daily lives, the signs invited them to two public hearings to discuss the issue, on Jan. 31 and Feb. 5. The first hearing drew about 150 residents and frustration that the only sign of officialdom present was DPW representative Chris McDaniels, who was sitting alone behind a vast empty desk, taking notes.

"Who is deciding this issue, and why aren’t they here to hear us?" Judith Berkowitz asked.

Attendees expressed anger at the process and annoyance that car-owning residents on dozens of city blocks east of Valencia Street and north of Cesar Chavez Street will face steep fines and be forced to scramble for new parking spots on a daily basis.

At the beginning of the meeting, the reasons for the change were introduced: illegal dumping in the area had doubled in one year, calls to the city’s trash hotline 28-CLEAN had increased 18 percent from 2005 to 2006, and the sweeper truck in the Mission had been collecting huge amounts of trash.

"It’s the sidewalks, not the streets," several speakers said. They pointed out that the trucks are more successful blowing trash around than sucking it up. Many offered numerous suggestions for how to better clean the streets: have more trash cans and volunteers, employ the homeless, coordinate with other city services, educate the merchants, bring back people with brooms and dustpans — but don’t just run trucks through the streets.

One Alabama Street resident said she’s committed to using public transportation to get to her job in Richmond, but like many others at the meeting, she pointed out that if cars need to be moved five days a week for street cleaning, why not move them all the way to work?

"It’s a disincentive for people to use public transit," she said.

And if they don’t get moved, does the city really mind?

"Is it really trash, or is it revenue?" Shotwell Street resident Eric Noble asked, citing the added opportunities for writing parking tickets. "If revenue enhancement is behind this project, you’re going to see it all over the city."

DPW spokesperson Christine Falvey denied money was the motive and said parking fine revenue goes to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which has recently revealed an $11 million budget shortfall. Falvey also said changes in street cleaning schedules are usually prompted by complaints from residents, but in this case the proposal was sparked by recommendations from city staff who work in the area.

Street cleaning trucks have been in use since 1976 and currently clean about 90 percent of city streets, but according to Falvey, the DPW has never done an analysis of their efficiency and effectiveness. A consultant was recently hired to make that determination.

"Every time some city agency comes up with an improvement, it does more to inconvenience," David Jayne, a Potrero Avenue resident, told us. "I’m really worried this is another one-size-fits-all cure."

But Newsom has made clean streets a top priority for his reelection year.

"How do we dare to dream big — while not forgetting to fill potholes, clean our streets and parks, and address the small problems of urban life that make such a big difference to our quality of life?" Newsom asked in his State of the City speech.

And how do we do it without pissing off the neighbors?

"You’re not going to find anyone who says, ‘Yeah, I think the neighborhood should be dirtier,’ " Florida Street resident Scott Adams told us. "Things should be done to improve the hygiene of the streets."

But he and others who live on these streets and have watched them for years said they were prepared to push brooms and pick up trash if the city were willing to work on other qualities of life such as rising violence, slipping public schools, and the truly ill transportation system.

The DPW’s stated mission is "improving the quality of life in San Francisco." And that’s been a popular pastime of recent mayors. Frank Jordan had One Neat City Week and the Litter Strike Force. Willie Brown promoted his Spring Cleanings and Great Sweeps. Gavin Newsom touts a goal to make this the "cleanest and greenest city in the country."

So his proposed 2006–7 budget for the DPW’s Street Environmental Services hovers around $33 million, an 11 percent boost over last year. That’s more than the 7 percent increase the patrol unit of the San Francisco Police Department received, the 4 percent Muni Services and Operations received, the 1 percent that went to Child Support Services, and almost two times more than the rise for the housing and homeless budget line in the Human Services Agency.

Street Environmental Services is a fancy-pants term for picking up trash, spraying off pee, and painting over graffiti. The mayor’s most recent plan to achieve this is called Clean Corridors and was unveiled in November 2006 with a $1.67 million allocation from Newsom for targeting the filthy faces of 100 specific blocks throughout the city. (Although this project focuses on the same areas in the Mission, the increased street cleaning is a separate proposal.)

The essence of Clean Corridors is to get residents and business owners to feel more responsible for their property, using both education and fines for things such as cracked sidewalks and dirty facades.

The program also pays for 20 neighborhood ambassadors who each patrol designated areas, picking up trash, reporting graffiti and areas needing repair, issuing litter citations, and educating the public. They’re essentially litter cops.

