San Francisco-style cycletracks — bike lanes physically separated from automobile traffic — could proliferate in cities throughout California under a bill approved today [Fri/29] by the Legislature, provided Gov. Jerry Brown decides to sign it.
Assembly Bill 1193, the Protected Bikeways Act, by San Francisco Democrat Phil Ting, was approved today by the Assembly on a 53-15 vote after clearing the Senate on Monday, 29-5. The bill incorporates cycletrack design standards into state transportation regulations, which had previously stated that such designs weren’t allowed.
San Francisco pioneered the use of cycletracks anyway, borrowing the safety design for Europe, where they are common, and backing up that strategy with a willingness to defend the designs in court if need be. Since initially being placed on Market Street by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration, cycletracks have proliferated around the city.
“It’s huge, to be honest, even if it’s a little wonky,” California Bicycle Coalition David Snyder said of the legislation, which his group strongly backed. “The legal obstacles to putting in a cycletracks effectively prevented that type of bike lane from being installed in cities throughout California.”
Few cities were willing to buck the state on the issue, but Snyder believes there is a pent-up demand for cycletracks now that so many California cities have committed to improving their cycling infrastructure.
“The book said you couldn’t do it, and now the book will say you can do it, so all these cities will have another tool in their toolbelt,” Snyder said.
That is, if Gov. Brown signs it, something that cycling advocates are urging supporters to weigh in on before the Sept. 30 deadline to sign or reject legislation.
To call seminal SF perfomer and alpha theater aficionado Arturo Galster merely a “drag queen” is to do his range — from the legendary Vegas in Space movie and pitch-perfect live-sung Pasty Cline interpretations to his recent technicolor turns with the Thrillpeddlers — a disservice. But his name will always call to mind that moment in the late ’80s and early ’90s when SF’s drag scene unmoored itself from polite old school diva kabuki into a squall of gloriously punky, ironic camp.
Arturo was always the epitome of grace and professional onstage focus, of course, whether hilariously and touchingly channeling broken stars in Dirty Little Showtunes and Hedwig or playing little Rhoda’s beleaguered mom in a hysterical take-off of The Bad Seed. Many well-known drag queens and entertainers recall first being inspired to take to the stage after seeing Arturo’s performances.
His death was announced by his close friend Helen Shumaker on her Facebook page. According to IMDB, Arturo was born in 1972 (that may be debatable, but he always looked fabulous!)
The cirumstances of his death are unknown. Other comments seem to indicate there was an altercation in Dolores Park after Saturday’s “Showgirls: Night of a Thousand Lapdances” at Castro Theatre, and that Arturo sustained a head wound, but refused medical attention. As of this writing, no charges have been filed and further medical information was unavailable.
On hearing the news, SF’s underground queer arts community took to Facebook to express their condolences and share stories.
Peaches Christ:
It’s a sad, sad night in the Bay Area as we mourn the loss of a brilliant entertainer, artist, and friend. R.I.P. Arturo Galster
Heklina (Trannyshack):
Arturo Galster, you were one of the first people to make a huge impact on me when I first moved to SF, when I first saw you perform at the Castro St. Fair in 1991. You had just come back from Japan, and to me you were a superstar. Thanks for always being so brilliant, I can’t believe you’re not here any more….
Marc Huestis, producer:
RIP Arturo Galster- I’m in a state of shock, and please tell me it’s not true, but just heard Arturo has died. He was THE MOST brilliant performer and loyal to a core. So fun loving it was scary. In so many of my shows since the 80’s I feel a bit of San Francisco Theatre history has been ripped from my heart. We MUST properly memorialize him….Arturo – or Smartie as I called him- sang the first song in the first show I did at the Castro almost 20 years ago- and then went on singing, and acting, and clowning. He was simply the best. He was also THE GREATEST audience member, when he was not onstage cheering on his fellow artist. That is a rare quality.He was generous kind, sassy without being mean-spirited. He was also a good neighbor and old friend.
D’Arcy Drollinger (entertainer):
I still remember staring at a Patsy Cline and the Memphis G-Spots poster on my friend Jessica’s wall when I was 16. I was in awe. And years later, I remember the first day I met him, when he came into the New Government on Haight Street, just having returned from Japan. I was still in awe. I could never shake that feeling – working with him – playing with him – I couldn’t help feel that I was in the presence of a celebrity. He was hilarious. He was ridiculous. He was a genius. And you could never tame him. A true original. A humble diva. I salute you Arturo Galster.
Lisa Geduldig (comedian, promoter):
One of the funniest things I ever heard him say was as Patsy Cline years ago after singing “Walkin’After Midnight;” he told then Mayor Willie Brown: “The reason I was out walking after midnight was because the damn MUNI never came.” Arturo loved showing his Airbnb guests around. Since we lived around the corner from each other, I often ran into them on the street as they were off to dinner or just coming back. Not only did Arturo warm his way into all of his friends’ hearts but these 103 strangers’ as well
Ste Fischell (Thrillpeddlers):
So sad to hear about the loss of Arturo Galster. Arturo was what I wanted to be when I became an old theater queen. I loved him so. He loved me. He was a wonderful talent. I will never forget every night in Pearls Over Shanghai watching him from behind, slumped down as Red Dragon, deliver the best monologue in the show. As my mother in The Bad Seed, making hundreds and hundreds laugh and upstaging everyone. As Hedwig Number 1 … killing it every time. Signing country tunes with you. Telling me you are the Set Fishell of the future. I should be so lucky. I’m shocked. Saddened. I love you Arturo. I always will.
Rotimi Agbabiaka (SF Mime Troupe):
I’m so shocked and saddened to hear of Arturo Galster’s passing. I remember the first time I met him. He was singing as Patsy Cline and I was so moved by his beautiful performance. I told him so and he responded with such grace and humility. It was always such a delight to crossed paths with him after that first meeting and I longed to one day work with him. He was a generous, welcoming man with exquisite talent and a glorious laugh. Hearing him guffaw in the audience at a performance of mine always lifted my spirits so. And being in his enormous presence was a gift. I will miss him.
There’s a party in the VIP lounge. Host, Diet Popstitute and Hostess Miss Kitty Litter Green. The guest of honor is Arturo Galster, and it is the party to end all parties… Please save me a mock tail. I’ll meet you there, because I am not done loving on Y’all yet!!! I love you…..
You can see more tributes and fabulous pics on Arturo’s Facebook page. I, too, recall being wowed out of my skin at Arturo’s Patsy Cline and always getting a warm, excited nod when I ran into him at performances. Thank you for all the laughs (and tears!) RIP.
For feedback, you can reach me at marke@sfbg.com, through Twitter @SFBG, or via our Facebook page.
FALL ARTS If you are a fan of hip-hop, you likely already know that 1993 was a very special year.
Call it coincidence, call it fate, call it a combination of social, economic, and political factors projected through the kaleidoscopic lens of American pop culture and write your thesis about it (you wouldn’t be the first). But something in the air in 1993 coalesced into a weather system of seminal albums from the best of the best: Tupac, Queen Latifah, Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang, De La Soul.
In Oakland, E-40 made his solo debut. Too $hort’s new album hit the top of the R&B/hip-hop charts. The Coup was selling records by rapping about the Communist Manifesto. And then there was Souls of Mischief.
Fresh out of Skyline High School, the sound of the four-piece’s debut was something else altogether: Over obscure jazz and funk samples, Souls of Mischief traded flows about weed, street violence, girls, teenage boredom — so no, not entirely unique in subject matter. But there was a sweet subtlety to the delivery, a charismatic, self-aware almost-wink to their bravado. These were Bay Area kids talking about how it felt to be Bay Area kids at that time, with a mission statement that charted a modest path for the future: This is how we chill/ from 93 ’til…
As of this writing, it’s been 20 years and 11 months since 93 ‘Til Infinity helped put the Bay on the hip-hop map. A lot’s changed, to put it lightly. The Internet happened, and the Internet’s effect on the music industry. The consolidation of thousands of smaller, regionally-influenced media channels into a few giant, similar-sounding ones.
And then there are things that haven’t changed. Twenty years and 11 months since that record first propelled them into the national spotlight, the four high school buddies who make up Souls of Mischief — that’s A-Plus, Opio, Phesto, and Tajai — are slouched on couches in their clubhouse in East Oakland on a warm Wednesday evening, ribbing each other about joint-rolling technique.
The Hiero compound, as the converted two-story warehouse is known, serves as the physical center of Hieroglyphics, the close-knit hip-hop collective/umbrella record label that’s home to rappers Del the Funkee Homosapien, Casual, and Pep Love, DJ Toure and producer Domino, in addition to Souls of Mischief. The exterior walls are covered with a mural done by teenagers in the neighborhood (it’d be tagged up by now, but everyone knows it’s Hiero so they leave it alone). Inside, the ground floor contains recording studios — Pep Love is working in one right now — and a big room that can be set up for video shoots. Upstairs, more recording space, a room with wall-to-wall shelves of vinyl, a mini-kitchen, an office.
A-Plus’s teenage son is here at the moment, recording something of his own. Stickers bearing the three-eyed Hiero logo adorn nearly every surface. An incoming mail pile is marked with a Post-it. Items on a nearby bookshelf: a stuffed alligator toy, Swisher blunt wraps. In one corner, a whiteboard reads “HIEROGLYPHICS CREW NEXT PROJECTS,” with members’ names down the left-hand side and updates about their records; as an afterthought: “THE PURPOSE OF THIS BOARD IS COORDINATED MARKETING STRATEGY.” In another corner, a chart titled “Capitalism Is a Pyramid Scheme.”
In the two-plus decades since that momentous year, the members of Souls of Mischief have had kids. Hieroglyphics went from young upstart crew to real business venture to respected veterans of the hip-hop world who can still easily sell out amphitheaters (as they learned on their 20th anniversary tour last year). There are special edition box-sets of their 20th anniversary reissue waiting for autographs downstairs before being shipped. On Monday, Sept. 1 (Labor Day), Souls of Mischief will be the centerpiece of the third annual Hiero Day, a free, all-ages music festival/block party in downtown Oakland that gets bigger every year — and it’s not just about the music. But more on that later.
What the guys have been consumed by for a year makes its debut a few days earlier. On Aug. 26, Souls of Mischief will drop their sixth studio album, There Is Only Now, the group’s first full-length since 2009.
A richly orchestrated concept album set in 1994, based loosely on real events from the year following their breakout album (when they were dealing with newfound fame, as Oakland dealt with an increase in gun violence), the record serves as both a bookend to 93 ‘Til Infinity and as completely fresh territory. For one, it’s Souls of Mischief’s first collaboration with the LA-based producer of the moment, Adrian Younge (Jay Z, Delfonics, Ghostface Killah), who’s using the album to launch his new vinyl-centric label, Linear Labs.
“The name There Is Only Now comes in part from Buddhism, the idea of focusing on the moment and being present. But it’s also a period piece with a twist — it touches on issues that are still going on now: Street violence, love, drugs, the music business. It’s a universal story,” says Tajai, after ambling in the last of the four, asking who has rolling papers. (He’s just come from a panel at UC Berkeley’s architecture school, where he was judging undergraduates’ projects, he says, by way of explanation about his preppy sweater. He’s enrolled in the Master’s program there.)
Fittingly, the record is a study in contrasts and surprises. Its guest stars are folks you might have heard of — Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes — but in roles we’re not really used to. The story, which follows the crew on an adventure through Oakland after Tajai is kidnapped, is punctuated by interludes from A Tribe Called Quest‘s DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad as an animated radio DJ, narrating and addressing Oakland from a fictional radio station, K-NOW.
Even more appropriately: The record, which clocks in at a packed 40 minutes long, sounds slick as anything — and was created without the use of a single sample or computer. At 35, Younge is known for using only live instrumentation (most of it performed himself), and the resulting beats and backing tracks draw heavily from classic ’60s and ’70s soul; his affinity for the Blaxploitation era of cinema and experience scoring films lends an extra layer of cinematic feeling to the record’s narrative.
Maybe most importantly, Souls of Mischief sound like they’re having a damn good time.
“The fact that it was all analog took it back to the beginning for us,” adds Phesto, noting that in the high school days of Souls of Mischief, they wrote songs using three-way calling. “We’ve been messing with live instrumentation from the beginning. But with the storyline, [Younge] writing it like a score, and us being lyricists for that score — I think he brought out something in us that no other producer has.”
There’s a base level of social consciousness that Hiero fans will know to expect. During one radio interlude that prefaces the song “Ghetto Superhero,” callers into K-NOW voice concerns about violence in Oakland in a way that, unfortunately, is still highly relevant. (Ali Shaheed Muhammad, with an audible smile: “It’s almost like we need some kind of superhero…”).
But it’s never been the goal to hit listeners over the head with social commentary, says A-plus. If they were going to tackle something like gentrification in Oakland, they’d do it for real, “and it’d be an 18-hour song.”
Besides, adds Tajai, “We’re older rappers. When we preach, it comes off preachy.”
Which is not to say that they’re reluctant to get political. Ask, for example, what they make of current trends in mainstream, commercial rap (and what seems like the chasm between that and the independent hip-hop that’s always bubbling just underground), and you will hear some opinions about materialism. Particularly, hypothetically, if A-Plus and Phesto had to leave an hour ago, and the light outside is waning from the pink East Oakland sky, and Tajai and Opio have smoked a good amount over the last 90 minutes.
“Music is always a reflection of society, and rap is like a 40-year-old man. That motherfucker has kids and a 401k. That’s how it’s acting,” says Tajai. “It doesn’t have the idealism it used to. It’s about ‘get paper.’ And you’re hearing kids saying that.”
“I think you can talk about money and still be a real person and have some style and finesse — I always liked Run-D.M.C. with the big chain and whatever, that’s part of hip-hop,” offers Opio. “I don’t think standing in front of the car is horrible in and of itself. But when every single thing is that…”
“The problem is not the subject matter, it’s that access to shit that isn’t that isn’t equal. It’s always the lowest common denominator, scraping the bottom of the barrel,” says Tajai. “I’ll hear something these days that’s like — is this a parody? I can’t even tell if it’s a joke. And then it takes off!”
Opio: “That’s just advertising dollars. People are investing in that because it makes money.”
Tajai: “I’m not mad at that. I’m mad that the dollars that do come in don’t go toward building new power structures. Look, the materialism is across the board. ‘In God we trust’ is on the dollar. We’re a materialist, capitalist society that’s driven by consuming. We are the mall. We’re not even the manufacturer or the farm, America is just the mall, and we’re being fed these images that make us wanna go to the mall all the time. My thing is I just want there to be some kind of reinvestment. Like cool, make a million dollars, but then have 40 percent of it go to literacy programs. Because then at the very least, people will understand that you’re a human who thinks, and not just this caricature of a rapper you’re selling to everybody.”
The thing about Hieroglyphics, most fans will tell you, is that Hieroglyphics has never quite gotten their due. Souls of Mischief were notoriously underpromoted by Jive following their debut; as violence in Oakland increased in the ’90s, the city put an actual moratorium on hip-hop shows for a while. Ask hip-hop historian Davey D about it. There was literally no place in Oakland for rappers to get on a stage.
When Hieroglyphics threw the first Hiero Day in 2012 — prompted by a Facebook fan who wrote online that, in honor of ’93 Til Infinity, he wanted to introduce as many people as possible to Hieroglyphics on 9/3, Sept. 3 — something shifted. A roster of the Bay Area’s hip-hop stars came out and played a free show in the streets that weekend, and roughly 10,000 people showed up. In 2013, it grew bigger, gaining sponsors, with Mayor Jean Quan naming it an official city holiday and referring to Hieroglyphics as a “bright spot” for Oakland.
This was a big change in tone from a city that hadn’t formally done much to support hip-hop for 20 years.
But Souls of Mischief aren’t looking for a medal. They’re looking at fundraising models like Farm Aid. They want to be able to give away houses after Hiero Day. They talk all the time, they say, about buying a farm and building a commercial kitchen where Oakland kids can learn about agriculture and cooking, learn farm-to-table techniques.
“As far as hip-hop moving forward, my thing is that hip-hop used to give us what we needed intellectually. And if we can’t feed people with it that way anymore, let’s feed them physically,” says Tajai. “You throw a weekend festival with 200,000 people, it should be an imperative to then go ‘Where is this money going?’ or ‘We’re gonna create this farm or this school.’
“That’s the whole point of Hiero Day,” he continues. “Use music to bring people together, bring people to local businesses, and then pool our resources and invest in the community so there’s lasting effects beyond just a party.”
“That’s one of the most powerful tools for young people,” says Opio. “It’s ‘OK, we’re partying, this is fun,’ and then you realize you can come together and do more than just party. You’ve seen the effects of that in the ’60s. That leads to revolutions.”
There are 15-year-olds becoming adults knowing only this version of Souls of Mischief. There’s a whole subset of fans who were born in ’93, in particular, who take Souls of Mischief lyrics straight to the chest. What will “old school” mean to their kids? Think for a second on the difference between infinity and there is only now.
“We’re talking about how to turn hip-hop into a generator of what it used to generate for us,” says Tajai. “I mean, we’re here today because of rap music. Not dead, not strung out, because of rap music. As much as because of our parents, our homies, whatever. So we gotta give something back.”
“Oh, right, and buy the record,” he adds. A half-hearted laugh. “We are the worst fucking promoters.”
Souls of Mischief play Hiero Day (alongside Zion I and some 28 other artists) Monday, Sept. 1 at the Linden Street Brewery Stage, 95 Linden, Oakl. More info: www.hieroday.com
As word spread to San Francisco that police in Ferguson, Mo., were taking reporters into custody and firing tear gas at demonstrators outraged by the death of Mike Brown, a small group of writers and organizers with ties to the Mission District was gearing up to hold street demonstrations of its own.
On Aug. 21 and 22, they staged vigils and a march and rally in memory of a different shooting victim: Alejandro (“Alex”) Nieto, who died suddenly in Bernal Heights Park on March 21 after being struck by a volley of police bullets.
Despite palpable anger expressed during the events held to mark five months since Nieto’s death, it was a far cry from the angry demonstrations unleashed on the streets of Ferguson, where it was like something stretched too far and snapped.
People who knew Nieto gathered for a sunset vigil in Bernal Heights Park at the place where he was killed. They returned the following morning for a sunrise vigil, incorporating a spiritual element with Buddhist chanting. Hours later, in a march preceded by dancers who spun in the streets, donning long feathered headdresses and ankle rattles made out of hollowed tree nuts, they progressed from Bernal Hill to the San Francisco Federal Building.
Despite a visible police mobilization, the protests remained peaceful, with little interaction between officers and demonstrators. Instead, the focus remained on the contents of a civil rights complaint filed Aug. 22 by attorney John Burris, famous for his track record of representing victims of police violence.
Burris, who is representing Nieto’s parents, said he rejected the SFPD’s explanation of why officers were justified in discharging their weapons and killing Nieto. “What we will seek to do is to vindicate his interests, his good name, and to show through the evidence that the narrative put forth by the police was just flat-out wrong,” Burris said at the rally.
Nieto’s encounter with police arose because a 911 caller erroneously reported that he had a black handgun, leading police to enter the park in search of a gunman. In reality, Nieto possessed a Taser, not a firearm. On the night he was killed, he’d gone to the park to eat a burrito just before starting his shift as a part-time security guard at a nightclub, where all the guards carry Tasers. In addition to working at that job, Nieto, who was 28, had been studying administration of justice at City College of San Francisco in hopes of becoming a youth probation officer.
Days after the shooting, police said Nieto had pointed his Taser at officers when they approached. At a March 26 town hall meeting convened shortly after the incident, Police Chief Greg Suhr told attendees that Nieto had “tracked” officers with his Taser, emitting a red laser.
“When the officers asked him to show his hands, he drew the Taser from the holster. And these particular Tasers, as soon as they’re drawn, they emit a dot. A red dot,” Suhr said, adding that Nieto had verbally challenged officers when they asked him to drop his weapon. “When the officers saw the laser sight on them, tracking, they believed it to be a firearm, and they fired at Mr. Nieto.”
Yet attorney Adante Pointer, of Burris’s law office, told the Bay Guardian that a person claiming to be an eyewitness to the shooting has come forward with a different account. The witness, whose identity Pointer did not disclose, said he never saw Nieto draw his Taser and did not hear any verbal exchange prior to bullets being fired.
“To suggest that he’d engaged in the most ridiculous outrageous conduct, of pointing a … Taser at the police when they had guns drawn, is insulting,” Burris said at the rally.
The version of events included in the complaint, which Pointer said was based in part on witness accounts, differs greatly from the SFPD account.
“An SFPD patrol car entered the park and drove up a fire trail before stopping approximately 75 to 100 feet away from Mr. Nieto who at that time was casually walking down the jogging trail to the park’s entrance,” Burris’ complaint states. “Two officers emerged from the patrol car and immediately took cover using their car for protection. Several other officers had also gathered on the jogging path, appeared to be carrying rifle-type guns and were positioned behind Mr. Nieto. One of the officers behind the patrol car called out and ordered Mr. Nieto to ‘stop.’ Within seconds a quick volley of bullets were fired at Mr. Nieto. No additional orders or any other verbal communication was heard between the first officer yelling ‘stop’ and the initial volley of gunfire that rang out.”
SFPD spokesperson Albie Esparza told us the department was unable comment on the matter because “anytime there’s a lawsuit, we cease to speak to anybody about that.”
Adriana Camarena, an author and Mission District resident who helped organize the rally, decried the lack of transparency surrounding the Nieto case in comments delivered outside the Federal Building.
“For five months, city officials have kept sealed all records that could explain what happened on March 21 2014,” Camarena charged. “For five months, SFPD, the Police Commission, the District Attorney’s Office, the Medical Examiner’s Office, and the mayor have maintained in secrecy the names of the four officers who killed Alex Nieto, the original 911 calls, eyewitness reports, the number of bullets fired, and the autopsy report. For five months, the Nieto family has been kept in the dark about the facts that could ease some of their trauma about what happened the day that police killed their son.”
Mike Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson on Aug. 9. On Aug. 11, following angry demonstrations, police said they would release the name of the officer who shot Brown — but declined to do so Aug. 12, citing fears over the officer’s safety and threats communicated via social media. Yet on Aug. 15, Officer Darren Wilson was identified by officials as the person who shot Brown.
In San Francisco, the names of the four officers who shot Nieto have not been released. Esparza told the Guardian that this was because “there’s specified credible threats against the officers’ lives,” citing a Supreme Court ruling determining that law enforcement agencies can withhold this information under such circumstances.
In addition to the federal civil complaint, friends and supporters of Nieto delivered a petition with almost 1,000 signatures to the U.S. Department of Justice, calling for a federal investigation into the shooting.
Multiple investigations are underway at the local level, but have been stalled due to one missing piece: an autopsy report to be issued by the San Francisco Medical Examiner. Despite the delay in releasing the formal autopsy results, “We did see the body and we did take photographs of it,” Burris noted, referring to his office’s review of the body after it was released to Nieto’s family for burial. Based on that review, Burris said attorneys determined that Nieto had been shot by police more than 10 times.
We placed multiple phone calls to the offices of the Medical Examiner and the District Attorney seeking details about the status of the investigation and to ask about the delay, but received no response.
However Bill Barnes, a spokesperson for the City Administrator’s Office, which the Medical Examiner’s Office reports to, told us the timing of the report is consistent with that of other complex homicide investigations. Barnes added that the Medical Examiner’s Office is waiting on the results of a second toxicology report. The initial results were inconclusive, he said, so another round of testing was initiated.
But that explanation does little to quell the anger of activists who say the SFPD is merely seeking to cover up an unjustified shooting. Pointer said he could see no reason for information being withheld for five months.
“There’s no reason as to why the information that this family deserves as to how their son — our brother, our friend, our leader, our organizer — met his death,” he said at the rally. “There’s just no reason why that story hasn’t been told. If you, the police department, had been justified, why not be transparent? Why not open up your files and let us inspect it so that we can see that what you’re saying is the truth?”
Did the soda industry buy a prominent progressive political endorsement? Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle raised the question in a story by Heather Knight, who goes on to air a number of rumors propagated by the soda tax supporters against the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club.
First things first: the sugary beverage tax already has a lot of progressive support. Unions, health groups, and loads of other San Franciscans have backed the two cents per ounce tax on sugary beverages, Proposition E, which is slated to appear on this November’s ballot. The endorsement of “No on E” by the Milk Club is certainly a bit out of left field, and rightfully raised eyebrows in political circles.
That’s the argument Knight uses in her Sunday article, using a few quotes from the soda tax’s paid public relations’ people to take a big swing at Sup. David Campos, alleging this is a big ole scheme he’s orchestrated in order to get Coca Cola’s money to fund the Milk Club’s slate card, which would also feature Campos, giving him a boost in his Assembly race against Sup. David Chiu.
It’s a seemingly convincing scenario, and we’re not soothsayers. Maybe it’s true. But there are a number of reasons to not believe the hype.
First, we at the Guardian heard those same rumors and whispers too, but that wasn’t all we heard. One politico told us the beverage industry might be funding the Milk Club with $300,000 in campaign funds for their November ballot fliers. Our reaction was “um, what?!”