"He wanted specific people responsible for areas," Falvey said of the mayor’s ambassador program. "He wants that person to own their block."

Yet some residents bristle at Newsom placing such a high priority on litter as the murder rate is spiking, Muni is failing, housing is becoming less affordable, and city hall is mired in dysfunction.

"The war in Iraq. The violence in the streets — that’s probably my number one concern. Public schools. Transportation," Noble said when we asked about his quality-of-life concerns.

"Quality of life means being able to meet the basic necessities of your life," Myrna Lim said. The Excelsior resident is so frustrated with the parking situation in her neighborhood she organized a protest Feb. 24 against any new fine increases. "If you’re on a very tight budget, $40 for a ticket is a lot. When people talk about San Francisco being a very expensive city, that’s part of it. It makes day-to-day living very difficult. Over what? Parking?"

Yet the Mission parking proposal has prompted some community organizing. E-mail sign-up lists were passed around the hearing room, and a healthy chat about the issue now exists at a Yahoo! group. Several residents who aren’t currently members of neighborhood organizations told us they’re thinking about joining or starting one.

"I was quite amazed to see all the people," Noble said of the first hearing and the conversation it sparked. "Maybe one thing that will come out of this is more neighborhood discussions."

The DPW has also been chastened and scheduled an evening meeting in March. "We’ve heard overwhelming support that something needs to be done but overwhelming response that it’s not mechanical street cleaning," Falvey said.

"The city should really be a conduit for people to organize themselves," she added. "For any kind of long-term, sustained effort, it’s got to come from the neighbors." *

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

If the Matier and Ross report in the San Francisco Chronicle on Feb. 11 is to believed, then Mayor Gavin Newsom is actually taking his alcohol problem seriously. Mimi Silbert, who runs Delancey Street, told the dynamic duo that Newsom has been showing up every night for three or four hours of intense counseling and therapy. Good for him. If his problem is bad enough that he needs that much help, he’d probably be better off taking some time away from work, but I’m not him, and at least he’s trying.

Or so they say.

Of course, if the whole "treatment" thing is just an attempt to gain sympathy from the public and take the story away from his sordid affair, I suspect Newsom’s visits to Delancey Street will start to taper off fast — in which case a lot of people who have friends and family who truly have struggled with alcoholism will be properly pissed at his honor the mayor.

It’s going to sound like a cliché at this point, but I kinda think it’s true enough to make it our mantra for the fall: Newsom has been doing a rotten job of late, and if his personal problems are to blame for that, then he needs to get the hell out of politics until he’s a lot stabler, and if his personal problems aren’t to blame, then he’s just a weak and lame mayor. Either way, four more years doesn’t work.

Which brings us to the real question that was on everyone’s mind at the Guardian‘s 40th anniversary party last week: who?

Let me throw out some thoughts.

I’ll start with the wild card. There isn’t one. I see nobody hiding in the bushes who can run as a progressive and mount a serious campaign. We’ve got what we see. (Don’t talk to me about Art Agnos; the guy would have to enter a political 12-step, make a lot of amends, and admit all the things he did wrong as mayor last time around, and it ain’t happening.)

So here’s Scenario One: Newsom toughs it out, nothing else awful drops, and he stays in the race. Honestly, very few people are going to challenge him. Not Mark Leno, not Carole Migden, not Dennis Herrera, not Aaron Peskin. They don’t want to look like they’re exploiting Newsom’s personal problems, so they all wait four years.

So the left candidate is Ross Mirkarimi or Matt Gonzalez. If Gonzalez wants it, Mirkarimi steps out of the way. That could set up Matt vs. Gavin, round two, with Gonzalez as the candidate of the left and the Residential Builders Association, leaving people like me (who think land use is supremely important) tearing our hair out. And let’s remember that Jack Davis, the political mastermind, is going to be a player this time, and it won’t be with a loser like Tony Hall.

Scenario Two: Newsom decides, for whatever reason, to withdraw — and it’s a free-for-all. Gonzalez is suddenly not the leading candidate; that’s probably Leno, Herrera, or, on the outside, Kamala Harris. Which leaves the progressives with a sticky choice: stay with Gonzalez or accept someone who on paper (and on the record) is more centrist but will promise a whole lot to get our support and could be the odds-on favorite.

Throw in public financing and ranked-choice voting, and the election’s going to be like nothing there ever was in this town. I can’t wait. *

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