That’s more money than techie-billionaire Ron Conway spent backing Mayor Ed Lee’s major pet projects on the June ballot. Hell, it’s more money than some candidates raise in their entire races. That should’ve been the first red flag for the “soda milking the Milk Club” theory, but it wasn’t the last.
Second, though the club did accept money from the American Beverage Association, it wasn’t anywhere within spitting distance of $300,000. Tom Temprano, co-president of the Milk Club, told us they accepted $5,000 from the beverage industry to put on their annual gala. For context, SEIU Local 1021 donated $4,000 to the dinner. This is all data that would come out publicly in a few months through ethics filings anyhow, but long after the rumor of big beverage industry money would’ve caused its damage.
“All you get for sponsoring our dinner is a mention in the program and a plug on the stage,” Temprano told us. “If the [beverage industry] paid us anywhere near what the rumors are, I would’ve flown out Elton John to serenade [Assemblymember] Tom Ammiano in person.”
Though the $5,000 is not chump change to the Milk Club, its leadership doesn’t make endorsement decisions, which are enacted by a vote of the club’s members. In a heated exchange last week, Milk Club political wonks batted soda tax points back and forth like a beach ball. There was hardly a consensus on the matter.
“They didn’t vote the way I wanted but the process was very democratic,” Sup. Eric Mar told us. Mar was one of the authors of the soda tax, and even he doesn’t believe the Milk Club’s palms were greased by big soda’s big money.
“I feel that there are rumors being spread to undercut the integrity of the Harvey Milk Club, the strongest progressive voice and political leadership in the city right now,” he said. “I stand behind them even though they voted no on [the soda tax].”
Laura Thomas, co-president of the Milk Club, told us she is actually in favor of the soda tax. It’s easy to see why. As Deputy State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, she has day-to-day experience with public health, and she sees the far reaching affect of soda’s loads of sugar on San Francisco’s kids.
“I do support [the tax], and I’ve spoken passionately for it in our meetings,” Thomas told the Guardian. “I’d say it’s something we’re passionate on all sides about.”
The last stickler in the money-influence theory is a bit trickier. Many we talked to traced some of these rumors back to Chiu’s campaign spokesperson, Nicole Derse. When we spoke to her, she pounced on the subject like a hyena on carrion.
“The Harvey Milk Club has sold out to the soda industry,” she told us. “What would Harvey Milk think of this gross display of hypocrisy? David Campos needs to answer some serious questions on his position on the soda tax and his campaign.”
Notice how she shifted the Milk Club assertion, which we asked her about, straight into a Campos critique. She’s affable, she’s smart, but in that moment, Derse also sounded gleeful.
We then asked Derse if the rumor about the Milk Club and Campos came from her.
“I am not the person that started this rumor. But do you really think it’s a coincidence David Campos is broke and needs a vehicle to fund his campaign? I think it speaks for itself, if it happens,” she said. “If the Milk Club does not take hundreds of thousands of dollars from the American Beverage Association, I will happily be wrong.”
Actually, when it comes to spreading rumors through news outlets, being right or wrong doesn’t really matter. All you need to do is raise the question of impropriety, proof or no. It’s grandma’s classic recipe for a good political smear, as old as the hills, and very, very easy to do.
Update [8/26]: This story stirred up quite a bit of controversy, and folks called, emailed, Facebooked and Tweeted at us with one point: sure the Milk Club didn’t take all that much money from the American Beverage Association for the gala, but what about the future? Would they take a large sum from the ABA? Tom Temprano answered: “I find that completely unlikely. I’m going to say that’s not a situation we’re going to be in. But I haven’t had a conversation with anyone with anybody about money yet. Our entire board and PAC chair make decisions on fundraising.”
So there you are. If a donation in the tens of thousands of dollars should land on the Milk Club’s doorstep, Temprano is now on the record.
As we watch today’s Recreation and Park Commission meeting on extending political insider Tom Hsieh’s no-bid contract to run the once-public Gleneagles Golf Course — which is being contested by a rival group headed by venture capitalist Brian Smith and notorious landlord attorney Andrew Zacks — we can only hope that both sides lose and the public interest somehow reemerges from this muck and mire.
Particularly disgusting is how poor children of color are being used as bargaining chips in this clash of political and economic elites, as public speaker after speaker (mostly from groups with ties to the Mayor’s Office, where Hsieh has long and deep political ties that allowed him to take over this public space nine years ago without a competitive bidding process) tries to make this decision about teaching poor kids from nearly Sunnydale housing project how to golf.
Yes, that’s what these kids really need, to learn how to play one of the most expensive and elitist sports out there, because with a little support from the First Tee program, they can all become the next Tiger Woods, right? Oh, and of course, given that the Mayor’s Office is in on this strange scheme, it’s also about jobs, jobs, jobs, with the building trades unions also supporting Hsieh and his buddies in the Mayor’s Office.
By all accounts, even CW Nevius’ column in today’s Chronicle and earlier coverage by that paper, Gleneagles is in bad physical shape and has been poorly maintained by Hsieh. Nonetheless, Hsieh blamed rising water rates related to the drought for his problem, last month threatening to close the course unless he got a more lucrative deal with run the course, triggering Smith’s bid for the course and his accusations that Hsieh and his buddies in the Mayor’s Office are pulling a fast one.
“This is a city resource and it is apparently being mismanaged,” Smith told the commission this morning, noting that he only wants to help bring golf to the masses (his side echoes Hsieh’s ruse about “the children” as part of its sales pitch) because “nobody gets into a water-dependent business during a drought, I can tell you that.”
That raises a good question: Why are we devoting city resources to such a water-dependent use of public space during a drought, in an era of global warming when droughts will only become more frequent? But the broader question is this: Why don’t we just return Gleneagles to the city and let it be managed as part of the large McLaren Park that it’s a part of?
Members of the McLaren Park Collaborative spoke at the hearing, urging the commission not to view Gleneagles separately from McLaren, even as they voiced support for Hsieh and thanked him for his fundraising support of their citizen-based group. That’s Hsieh’s main forte, raising money from the rich, which he has done on behalf of the last three mayoral adminitrations and other political schemes by downtown interests and the city’s various political power brokers.
This whole issue stinks, and it’s hard to even care what’s now being said as the commission heads into a closed session discussion of what to do with Gleneagles, particularly given there’s almost no chance that this mayoral appointed commission of political climbers will vote to reclaim this public space for the broad public interest.
UPDATE: The commission voted unanimously to extend Hsieh’s lease of Gleneagles for another nine years, a decision that must be confirmed by the Board of Supervisors next month.
STREET FIGHT San Francisco’s politics of mobility devolved into a cesspit this summer. Beginning with Mayor Ed Lee’s retreat on Sunday parking meters, purportedly to garner support for his transportation bond and vehicle license fee proposals, Lee’s bait and switch ultimately backfired.
Rather than nudge the city’s transit finance debate in a sensible, progressive direction, confusion and duplicity by the mayor and some supervisors over parking policy has instead empowered a Tea Party-like faction that’s placed a backwards initiative on the November ballot.
This Restore Transportation Balance Initiative (Proposition L) is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s got nothing to do with balance, but would instead seek to substitute a “cars-first” policy for the city’s longstanding “transit-first” paradigm. Although only an advisory measure, its main effect would be to provide the mayor and supervisors more cover to do nothing except shrug and kick the can of sustainable transportation policy down the road.
This is exactly what the car-firsters want, just as Republicans in Congress have thwarted President Obama’s agenda for mitigating climate change. These local drivers hope to stall efforts to make San Francisco more pedestrian-friendly, block Muni improvements, and make sure bicycles don’t slow them down or get in the way of unfettered, gluttonous free parking for private cars on public streets.
In that vein, the Restore Balance crowd has lifted a script from the infamous Koch brothers, securing finances from a Facebook billionaire (Sean Parker funded the measure’s signature-gathering effort) and speaking about transportation policy in a manner reminiscent of climate change deniers. Any bike lane, parking management effort, or Muni improvement is, in their eyes, out of balance with a city that should be betrothed solely to cars.
Meanwhile, as Muni fares went up this summer without any objection from mayor “nickel-and-dime,” a ballot measure put forth by Sup. Scott Wiener joins the crowded field as Proposition B. His proposal would devote more General Fund monies to Muni operations, but it’s unclear what impact this might have on other important city programs like housing or social services.
It’s a good thing City Hall went on summer recess, because we’ll all need some time to sift through all this muck.
TOWARDS CAR-FREE VACATIONS
Speaking of vacations, let’s talk about the good, bad, and ugly of car-free vacationing using Amtrak and a bicycle. I recently took Amtrak’s Coast Starlight north from Oakland to Portland, with my touring bicycle in tow. In Portland, I surveyed some of the bicycle and transit infrastructure before a 950-mile bike tour back to San Francisco along the Oregon and California coasts.
The Coast Starlight is a relaxing way to travel up to Portland. It has comfortable and roomy seating with outlets for plugging in phones or other devices, and the views of Mt. Hood and Oregon’s verdant forests and valleys are breathtaking. Most importantly, taking the train from Oakland to Portland produces far fewer carbon emissions than flying or driving the same distance.
A flight to Portland produces 14 times the carbon emissions compared to the train. Driving up I-5 in a new car with decent fuel economy produces 26 times the emissions of the train. This is an incredible difference that must be factored into national transportation policies, and it does not include the full life cycle assessment of each mode, such as petroleum extraction, manufacturing vehicles, waste disposal, infrastructure (concrete is a huge CO2 emitter), and so on. While carpooling might reduce per capita driving emissions, traveling with friends or family on Amtrak reduces them even further.
But Amtrak has some bad aspects. The coffee needs immediate mitigation! It’s an easy problem to solve, and I’ve had delicious coffee on German and Swiss trains, even in ceramic mugs.
Getting a bicycle on many Amtrak trains is annoying. Unlike the Capitol Corridor or San Joaquin trains, on which you can simply roll the bicycle on board, Amtrak’s long-distance trains require boxing the bicycle as checked baggage. This means additional charges, and you must arrive and disembark at a station that handles baggage, so many stops are not bicycle-accessible. And the cardboard bike box is not reused by Amtrak but put in recycling, which is rather silly and wasteful.
Fortunately, Amtrak is starting to get it, and soon will be introducing bicycle roll-on service on many trains on the East Coast. Let’s hope Amtrak does the same for the Coast Starlight. There’s plenty of room on the multilevel rail cars to squeeze in a few bikes, and that would probably attract more people to use the system while making it more flexible.
Now for the ugly. The trip to Portland takes more than 17 hours on a good day. I’m not necessarily arguing for high-speed rail, but this length of time is a big problem for Amtrak. It’s not a technology problem — it’s politics.
Amtrak is caged by the timetable of freight railways that own the tracks. This often results in delays since the freight railroads have eliminated double tracks and rationalized their routes to maximize profit while having little concern about passenger rail.
Over 100 years ago, Edward Harriman, who merged Southern Pacific with Union Pacific into a continent-wide system, had it right on running a railroad. Instead of focusing on shareholder wealth, Harriman argued that profits from railroads should be shoveled back into reducing grades, strengthening bridges, improving curves, double-tracking trunk routes, and building new bridges, cutoffs, sidings, tunnels, stations, yards, cars, and terminals. Harriman even proposed a rail tunnel under San Francisco Bay, which as I’ve written about before and which should be a priority in the region today.
Rail is critical infrastructure and key to our national energy and climate policy. It should not be left to the whims of freight haulers and private profit. It’s time for the political will to coordinate the right-of-way to improve travel times as well as increase frequency of passenger trains.
Six years ago, improving Amtrak was a signature platform of the Obama Administration. But Republicans — many filled with racist vitriol — have fought anything he stands for. And they hate Amtrak almost as much as they hate Obama.
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republicans vowed to gut Amtrak and mocked Obama’s pro-Amtrak policies. In Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin, the hate ran so deep that funding for rail was simply sent back to Washington, even as cities in all of those states pined for rail as an economic development strategy. This kind of zombie-like Republican hate towards Obama and Amtrak is remarkably similar to the posturing of the anti-transit, car-firsters pushing Prop L.
THE PORTLAND COMPARISON
But I’m on vacation, and problems of Amtrak’s ugly politics aside, once in Portland it all got beautiful. Cycling around Portland is fantastic. With excellent, well-connected bicycle facilities coupled with attentive and polite drivers, bicycle-oriented innovation and businesses flourish in Portland. I’ve never seen so many cargo bikes and families with children out shopping, cycling to school, and making other utilitarian trips by bicycle.
Sure, it’s flatter, but more important is the traffic density and allocation of street space. Compared to San Francisco, Portland has lower residential density, a low density of automobiles, and more capacity to reallocate road space for bicycling.
To get to Portland-style cycling, we need to recognize that San Francisco’s 9,000-plus cars per square mile is extreme and out of control, and San Francisco politicians need to embrace much tighter parking management and street management policies.
I should also add that Portland does have its own ugly right-wing backlash against bikes and transit. For example, in suburban Clackamas County, dubbed “Clakistan” by some, Tea Party-types voted to stall light rail expansion. But in the city, the bicycle and rail transit are embraced with enthusiasm.
Oregon is also refreshingly welcoming to bicycle tourists. For those leaving Portland by bicycle, state and local transportation departments have produced wonderful maps with route suggestions, and the official state highway map includes a bicycle map showing highway shoulder widths and identifies state parks with bike-friendly camping, hot showers, and other services. One state park bike campground even had a solar-powered charging station so cyclists can check their phones.
Unlike California parks, which also have affordable and accessible bicycle camping sections, Oregon places sites away from the noisy RV and automobile campsites, providing peace and tranquility and level ground for tents.
Since cycle tourists don’t always know their timing or exact route, Oregon and California do not require reservations, which enables flexibility for bike touring. And the sites are cheaper — usually $5 in both states, but some California campgrounds charge $7 — because bicyclists have a much lighter impact on parks compared to cars and RVs.
SHARE THE ROAD
All of this made bicycle touring from Portland to San Francisco inspiring, energizing, invigorating, revitalizing, and really just a whole lot of fun. Waking up early to pedal through the Cape Lookout area of Oregon or the Avenue of the Giants in California was truly amazing.
But the big downside was high-speed traffic whizzing by at certain points along the coast (but not all). So the same methods used to make city streets safe for cycling could apply everywhere, including for bicycle touring. Rural traffic is faster than city traffic, so we really need to separate cyclists from speeding traffic if substantial numbers of people (including families) are to take on bike touring.
Rail trails and fully separated cycle ways in parts of Oregon (Banks Vernonia) and California (near Arcata and also Samuel P. Taylor Park) should be expanded and made part of a coastal bikeway using the rights-of-way along Highway 101 and 1.
Where full separation is not possible, wider shoulders cleared of the nasty detritus of car glass or metal should be provided. Shoulders should be regularly cleaned and crumbling edges patched. At tight spots, such as on Highway 1 between Fort Ross and Jenner, narrow portions of roadway could be made into signal-controlled one-way segments such as what is done in construction zones.
Reducing the speed limits and using traffic calming should also be promoted on the coast highways. This is a tourist route, not Interstate 5, so even the Subaru-driving weekend warriors and RVs can slow it down. Rural areas in California and Oregon can benefit greatly with more bicycle tourism (as well as auto tourists slowing down).
We cyclists don’t drag a ton of Costco provisions up to the campgrounds. We shop and eat locally, at each increment, and spend hard cash in small towns. Slowing the cars and RVs down would draw them into the local stores and restaurants as well. And every few days, we cycle tourists get a motel or bed-and-breakfast room.
I saw and spoke with several families with children touring the Oregon coast, with no motorized vehicle support. In Oregon and parts of California, buses also accommodate bicycles, so getting to the coast is easier than you’d think, even if greater frequency would be helpful.
As I pedaled the Avenue of the Giants, I saw an old Northwestern Pacific railway bridge over the Eel River. It would be so civilized if the Sonoma-Marin (SMART) rail line were extended north to Eureka and Arcata, with a spur to Fort Bragg, enabling one to access (and bicycle tour) the Redwoods and California coast from the Bay Area without a car.
Pedaling through Marin and towards the Golden Gate Bridge last Sunday was also truly inspiring. There were hundreds of cyclists out on the regular Marin circuit, many with friendly waves and greetings. The Golden Gate Bridge was packed with smiling cyclists out for a rigorous Mt. Tam ride or rental bikes heading to Sausalito.
If you share in the dream of car-free vacations and bicycle touring, I urge you look at the California Bicycle Coalition’s upcoming organized bike tour from Santa Barbara to San Diego. This could be your launching point for rethinking how we vacation in America.
Street Fight is a monthly column by Jason Henderson, a geography professor at San Francisco State University and the author of Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco.
EDITORIAL Burning Man and San Francisco have developed a close and symbiotic relationship in recent years, with members of the Board of Supervisors doing whirlwind VIP tours of the playa, burner artworks temporarily placed on city land, and event-sponsoring Black Rock City LLC supporting the Mayor’s Office campaign to transform the Tenderloin into a nascent arts and technology district.
In many ways, it’s been good to see city officials finally welcome burners and their art and culture back from the desert, where local authorities helped cast it into exile in 1990 after its early years on Baker Beach. But there’s also something a little disturbing about the mutually beneficial relationship that has formed between the ultimate political insiders and outsiders.
Then-Mayor Gavin Newsom helped install Burning Man artworks in Hayes Valley and Civic Center Plaza starting in 2005, finally giving Burning Man official city recognition and bumping up his own cultural cred. Mayor Ed Lee has continued the trend and helped forge closer city ties with the LLC, even helping it find a new headquarters and trotting it out in 2011 as a beneficiary of its Mid-Market Tax Exclusion Zone, along with Twitter.
When Lee and Board of Supervisors President David Chiu shared a burner-built stage with Burning Man founder Larry Harvey in August 2011 to announce the creation of a new nonprofit, The Burning Man Project (see “Beyond the playa,” 8/9/11), it was a kumbaya moment.
“Burning Man has been a wonderful contributor to our central Market cultural district,” Lee said told the colorful crowd, while Harvey said, “Working with the city of San Francisco, we can do many things.”
But there was a problem with the rhetoric then that has only become more clear since: It’s exclusivity masked as egalitarianism. The city’s Central Market Partnership program was used as a fig leaf to cover the designs that developers, landlords, Realtors, and tech companies had for once-low-rent mid-Market properties. And so far, The Burning Man Project seems to have benefited Harvey and the LLC board members more than artists or city residents.
Mid-Market isn’t a thriving arts district. And Burning Man operates the same way it always has. What San Francisco and Burning Man both need right now is to drop the gimmicks and deceptive rhetoric and to get real with their communities about what they’re doing, why, and who’s going to benefit from their plans.
The “San Francisco values” that have infused this city’s culture in its best moments have always been communitarian, based on principles of openness and inclusion. Process matters. Progress isn’t measured just by what gets done, but how it happens.
Burning Man and San Francisco are both experiencing rapid growth and its attendant growing pains, and the leaders of both need to remember and respect everyday citizens as they pursue their grand visions.
Editor’s Note: Aug. 19 marks the Bay Area Global Health Film Festival, hosted by the Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology. The theme of this year’s festival is “Road Traffic Safety Locally … and Globally,” and is geared toward raising awareness about the need for road traffic safety improvements. In this opinion piece, representatives from the University of California at San Francisco Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, at San Francisco General Hospital, describe how all-too-common accidents can permanently injure pedestrians and bicyclists. And they voice support for Proposition A, the San Francisco Transportation and Road Improvement Bond.
By Amber Caldwell and Nick Arlas
San Francisco is a transit-first city. Everyone shares the need to get safely from point A to point B, preferably quickly. And the various options for doing so span the full spectrum from driving, biking, and walking, to public transit like MUNI and Bart, rideshare programs, taxis, and companies like Uber and Lyft.
As we go about our daily lives, transportation is one of the most important public infrastructure systems that San Francisco relies upon. It encompasses many controversial issues and is linked to other social equity campaigns including housing advocacy and urban gentrification.
Yet the issue of pedestrian and bike safety in San Francisco has made disheartening headlines as of late. 2013 was an especially deadly year, with 21 pedestrian and four bicyclist fatalities. San Francisco General Hospital alone cared for over 1,000 road traffic injuries, with an estimated $60 million annual cost. Organizations like the SF Bicycle Coalition and WalkSF have made biking and walking leading issues in debates over transportation policy and traffic safety. Mayor Ed Lee and our city government have responded by introducing a $500 million transportation bond measure for the Nov. 4th ballot. If it passes, a portion of the funding will be allocated for improving pedestrian and cyclist safety.
Less often discussed, however, is what happens to the pedestrians and bicyclists who are hit while going about their daily routines and permanently affected by all-too-common accidents. At the UCSF SFGH Orthopaedic Trauma Institute (OTI), these patients fill our wards, the operating room schedule and our hearts as we help to heal them from these injuries. We struggle with the balance between doing what we can and what should be done to curb the growing volume of patients we see annually due to preventable accidents.
What is alarming is the socio-economic impact these accidents have, not only on the person affected, but on the hospital and our city as a whole. Even in cases where the driver is at fault, it is rare for them to even be cited for a traffic violation in most cases. More importantly, personal injury insurance and health coverage barely cover the emergency services needed for these accidents, and most services offered at the hospital are subsidized by taxpayer dollars, which means we are paying for this on all sides. This is unacceptable.
There is currently a wave of momentum to address these complex issues and attempt to tease through how we as a city can rebuild, redefine and reinforce the safety in our city. This movement is supported by a global platform addressing road traffic safety as a public health campaign, through the World Health Organization’s Decade of Road Traffic Safety. This campaign tackles the myriad polices and resource investments needed to address the enormous impact road traffic accidents have on the world.
Injuries, mainly those resulting from road traffic accidents, account for greater disability and death than HIV, TB and Malaria combined. An average 5.8 million die annually, and for every death caused by these accidents, eight to 10 more are permanently injured.
To bring collective awareness around this issue and to change the landscape, the community needs to stand together not only in San Francisco but also around the world, to demand safer streets. The city is doing its part to outline a roadmap to curbing these alarming statistics, and a greater global campaign is underway to promote awareness and inspire activism.
We must stand up for the injured and for ourselves as local citizens to demand safer streets and protection from when accidents occur. We may not be able to prevent every accident, but we can improve the choreography of their outcome if we work together.
Amber Caldwell and Nick Arlas are Director of Development and Community Outreach Coordiator, respectively, at the Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology, UCSF Orthopaedic Trauma Institute, San Francisco General Hospital.
The Bay Area Global Health Film Festival begins Tue/19 at 6 p.m. at Public Works, 161 Erie, in San Francisco.
At a meeting lasting about four hours last night [Wed/13], the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, the steering committee of the city’s Democratic Party, decided on its endorsements for the Nov. 4 election.
A lengthy round of voting followed nearly two hours of public comment, in which San Franciscans chimed in on everything from school board nominations to Proposition L, a motorist-friendly proposal that amounts to a step backward for the city’s transit-first policy. (The formal oppositional campaign slogan is “No on Gridlock, No on L,” but opponents who spoke at the meeting shortened it to the edgier “’L No.”).
Prop. L went down handily. Prop. E, the sugary-beverage tax, easily won the DCCC’s endorsement, as did Prop. J, the proposal to increase the city’s minimum wage.
But Prop. G – a measure crafted to stem the tide of Ellis Act evictions, known as the anti-speculation tax – was a close contest.
Before the DCCC members got down to the business of voting, many local advocates voiced support for Prop. G.
Housing activists lined up across the room while Dean Preston, executive director of Tenants Together, called for meaningful action on the city’s housing affordability crisis.
But the proponents’ show of support was followed by the opposite plea from a second group, which included a contingent of Asian property owners, who crowded into the front of the room to tell DCCC members that they felt the proposed increase was unfair. “We don’t deserve this!” A speaker said, conveying anger and frustration. “Look at our faces, we work hard for our properties.”
In the end, the vote came down to four abstentions, 13 votes for “no endorsement,” and 15 votes in support, tipping the scales in favor of Prop. G by a tiny margin.
Among those who abstained on that vote were Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Jackie Speier, and Assemblymember Phil Ting, all of whom voted by proxies. Sup. Scott Wiener voted “no endorsement,” while Sup. Malia Cohen abstained.
Decisions in the races for Board of Education and the city’s Community College Board were time-consuming, since it took several elimination rounds before the final candidate lists were settled.
The school board candidates to emerge with DCCC endorsements were Shamann Walton, Emily Murase, and Trevor McNeil. Notably, that list didn’t include Hydra Mendoza, an incumbent who also serves as education advisor to Mayor Ed Lee.
Endorsements for Community College Board, meanwhile, went to Amy Bacharach for a two-year term, and Thea Selby, Anita Grier, and Rodrigo Santos for four-year terms.
Things got interesting in the contest for BART board of directors, between longtime Republican director James Fang and a well-funded Democrat, Nick Josefowitz, who is in his early 30s.
The vote was complicated since SEIU Local 1021, a labor union with a long history of backing progressive causes in San Francisco, is pulling for Fang, who supported workers during last year’s BART strike. Yet Josefowitz has the backing of other progressive organizations, including the Sierra Club. “I think that BART needs new blood,” Sierra Club representative Rebecca Evans said during public comment.
In the end, the DCCC voted “no endorsement,” with that selection getting 17 votes, five abstaining, and 10 voting in favor of Josefowitz. The votes followed a round of comments.
“The Democratic Party is a means to an end,” DCCC member Rafael Mandelman said. “And the end that we are using the Democratic Party to achieve is a more socially just and better world… There are few local entities [to advance that] than SEIU Local 1021. I think it is acceptable for us to take ‘no’ position in this race.”
Several piped up to say they thought Josefowitz deserved the endorsement of the Democratic Party simply because he’s a viable candidate and registered Democrat in a race against a Republican.
But DCCC member Arlo Hale Smith weighed in to critique of Fang’s performance as a director. “I used to hold this BART Board seat 24 years ago,” Smith said. “He’s missed a third of the meetings and he doesn’t return phone calls. He hasn’t returned my calls in a year. This is not the kind of person who should be reelected. Period.”
In races for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and citywide offices, endorsements went to incumbents Carmen Chu for assessor-recorder, Jeff Adachi for public defender, Sups. Mark Farrell for District 2, Katy Tang for District 4, Jane Kim for District 6, Wiener for District 8, and Malia Cohen for District 10. No second- or third-place endorsements were made in the Board of Supervisors races despite multiple challengers.
Just before voting for endorsements began, DCCC member Alix Rosenthal admonished her colleagues for scant attendance during the candidate endorsement interviews, which were held the previous Saturday. “Only 12 out of 32 people showed up for interviews,” she noted. Half-jokingly, she added, “I know Outside Lands was happening.”
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-SF) joined Mayor Ed Lee at a press conference yesterday [Tue 12] at Yerba Buena across from the construction site of a Central Subway station. It was billed as an event highlighting how “San Francisco has been in the lead” on creating middle-class jobs, investing in transportation, and ensuring fair wages for workers.
But as these words in the press advisory leapt out at us, we at the Bay Guardian responded with raised eyebrows. Really? It has?
The point of this media appearance, we learned upon arrival, was to promote House Democrats’ newly unveiled Middle Class Jumpstart agenda – a legislative package floated to bolster the middle class, in advance of the upcoming midterm election. Pelosi and Lee also sought to highlight the Central Subway as a transportation infrastructure project that’s spurring middle-class job creation (The $1.6 billion Central Subway project has also spurred mystifying questions as to how the money is actually being spent, but that’s a different story).
Creating middle class jobs
The message was clear: San Francisco Democrats are here to support the middle class. But that’s a tough sell. Everyone knows that the middle class is vanishing from San Francisco as skyrocketing property values make it increasingly untenable for middle-income earners to reside here.
Instead, recent studies have shown that what’s really on the rise is income inequality: Even the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out that the city’s own customized Gini Coefficient, a formula used to measure wealth distribution, puts San Francisco on par with Rwanda in terms of its economic inequality.
Earlier this year, a Brookings Institute report found that the income gap between the city’s rich and poor is growing faster than in any other US city.
We asked Lee about that growing income inequality trend at the press conference.
Here’s what he said in response: “These union jobs – and [Building Trades Council Secretary-Treasurer] Mike Theriault knows this better than anybody else here – are middle class jobs for all workers that just want to earn their way forward. And I think the more projects that we have that are infrastructure related, that are transportation related, that are water infrastructure related … are all part of reestablishing and making sure that we don’t lose that middle class. … I think in San Francisco, we simply need to do more, and part of my responsibility is to build enough housing aimed at that sector, along with helping our low-income families.”
So if you want to be on a public-works construction crew, there may be hope. Except if you live in the Bayview, where unemployment stands at a stark 17 percent as compared with the citywide level of 4.5 percent, where it appears these opportunities still aren’t resulting in job creation.
That Lee mentioned building new housing is interesting, too, given that he recently came under fire by for intervening to weaken an affordable housing measure proposed by Sup. Jane Kim for the November ballot. His agenda has sought to advance a goal of building 30,000 new housing units, but Kim’s proposal would have further strengthened the city’s commitment to building affordable housing.
Investing in transportation
Central Subway construction may well have created union jobs – but the decision to emphasize transportation funding as a solution for saving San Francisco’s middle class seems to ignore Lee’s backlash against San Francisco Sup. Scott Wiener for advancing a ballot measure to automatically increase funding for Muni in correlation with population growth, a significant public transit investment.
As the Guardian previously reported, Lee went so far as to issue memos calling for possible budget cuts as payback for Wiener’s bid to increase transit funding. But when we asked the mayor what his position was on the measure, which will appear on the ballot as Proposition B, he said he didn’t have a position on it.
“My big focus on transportation is trying to get the $500 million Proposition A because that requires two-thirds, which his does not, and I need to focus my full attention on passing that transportation bond,” Lee told us. “I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time on Proposition B, to be quite candid with you. … At this point, I’m not prepared to [take a position] because I don’t want it to be confusing for the public … and in a few months, I think you’re going to see some departments have to come back with revised budgets, to the non-delight of nonprofits, and programs that we had all agreed to fund.”
Ensuring fair wages for workers
Throughout the press conference, Lee and Pelosi repeatedly trumpeted a November ballot measure that seeks to raise the city’s minimum raise to $15 an hour by 2018. But it should be noted that this measure is a watered-down version of an earlier proposal put forward by a progressive coalition that hoped to get workers $15 an hour a year earlier.
It was scaled back after Lee convened a stakeholder dialogue to hash out a “compromise” measure, ostensibly to avoid a ballot battle between the bolder progressive measure and a competing proposal that business interests had contemplated rolling out to thwart the passage of a wage hike they deemed unacceptable. Technically, the measure headed to the ballot still holds the promise of designating San Francisco as having the highest nationwide minimum wage. But as a point of comparison with other cities where minimum-wage hikes are moving forward, median rent in Seattle is $1,190 – while median rent in San Francisco is $3,200.
Pelosi: “Income inequality is a reality”
Finally, in response to our question on income inequality, Pelosi also decided to weigh in, delivering a very depressing history lesson.
“The income inequality is a reality, it’s a growing gap, it’s something that must be addressed,” she said, mentioning a proposed change to the federal tax code that would prevent CEOs from taking tax write-offs if they increased CEO pay by $1 million annually without also increasing workers’ wages. “What’s happening now, it’s important to note, this is structural,” Pelosi said. “It’s not anecdotal. It’s real. Go back 40 years ago, the disparity between the CEO and the workers was about 40 times. … And as productivity rose, CEO pay rose, and workers’ pay rose. … That was called stakeholder capitalism.
“Somewhere around a dozen or so years ago, or maybe nearly 20, it became shareholder capitalism, which only had one thing: The bottom line. And that means that now, as productivity rises, workers’ wages stagnate and the CEO’s goes up like this.” Here Pelosi made a gesture indicating a sharp upward increase. “Now it’s about, I say 350, others say 400 times, the CEO pay versus the worker. It’s a right angle going in the wrong direction. It must be addressed.”
So there you have it, straight from Pelosi: CEOs who used to make 40 times their workers’ pay now earn 10 times more than that, while wages stagnate and the cost of living continues to rise. And leading San Francisco politicians are standing in front of the Central Subway construction site to say that projects like this, coupled with a provision to encourage CEOs to remember the little people when they get million-dollar raises, will restore the middle class.
Thank goodness the Democrats are looking out for the vanishing middle class in San Francisco and other cities. Don’t you feel better?
Median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco is now $3,120. The median rent for a two-bedroom is now $4,000, and the median rent for a three-bedroom is $4,795, Priceonomics found.
It’s not a wonder widespread evictions are sending protesters onto the streets (and into the offices of real estate agents). The numbers are a good indicator of why any eviction from a rent-controlled unit today is also an eviction from San Francisco entirely: prices are just too damn high to find a new apartment at a comparable rate.
The study breaks the data down by neighborhood. Hayes Valley topped the list, with a median rent of $3,750 for a one-bedroom apartment. The Financial District and the Castro were second and third most expensive, with the Bayview coming in last at $1,425 a month.
The study also noted that historically poor areas (derisively termed “backwaters”) have jumped in price, largely in part due to an influx of tech workers and their shiny UFO-like private shuttles.
As the rents rise and turmoil bubbles over evictions, city legislation like Supervisor Jane Kim’s Housing Balance Measure was defanged by Mayor Ed Lee during negotiations over the past month. Still, there is some hope on the November ballot for relieving San Francisco’s housing crisis. Proposition G, the Anti-Speculation Tax, would discourage speculators from “flipping” properties for a profit by taxing them harshly.
Of course that’s no silver bullet, and San Francisco will need to take a hard look at its affordable housing policies to stop these prices from rising, rising, rising.
It seems like they couldn’t possibly go up higher, but then again, we always think that, don’t we?
Waves of Central American child refugees are landing in San Francisco, fleeing violence in their home countries. A growing number of supporters are lending aid, and now the San Francisco Unified School District is the newest group to join the cause.
Last night [Tues/12], the SFUSD Board of Education unanimously approved a resolution to bolster services in city public schools for child refugees fleeing Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras.
“We are a nation of immigrants, which is often forgotten when we talk about ‘those kids,'” SFUSD Superintendent Richard Carranza said to the board. “These are our children.”
To help them, he said, “we will move heaven and earth.” Carranza then pledged to forward the text of the resolution far and wide, saying he hoped the SFUSD’s efforts would cross the desk of President Barack Obama, and set an example for the rest of the country.
Child refugees coming to San Francisco face language barriers, inadequate city services, and major gaps in their education. The resolution, authored by board member Matt Haney, will beef up teaching resources for child refuegees, connect these children with counseling services, and enroll them in specific classes geared towards new English learners. The district will also soon hire an administrator to coordinate these new and existing services for refugees. This new administrator will need the qualifications of a social worker, the district said, and it’s easy to see why.
One counselor put the kids’ needs this way: normal teenagers have it hard enough, but adjusting to school with the trauma of near-death behind you can be almost impossible.
“These kids have a set of needs which are at a higher level than any set of kids we deal with,” Haney said.
Most of these new services will wrap into SFUSD’s Newcomer Pathways program, an already existing framework which bolsters the success of new immigrant children in San Francisco, who often face steep language and cultural barriers.The effort joins a rising tide of SF officials pledging to aid these refugees, including Supervisor David Campos, Mayor Ed Lee, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, and USF School of Law Dean John Trasvina.
The US Department of Health and Human Services reported 175 unaccompanied minors were released into custody of San Franciscans, though federal data shows many hundreds more wait in the wings for aid. Some of these refugee children will join school in the new year, which starts Monday, but many are already in attendance.
Dawn Woehl, a counselor with the Newcomer Pathways program at Mission High School, told the board during public comment she started noticing more child immigrants who spent time in detention centers in New York and Texas.
“We may not know much about each individual family, but we know enough about the trauma they’re facing,” she said. After she spoke to the board, she told the Guardian that wraparound services for mental health are most needed.
“We take care of the basic needs first,” she said, “but counseling is where we get stretched.”
These children and teenagers often come from towns where gangs recruit new members through high schools. Those that refuse to join up meet violent fates: rape, dismemberment, and death. With those challenges, it’s no wonder that many of these kids show up in San Francisco with gaps in their learning, and significant need of counseling.
“The need for Spanish-speaking therapists is high,” Woehl told us.
The Newcomer Pathways program is a successful one, and alumni of the program came to the board to laud the proposal to aid the refugees.
“I was born and raised in Guatemala, I emigrated here when I was 14 years old,” Anna Avalos Tizol, now 21, told the Board of Education. “I had to learn the language, the culture, and work to help my family back in Guatemala. It was a culture shock.”
But in the end, the young student found success at Mission High School. She’s now a senior at UC Santa Cruz, and interned in Washington DC, where she witnessed child refugees testifying before Congress, telling them of the cold hard floors and thin sheets of their detention centers.
“When we come here, we give up everything. Our home and our loved ones,” she said. “Remember: all children are sacred.”
San Francisco cyclists are losing a key advocate — but this and other US cities may next year gain a knowledgable new leader for Vision Zero, the ambitious program for eliminating all pedestrian deaths — with today’s announcement by Leah Shahum that she is stepping down as executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition at the end of the year.
Shahum has been accepted into the German Marshall Fund Fellowship, a four-month program where she will study European success stories in the Vision Zero concept, focusing on cities in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Germany, before returning to the US to work on programs that reduce traffic-related fatalities.
“They’ve made huge progress after they started with Vision Zero in the late ‘90s,” Shahum told the Guardian. “I’m really passionate about the potential of Vision Zero in San Francisco and other US cities.”
At the SFBC, Shahum worked her way up from a volunteer to becoming executive director 12 years ago, presiding over the organization becoming the city’s largest grassroots, member-based advocacy organization, one that has a strong influence at City Hall.
Shahum has also sought to broaden the SFBC’s mission, working closely with organizations such as Livable City and Walk San Francisco to challenge paradigms and funding models that heavily favor the automobile on the streets of San Francisco.
“The work we’ve been doing at the Bike Coalition has long been broader than just biking,” Shahum said. “The work we’re doing benefits all road users and I think it’s important to bring everyone into this discussion.”
Walk SF Director Nicole Schneider said Shahum’s departure is bittersweet news.
“It’s really sad to see her go and we’ll dearly miss her tenacity and leadership in San Francisco,” Schneider told the Guardian. “But I’m thrilled that she’s working on Vision Zero and she’ll be a huge asset in this country.”
While the Board of Supervisors adopted the goals of Vision Zero earlier this year, that program has yet to be fully defined or funded, particularly after Mayor Ed Lee ditched a fall ballot measure that would have increased the local vehicle license fee, which would have dedicated some funding to pedestrian safety improvements.
“We need to really figure out what Vision Zero means for a US city, so we can learn a lot from European cities,” Schneider said. “In order to implement Vision Zero, we’re going to need funding to replace our obsolent traffic infrastructure that valued speed over safety.”
Shahum said it was a good time to make the transition and focus on Vision Zero, which will be the subject of an international conference she’ll attend this November in New York City, which has been leading the way on the concept among major US cities.
“It’s at the valuable crossroads of injury prevention and sustainable transportation,” Shahum said. “I’m excited to take Vision Zero to the next level, not just in San Francisco, but around the nation.”
SFBC put out a statement commending Shahum for her 17 years of work with the SFBC and announcing it will be conducting a nationwide search for a new director.
“We thank Leah immensely for leading our community’s efforts to make San Francisco a safer, more inviting place to bike and a better place for all of us to live,” SFBC Board of Director President Lawrence Li said in the statement. “Leah leaves behind a legacy of one of the most bike-friendly big cities in America and one of the most well-organized and effective membership groups in the country.”
Shahum said she’s not sure exactly what form her post-fellowship work will take, but that she’s excited about the possibilities of this opportunity.
“I think it’s time for some new adventures,” Shahum told us. “As much as I love what we’re doing in San Francisco, things have to move faster to be meaningful.”
In a city dominated by Democrats, the endorsements of the San Francisco Democratic Party carry a lot of weight. Its slate card mailer, showing candidates’ headshots and the party’s positions on local measures, can serve as a cheat sheet for Dems heading to voting booths on Nov. 4.
At tomorrow’s [Wed/13] meeting, the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC), the steering committee of the city’s Democratic Party, will vote on endorsements for the upcoming election – and while some votes may be predictable, others will be closely contested and could go either way.
Here are a few items we’ve been keeping an eye on:
Prop. G: “Anti-speculation tax”
Earlier this year, hundreds crowded into the Tenderloin Elementary School for a daylong Tenant Convention that sought to find ways to curb the tide of evictions sweeping San Francisco. Emerging out of that was the “anti-speculation tax,” a measure that will appear on the November ballot as Proposition G. Sponsored by Sups. Eric Mar, John Avalos, David Campos, and Jane Kim, the formally titled Additional Transfer Tax on Residential Property Sold Within 5 Years of Purchase seeks to discourage real estate speculators from buying up properties with the aim of flipping them, a process that tends to involve bringing down the hammer of the Ellis Act to evict long-term tenants.
Some tenant activists are concerned that the DCCC won’t throw its considerable weight behind this tenant-friendly initiative, crafted as a direct response to the city’s affordability crisis and ongoing displacement problem. “Many of the members of the Democratic Central Committee seem to have forgotten the core values of the Democratic Party,” tenant activists with the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition wrote in a Facebook post, urging supporters of the anti-speculation tax to turn out at tomorrow’s meeting.
Mary Jung, who chairs the DCCC, also serves as a paid lobbyist for the San Francisco Association of Realtors, which strongly opposes the anti-speculation tax. Following the June election, Jung came under fire for authorizing funds to be used for last-minute voter calls opposing Prop. B, a measure that was ultimately adopted, requiring voter approval for increasing waterfront building height limits. The DCCC came down against Prop. B, putting the party in line with developers and real-estate interests. Will the DCCC’s vote on the tenant-friendly Prop. G reflect this same allegiance?
For Prop. G, “I have a really hard time believing that the Realtors will put together a coalition for a ‘no’ vote,” said DCCC member Alix Rosenthal. “I’m sure the Realtors would settle for a ‘no endorsement,’” on that measure, she added, but said that outcome seemed doubtful too. Last June’s vote on Prop. B shouldn’t serve as a guide, she added. “Because the Warriors made the Prop. B vote very complicated, I think you’re not going to see the same voting coalition against Prop. G.”
BART Board: Fang vs. Josefowitz
As the Guardian noted in last week’s print edition, there are some fascinating political dynamics at play in the DCCC’s endorsement vote for BART’s Board of Directors. Longtime member James Fang, a Republican, faces a challenge from a well-funded newcomer in his early 30s, Nick Josefowitz, who’s a Democrat. That might sound like a no-brainer for the Dems, but there’s a catch. The city’s largest public employee union, SEIU Local 1021, is rooting for Fang over Josefowitz.
Organizer Gabriel Haaland says that’s because the Fang made a show of support for BART employees by walking the picket line last year during the BART strike. “It’s a priority for us to elect Fang,” Haaland told us. Plus, he pointed out, Josefowitz is in line with Mayor Ed Lee and has been championed by leaders in the tech sector, serving as a mayoral appointee to a city commission and benefitting from a fundraiser organized by Lyft cofounder Logan Green.
But DCCC member Matt Dorsey sounded a different note. “I get that some of my DCCC colleagues may have loyalties that may prevent them from supporting Nick,” he said. “But I’d plead with them not to make our party an instrument for Republican empowerment — because that’s exactly what a ‘no endorsement’ in the BART race will do.”
The DCCC can’t endorse Fang outright, because of his political affiliation, but it can decide whether to help or hurt Josefowitz by choosing to back him or vote “no endorsement.” The latter would limit his exposure as a candidate in a race where incumbent Fang has both wide name recognition and the backing of many prominent San Francisco Democrats.
District 10 race
Based on questionnaires submitted by candidates in the upcoming Board of Supervisors’ races, District 10 Sup. Malia Cohen has lined up a much longer list of endorsements than her challenger in that race, Tony Kelly.
But Kelly does have some prominent supporters, including former San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Sups. John Avalos and David Campos, and the Sierra Club.
While both Kelly and Cohen stated on their questionnaires that they are supportive of ranked-choice voting, Cohen has evidently requested a sole endorsement from the DCCC for her reelection. While there seems to be little doubt that Cohen will secure the DCCC’s backing, there’s a possibility that Kelly – or for that matter, any other District 10 candidate – could be added to the slate with a second- or third-place endorsement. Rosenthal, who is friends with Cohen, said this is unlikely since state and federal elected officials who send proxies to the DCCC tend to back incumbents to maintain existing working relationships.
Cohen also happens to sit on the DCCC, which means she can cast a vote for her own endorsement.
This perk is actually a reason why many politicians opt to get involved with the Democratic Party in the first place. “One of the reasons to get involved on the DCCC,” Rosenthal said, “is to help ensure that you yourself get endorsed by the Democratic Party.”
Check back here on Thu/14 for an update on how the votes went down.
Airbnb and other companies that facilitate illegal short-term apartment rentals to tourists visiting San Francisco need to engage in a more honest and direct dialogue with this city’s political leaders and stakeholders, something that became clear during last week’s Planning Commission hearing on legislation that would legalize and regulate short-term sublets.
This is a complicated, vexing issue that defies simple solutions, as Board of Supervisors President David Chiu learned as he and his aides spent more than year developing the legislation. They did a pretty good job at striking a balance between letting people occasionally rent out their homes and preventing Airbnb from being used to remove apartments from the already strained local housing market.
A key provision for striking that balance was to limit rentals to no more than 90 nights per year, but the Planning Commission — dominated by appointees from Mayor Ed Lee, who has long coddled Airbnb’s scofflaw approach to the city (see “Into thin air,” 8/6/13) — removed that provision, which the Board of Supervisors should reinstate.
The commission also seemed to side with landlords who want to prevent their tenants from renting out rooms, calling for landlords to be notified when their tenants seek to become Airbnb hosts, another provision the board should reject. Landlords using Airbnb to get around rent control laws is at least as bad as tenants who violate their leases by subletting rooms, and this legislation shouldn’t favor one group over the other.
If the city decides to end its decades-old ban on short-term apartment rentals, it should have a compelling reason to do so. Maybe we want to allow struggling city residents to make some extra money while they’re out of town, or to have some flexibility in renting out rooms without taking on permanent tenants, which are legitimate if difficult policy questions.
But it seems like much of the discussion is about how to rein in the widespread violation of city housing and tax laws caused by Airbnb, which has refused requests to share more of its occupancy data, dodged its obligation to collect the city’s transient occupancy tax, and failed to even send a high-level representative to last week’s hearing. Yet the legislation would require the company’s cooperation to help enforce the regulations.
If Airbnb and its hosts want the city to legalize lucrative short-term rentals in San Francisco, then the company should be willing to engage in high-level public discussions with city leaders to shape this important legislation, rather than simply whipping its hosts into a libertarian frenzy with deceptive public relations campaigns.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky has gotten rich with a business model that is illegal in its home city, so the very least he can do is show up at City Hall next month to make a good faith effort to help solve the divisive problems that his company is creating.
At the start of a public hearing, Chiu gave an overview, explaining that it would allow permanent residents – defined as San Franciscans dwelling in the city for at least nine months out of the year – to legally post their residences for short-term rent up to 90 days out of the year, legitimizing a practice that is technically prohibited under a city law prohibiting rentals of less than 30 days.
Under the proposed regulations, hosts would be required to register with the city, pay all associated taxes and sign up for liability insurance.
Anyone in violation, for example by posting a unit on Airbnb.com without registering, could be subjected to fines. While Chiu noted that he thought short-term rentals ought to be regulated to limit the threat Airbnb rentals pose to affordable housing in pricey San Francisco, he sought to strike a balance, saying, “Home sharing has allowed struggling residents to live in our expensive city.”
Public comment on the measure lasted for several hours. A host of speakers came out to share stories about how short-term rentals had helped them earn supplementary income and remain in San Francisco (as the Guardian previously reported, Airbnb sought to line up supporters via an online campaign effort called Fair to Share).
Yet opponents of the measure raised concerns that the new rule legitimizing short-term rentals via Airbnb could exacerbate San Francisco’s tremendous affordability crisis, by allowing residential spaces to be further commodified.
“There’s no hope we’re going to be able to control the adverse impacts of this legislation,” said Doug Engmann, a former planning commissioner. “This ill-conceived way of rezoning the city … causes all sorts of problems about how you’re going to be able to regulate this going forward.”
Ian Lewis, of hotel workers’ union Unite Here Local 2, warned of the impact on those employed by the city’s hotel industry.
“This legislation in one fell swoop is a green-light to legalizing short-term rentals,” said Lewis. “No one is more affected by this than hotel workers.”
Land use attorney Sue Hestor warned that Mayor Ed Lee’s proposal to construct 30,000 housing units “will be a farce … without a requirement that they really be rented or occupied as housing,” and suggested prohibiting the new units envisioned under this plan from being listed as short-term rentals on Airbnb.
Others raised concerns about the regulation’s lack of enforceability, and were critical of the provision allowing for 90 days of short-term rentals (many believed it was too permissive, but advocates who came out expressing support for Airbnb said it should be increased to 180 days).
The Board of Supervisors will take up the legislation in September after returning from August recess.
Aug. 5 marks National Night Out, an annual event promoted by local governments and law enforcement agencies geared toward ending neighborhood violence and promoting public safety.
In San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee is scheduled to join Police Chief Greg Suhr and District Attorney George Gascon at a Visitacion Valley playground for a National Night Out gathering. A host of other neighborhood block parties are scheduled throughout San Francisco and Oakland as well.
National Night Out gatherings, which are sponsored by the National Association of Neighborhood Watch, are scheduled to take place nationwide. Block party attendees are encouraged to come out and meet their neighbors as a way of banding together against crime. Yet some have questioned the heavy emphasis this event places on suspicion and surveillance as tools for promoting neighborhood safety.
To offer a different perspective, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has organized a community gathering Aug. 5 at the Lake Merritt amphitheater, billed as the Second Annual Night Out for Safety and Democracy.
“We still want to have a celebration of the community – but we really want to reframe the message that it’s not all about setting up a neighborhood watch program,” said Maria Dominguez, a community organizer with the Ella Baker Center. She added that a mass effort to encourage suspicion and neighborhood surveillance can lead to unintended consequences, such as actions that are unnecessarily based in fear, or racial profiling.
Instead, the Ella Baker Center hopes to emphasize restorative justice practices, youth job training programs, and reentry services as tools for promoting community safety. The group is also highlighting the need for more resources to be dedicated toward these programs as state funding becomes available.
“Safety really goes hand in hand with the lack of economic opportunity in our communities,” Dominguez said. This coming fall, she noted, the Alameda County Board of Supervisors will begin discussing allocation of some $30 million in state realignment funding. Historically, only about a fourth of this has gone toward community-based organizations focused on efforts such as reentry services, with the rest being devoted mainly to law enforcement agencies.
“We want to make sure there’s more funding allocated for community based organizations providing restorative justice initiatives, and other organizations that focus on employment and workforce development opportunities,” Dominguez said.
“With the recent rise in local surveillance initiatives and private patrols, it’s more important than ever to encourage neighbors to build connections with one another so that they can see each other,” said Ella Baker Center executive director Zachary Norris, “rather than watch each other.”
The evening’s event will feature talks by practitioners in restorative justice practitioners and representatives from organizations working around reentry programs. There will also be food, art, voter information, and a performance by Turf Feinz. They’re turf dance performers whose moves – consisting of “elaborate footwork, gliding, gigging, contortion and acrobat,” according to the event description – have been known to liven up BART commutes.
“Rain,” Turf Feinz’ video from 2009 created in memory of a friend, got more than six million YouTube hits.
San Franciscans today may be tempted to feel we’re unique in our struggles with evictions and displacement, but one need not look far back to see rental struggles woven into our history. Yesterday the Manilatown Heritage Foundation celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the International Hotel, a mass eviction etched in the psyche of San Francisco.
The International Hotel, on Kearny street, was home to Filipino and some Chinese seniors, the last vestige of the Filipino community known as Manilatown. In 1968, the I-Hotel’s 196 tenants were served an eviction notice: the hotel was to come down, and a parking garage to come up. Much like today, the tenants fought back and resisted eviction, a years-long battle that lasted until August 4, 1977. After the sun went down, the police stormed the I-Hotel.
“That night was like electricity,” Peter Yamamoto told us, shortly after the anniversary’s celebration at the heritage foundation. Yamamoto was 23 when he was evicted along with the seniors of the I-Hotel. He stood in the third floor of the hallway, and watched the then-head of the local YMCA “get manhandled by cops,” he said. Outside, nearly 3,000 protesters linked arms to form a barricade, hoping to stop the police. In an era before Facebook events, Twitter, and cell phones, these protesters were called to action by a “phone tree” and simple word of mouth.
“We were out there to fight there for the old men,” Yamamoto said. “It was a simple thing.”
The fear of retatliation from police was real, he told us. “We stayed in the rooms with the old men to make sure they weren’t harmed,” he said. “The adrenaline level was incredible, but the old men were cool as ice. There were thousands of people outside ringing the block. The cops charged and charged.”
Even Mayor Ed Lee was on hand at the time. He was then an attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, and in his recent state-of-the-city speech he recalled the night everything ended.
“As Reverend Norman Fong, Gordon Chin, Jeff and Sandy Mori and so many others will remember, we stood together to stop the wrongful eviction of hundreds of our seniors and immigrants from the International Hotel,” he said. “One summer night, while the rest of the City slept, an army of riot police, many on horseback, marched on the I-Hotel.In defiance, some 3,000 of us banded together and surrounded the building, singing ‘We Shall Overcome.'”
The tenants were ousted. Yamamoto said some of the evicted seniors died shortly after, “of broken hearts.” The I-Hotel struggle lost, temporarily.
A sign at the Manila Heritage Foundation ties the I-Hotel’s tenant struggle to today’s eviction crisis. Examiner photo by Jessica Christian
But that’s not the end of the story. Three decades later the Manila Heritage Foundation and 100 or so affordable housing units were constructed, and the I-Hotel was born anew. It owes its existence to Bill Sorro, a San Francisco native and activist in the Filipino community who fought against the closure of the I-Hotel, and then to later revive it. Sorro died in 2007, survived by his wife Giuliana Milanese and his six adult children.
After the anniversary celebration, Milanese recalled happier times at the I-Hotel.
“Let me tell you one story that brings joy to me,” she said. “We had a community kitchen and we had one guy from Albania and one guy from Italy cooking. All the Italians and the Filipinos held their nose because it wasso bad from the smell of the food!” she recalled, laughing as she thought of the seniors that were her and Sroro’s chosen family.
The couple loved the place so much, they even married there. “We had two big cakes,” Milanese said, “one said Makibaka, ‘power of the people,’ and mine was Italian. I’m a lefty Italian!”
While speaking to the Guardian, Milanese was modest, but she is a political force in San Francisco in her own right. She’s on the board of directors of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, which just had a major victory in calling for the San Francisco Unified School District to curb suspensions, which they contest harms academic achievement. She also works with Jobs with Justice, who fought for the California Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights.
A shrine to Sorro now stands at the Manila Heritage Foundation, which Milanese said brings her “tremendous joy.”
And much as Milanese fights for working class and vulnerable San Franciscans, the struggle for the tenants of the I-Hotel spawned many of the rental protections San Franciscans enjoy now, including rent control. But as Supervisor Eric Mar pointed out just after the anniversary, many of those tenant struggles still carry on.
Mar told the Guardian: “As we organize our communities to pass Proposition G – our Stop the Flip Anti-Speculator Tax – commemorations like the 37th Anniversary of the fall of the I-Hotel help us remember that we stand on the shoulders of those that came and struggled before us. The spirit of the manongs, of the I-Hotel and Supervisor Harvey Milk… guides us in our struggle against greed and the speculators who are threatening to destroy the characters of our communities.”
The uncle of San Francisco activist and poet Tony Robles, Al Robles, who has since died, penned a poem called The Wandering Manong, in the book Rappin’ with Ten Thousand Carabaos in the Dark:
The Guardian last week published an editorial on the outcome of the process around the Housing Balance measure. We offer here an alternative perspective from the field.
Since 1990, San Francisco has developed an incredible track record of building close to 30 percent affordable housing — but that ratio is quickly slipping away as new market-rate approvals far outstrip funding for affordable housing.
In many parts of our city, this imbalance in housing affordability is opening the door to displacement and gentrification at an unprecedented level, as long-term residents find they can no longer afford to live in their own neighborhoods.
The Housing Balance measure, developed as legislation for central city neighborhoods and introduced in April, and promoted by CCHO members TODCO and SOMCAN coming out of the West SoMa planning process, was intended to link market-rate development to affordable housing production by setting a goal of at least 30 percent affordable housing and establishing stricter conditions on approvals of market-rate housing whenever the city fell below this minimum balance. The Housing Balance measure was meant to compel all sides to work together to achieve a minimum of 30 percent affordability over time.
In June, Supervisor Jane Kim revised the Housing Balance to introduce it as a measure for the November 2014 ballot, extending the reach of the measure to not only establish a 30 percent affordable housing requirement for District 6, but across the neighborhoods of the city. Perceived as a threat by developers, this new proposal compelled the Mayor’s Office to put its own measure on the ballot — a so-called “poison pill” that would override the conditions placed on market-rate development by the Housing Balance. Since that time, the Mayor’s Office and Sup. Kim’s office engaged in extensive negotiations, which CCHO supported as a pathway to more substantive outcomes than simply a ballot “war.”
On July 29, negotiations produced a compromise measure — a policy statement that was introduced for the November ballot and agreed-upon terms for a work plan to take the policy statement into action. Though “compromise” is often considered a dirty word in politics, this measure represents a real potential win for affordable housing.
By putting the possibility of a housing linkage on the table, the negotiated outcome allowed Sup. Kim and housing advocates to up the ante to 33 percent affordable housing instead of the original 30 percent, and to get more immediate solutions for the housing crisis started immediately. The original Housing Balance was a tool to create leverage, but didn’t create ways to produce more affordable housing. This new measure establishes a package of policies and funding to set the conditions to reach the 33 percent minimum housing balance goal.
If approved by the voters, it will formalize the city’s commitment to maintain a one third affordable housing goal and set expectations on how to get there. While lacking the conditional use requirement “teeth” of the original Balance legislation, the policy and work plan sets up the conditions for a future Balance, compelling the city to do the following:
1) Establish a housing balance report and require public hearings to hold the city accountable to its goal of minimum 33 percent affordable housing;
2) Develop funding and site-acquisition strategies;
3) Develop a strategy to maintain one-third affordability citywide;
4) Make high-rise luxury developments pay their fair share of inclusionary obligations;
5) Establish a funded Neighborhood Stabilization Trust to acquire small-to-large buildings and take them out of the speculative market, preserving them in perpetuity as affordable housing;
6) Create immediate interim controls to protect PDR (production, distribution, repair/service) businesses and artists in SOMA from displacement.
The pieces of this agreement constitute a step towards addressing San Francisco’s ongoing affordability crisis and stabilizing neighborhoods facing rapid gentrification. It may seem less dramatic than the prospect of a ballot battle with developers. But it is a package to work with that was leveraged from the process. That said, we must keep an eye on the larger goal of real citywide affordability. Though 33 percent affordable housing production is higher than what we’ve achieved in the past, we must not forget this is only a floor — realistic given the funding goals of this measure, but an incremental step toward achieving the affordable housing we need to house all San Franciscans fairly.
Peter Cohen and Fernando Martí are co-directors of the Council of Community Housing Organizations.
BART Director James Fang is San Francisco’s only elected official who is a registered Republican, yet over the last 24 years, he has somehow managed to easily win election after election in a city dominated by the Democratic Party, often with the endorsements of top Democrats.
But this year, Fang is facing a strong and well-funded challenge from investor and former solar company entrepreneur Nicholas Josefowitz, a Harvard graduate in his early 30s. Thanks in part to support from the tech community — Lyft cofounder Logan Green is one of several prominent figures in tech to host fundraisers for him, according to Re/Code — Josefowitz has managed to amass a campaign war chest of about $150,000.
Josefowitz has also secured some key political endorsements, including from Sups. John Avalos, Eric Mar, and Scott Wiener, BART Director Tom Radulovich, former SF Mayor Art Agnos, and the Sierra Club.
After Josefowitz sold his solar company, RenGen, almost two years ago, “I got more and more involved in sustainable community advocacy,” he told us. “Then the BART strike happened and I was like, wow, this shouldn’t be happening.”
Josefowitz cited BART’s history of worker safety violations, last year’s unnecessarily divisive labor contract negotiations, the district’s massive deferred maintenance budget, property devoted to parking lots that could be put to better uses (he sees potential there for real-estate development), corrupt cronyism in its contracting, and lack of cooperation with other transit agencies as problems that urgently need correcting.
Fang is being challenged by well-funded Democratic newcomer Nicholas Josefowitz.
“BART does a terrible job at coordinating with other transit agencies,” Josefowitz told us, arguing the transit connections should be timed and seamless. “James has been there for 24 years, and if he was going to be the right guy to fix it, then he would have done it by now.”
But perhaps Josefowitz’s strongest argument is that as a Republican in liberal San Francisco, Fang’s values are out-of-step with those of voters. “Why is someone still a Republican today? … He’s a Republican and he’s a Republican in 2014, with everything that means,” Josefowitz told us. “He hasn’t been looking out for San Francisco and he’s out of touch with San Francisco values.”
We asked Fang why he’s a Republican. After saying it shouldn’t matter as far as the nonpartisan BART board race is concerned, he told us that when he was in college, he and his friends registered Republican so they could vote for John Anderson in the primary election.
“Some people feel the expedient thing for me to is switch parties,” Fang said, but “I think it’s a loyalty thing. If you keep changing … what kind of message does that send to people?”
Fang said he thought the focus ought to be on his track record, not his political affiliation. It shouldn’t matter “if it’s a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice,” he said. He pointed to programs such as seismic upgrades, completing the BART to the airport project, and instituting a small-business preference for BART contractors as evidence of his strong track record. “I’m a native San Franciscan — I’ve gone through all the public schools,” Fang added. “It’s very important to get people from a San Francisco perspective and San Francisco values.”
Josefowitz supporters say he has perhaps the best shot ever at defeating Fang, largely because of his prodigious fundraising and aggressive outreach efforts on the campaign trail. “He is doing all the things that someone should do to win the race,” Radulovich, San Francisco’s other longtime elected representative on the BART board, told us. “There’s a lot of unhappiness with BART these days.”
But in an interesting political twist, Fang has the endorsement of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, a champion of many progressive causes in San Francisco, after he walked the picket line with striking BART employees last year and opposed the district’s decision to hire a high-priced, union-busting labor consultant.
“It’s a priority for us to elect Fang,” SEIU 1021 organizer Gabriel Haaland told us. “When we needed him on the strike, he walked our picket line.”
SEIU Political Chair Alysabeth Alexander sounded a similar note. “In the middle of one of the most important and highest-profile labor fights in the nation, when two workers had to die to prove that safety issues were the heart of the struggle, Fang was the only board member who took a position for safety,” she said. “Every other member shut out the workers and refused to acknowledge that serious safety issues put workers lives at risk every day. If more BART Board members has the courage of Fang, two workers would be alive today.”
BART got a series of public black eyes last year when its contract standoff with its employees resulted in two labor strikes that snarled traffic and angered the public. Then two BART employees were killed by a train operated by an unqualified manager being trained to deliver limited service to break the strike, a tragedy that highlighted longstanding safety deficiencies that the district had long fought with state regulators to avoid correcting. Finally, after that fatal accident helped force an end to the labor standoff, BART officials admitted making an administrative error in the contract that reopened the whole ugly incident.
“One of the things that really opened my eyes in this labor negotiation is that often we get told things by management, and we just assume them to be true,” Fang said, noting that he’d questioned the agency’s plan to run train service during last year’s strike.
Yet Josefowitz said the BART board should be held accountable for the agency’s shortcomings in dealing with its workers. “It starts with having a genuine concern over worker safety issues, and not just at bargaining time,” he said. “If the board had acted early enough, that strike was totally avoidable.”
Indeed, BART’s decisions that led to the tragedy have been heavily criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board, California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, and the California Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment.
Fang also has the support of many top Democrats, including Attorney General Kamala Harris, US Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and former state legislator and current Board of Equalization candidate Fiona Ma, who told us: “I have endorsed one Republican in my political history, and that is James Fang for BART Board.” Noting that Josefowitz “just moved here,” Ma said, “The BART system is one of our jewels, and I don’t think we should elect first-time newcomers in San Francisco to manage it.”
Radulovich said he was mystified by prominent San Francisco politicians’ support for Fang, saying, “In this solidly Democratic town, this elected Republican has the support of these big Democrats — it’s a mystery to me.”
One reason could be Fang’s willingness to use newspapers under his control to support politicians he favors, sometimes in less than ethical ways. Fang is the president of Asian Week and former owner of the San Francisco Examiner, where sources say he shielded from media scrutiny politicians who helped him gain control of the paper, including Willie Brown and Pelosi (see “The untouchables,” 4/30/03).
But political consultant Nicole Derse, who is working on the Josefowitz campaign, told us that she thinks support for Fang among top Democrats is softening this year, noting that US Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Mark Leno haven’t endorsed Fang after doing so in previous races.
“[Fang] has longstanding relationships with folks, but Nick is challenging people in this race to stop supporting the Republican,” Derse told us. “It’s now up to the Democratic Party and it’ll be interesting to see what they do.”
She was referring to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, which plans to vote on its endorsements on Aug. 13. While DCCC bylaws prevent the body from endorsing a Republican, Ma and other Fang allies have been lobbying for no endorsement in the race, which would deny Josefowitz a key avenue for getting his name and message out there.
“This is going to be one of the most expensive races in BART’s history. He will kill me on money,” Fang said of Josefowitz. He suggested that his opponent’s candidacy underscores tech’s growing influence in local politics, and urged voters to take a closer look. “People are saying oh, it’s all about Fang. What about this gentleman?” Fang asked. “Nobody’s questioning him at all.”
Derse, for her part, noted the importance of having a well-funded challenge in this nonpartisan race. “It allows him the resources to get his message out there,” she said of Josefowitz. “Most San Franciscans wouldn’t knowingly vote for a Republican.”
“Will the SF minimum wage hike kill our restaurants?” Zagat SF tweeted last week.
No, Chicken Little, it won’t. Not even if you tweet it.
Two days earlier, the Board of Supervisors had unanimously approved a measure for the November ballot to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018, up from where it stands at $10.74.
Zagat may be fine for restaurant reviews, but this attack on raising the minimum wage — which parroted fearmongering about high-priced burgers and relied heavily on a narrative served up by a powerful business lobby, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association — was enough to cause heartburn.
And it’s only one example of the backlash directed at low-wage workers since the bid to boost the minimum wage has picked up steam. A now-infamous billboard that popped up in SOMA, funded by conservative lobbying group Employment Policies Institute, taunted minimum-wage workers by claiming they would be replaced with iPads if they didn’t give up the fight for higher pay.
The proposed minimum wage increase, actually a compromise that turned out weaker than an initial proposal spearheaded by a progressive coalition that would have delivered $15 an hour a year earlier, is backed by business-friendly Mayor Ed Lee. Even the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has expressed support for it. Still, some conservative interests seem bent on ensuring that minimum-wage workers never achieve living-wage status — demonstrating how out of touch these naysayers are.
Once better known for its rich labor history and track record of holding employers accountable for wage theft and discriminatory practices, San Francisco is better known these days as one of the nation’s highest-ranking cities for income inequality.
Scraping by at a minimum wage job translates to a stressful existence. Even if minimum-wage earners were currently earning $31,000 a year, the amount a full-time $15-an-hour job would bring in before taxes, it wouldn’t begin to stretch far enough to rent a market-rate apartment. Earlier this year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition pointed out that a renter’s got to earn at least $29.83 an hour — or $62,046 annually — to afford a San Francisco one-bedroom at market rate.
Meanwhile, those spouting doomsday scenarios over a higher minimum wage seem blind to the fact that the city is regularly populated with hordes of tourists and well-compensated San Francisco professionals with a penchant for fine food, even if it’s pricey.
Just for a sense of how much cash is pumping through the local economy, the San Francisco Center for Economic Development reports that San Francisco claimed 40 percent of all venture capital investment in the Bay Area last year, with nearly $5 billion in VC funding invested in 2013. Meanwhile, 16.5 million visitors flocked to the Bay Area last year — can anyone really claim with a straight face that a higher minimum wage for restaurant workers will prevent this army of tourists from chowing down at local restaurants?
Instead of having a debate about whether we ought to raise the minimum wage, a better conversation would focus on the consequences of allowing the city’s sharp inequality to continue unchecked.
When he launched an unexpected mayoral bid in 2011, Mayor Ed Lee campaigned on a platform of changing the tone of San Francisco politics. The appointed mustachioed mayor claimed he put the civility back in City Hall, marking a sharp departure from the divisive tone of city politics as progressives battled former Mayor Willie Brown, followed by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
“We’ll continue the high level of civility in the tone we’ve set since January, and solve the problems with civil engagement,” he told Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, then his mayoral opponent, at a 2011 debate.
Yet over the past two weeks, Mayor Lee has started swinging hard against supervisors who have introduced measures that go against his own priorities. So much for civility at City Hall.
COMPROMISE EVERYTHING
When asked about the outcome of her newly revised affordable housing measure, Sup. Jane Kim did not sound enthusiastic.
“It was definitely a compromise,” Kim said. But compromise is a word you use when you find a middle ground. By most accounts, Mayor Lee weakened the measure by hammering the right pressure points.
Kim crafted a novel solution to the city’s housing affordability crisis for the November ballot. Her initial Housing Balance Requirement would have established controls on market-rate housing construction, requiring a reevaluation whenever affordable housing production falls below 30 percent of total construction. The goal was to ensure that a certain amount of affordable housing would be built — but it was unpopular with housing developers.
Lee immediately drummed up a ballot measure in opposition to Kim’s, the Build Housing Now Initiative. The nonbinding policy statement asked the city to affirm his previously stated affordable housing goals. So what was the point?
It contained a poison pill which would have killed Kim’s Housing Balance Requirement. If Lee’s measure was approved, Kim’s would fail. The two politicians were in heated negotiations, trying to diffuse this ballot box arms race up to the very moment Kim’s measure went before the Board of Supervisors for approval at its July 29 meeting.
By the end of that process, Kim’s measure had been gutted.
Mirroring the mayor’s Build Housing Now Initiative, the new Housing Balance Requirement is a nonbinding policy statement asking the city to “affirm the City’s commitment” to support the production or rehabilitation of 30,000 housing units by 2020, with at least 33 percent of those permanently affordable to low or moderate income households.
Kim said she’d won funding pledges and promises for a number of affordable housing projects from the mayor. But Lee did not sign any agreement.
Essentially, the revised measure is a promise to promise, a plan to plan. Kim told us flatly, “We didn’t get the accountability we wanted.”
Political insiders told us the Mayor’s Office put pressure on affordable housing developers, who backed the original measure but later asked Kim to revise it to reflect the mayor’s wishes. The Mayor’s Office allegedly threatened to cut their funding next year, or divert projects to other affordable housing organizations.
Everyone acknowledged the mayor was pissed.
Tenants and Owners Development Corporation, an affordable housing developer in SoMa, sat in on the negotiations. The city paid $170,961 in contracts to TODCO last year, according to the City Controller, and over $250,000 the year before. John Elberling, president of TODCO, and Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, denied the mayor influenced them to ask Kim to revise her measure.
“I didn’t hear my phone ringing saying we’ll pull funding for affordable housers if you don’t do X, Y and Z,” Cohen told us. Yet he acknowledged the mayor “brought certain leverages to bear” in the closed-door negotiations to “compromise” on Kim’s ballot measure. Then everything changed.
“Yes,” Cohen said, “we then convinced the lead supervisor to change her position.”
Despite being labeled as a “compromise,” many observers read this as a sign that Lee had prevailed. Now the same hammer is coming down on Sup. Scott Wiener.
BALLOT BATTLE
“I agree with the mayor on many things,” Wiener told us. But the mayor is targeting Wiener’s new Muni funding ballot measure, hoping to knock it off the ballot.
“It’s not personal,” Wiener said. “It’s a policy disagreement.”
The mayor has a transportation bond on the ballot, asking voters to pony up $500 million to fund Muni. But Lee already blew a $33 million hole into Muni’s proposed budget when he decided to pull a Vehicle License Fee measure off the ballot. When that measure began to poll badly, he got cold feet, and withdrew it.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget outlined a doomsday scenario if the funding ballot measures failed to pass. It would be impossible to improve transit travel time, reliability, or to fund pedestrian and bike safety projects, the SFMTA staff noted in recent budget presentations.
Seeing the potential fallout due to the mayor pulling the VLF measure, Wiener placed his own measure on the ballot, tying expansion for Muni funding to the city’s growing population. If passed, Muni could see a $22 million bump just next year.
Openly, the mayor told reporters he would hold the supervisors who supported Wiener’s ballot measure “accountable.” Lee then initiated a conversation about slashing funding to city programs, signaling that supervisors’ favored projects could be jeopardized.
“Last week, the Board of Supervisors sent a measure to the ballot that the budget does not contemplate,” Kate Howard, the mayor’s budget director, wrote in a memo. She directed departments to cut their budgets by 1.5 percent, and asked for “contingency plans” including a “revisit” of hiring plans and scaling back existing programs and services.
Wiener issued a statement describing the move as “an empty scare tactic.”
“For whatever reason,” he wrote, “the Mayor’s Office felt the need to issue these emergency instructions now — a full year before the fiscal year at issue, in the middle of an election campaign, without even knowing whether the measure will pass.”
John Elberling, president of TODCO, recalled when then-Mayor Willie Brown used the same schoolyard-bully tactics to ensure his favored measures passed.
“The punchline is there were competing ballot measures, one from our side and one from Willie’s side,” Elberling told the Guardian. “There was an effort to reach a compromise, but that failed. I was in the meeting where he shot it down.”
“He said ‘I will make the decisions,’ quote unquote. ‘There is no compromise unless I say there’s a compromise.’ That was quite memorable,” Elberling recalled.
When things didn’t go his way, “Willie Brown took a housing project away from us,” Elberling said.
But Mayor Lee’s bluster and anger is new, and Elberling said it should be taken with a grain of salt. “Is it a bluff? That’s always a question. Real retaliation like Willie did, that’s a real thing. But huff and puff, that goes on all the time.”
News of the mayor’s retribution has circled round, and the timing of a memo issued by Kate Howard, the mayor’s budget director, has raised eyebrows. The memo directs city departments to prepare for budget cuts she said are called for due to Wiener’s measure.
The Guardian has obtained the memo and is embedding it below.
“Last week, the board of supervisors sent a measure to the ballot that the budget does not contemplate,” Howard wrote. “As a result of this unanticipated measure, the Mayor’s Office is directing departments to propose contingency plans that could be implemented should the measure pass.”
Howard is referencing Wiener’s new Muni funding measure, which would raise the transit agency’s funding with the population. The cost is estimated to be about $22 million annually.
Now it seems the mayor is playing for keeps. Following through on his promise to hold supervisors “accountable” for supporting Wiener’s measure, Howard directs city agencies to prepare to make cuts to new programs, hiring plans, and to “scale back existing services.”
But what Howard’s memo doesn’t say is that Muni has its own budget problems, caused not by Wiener’s new ballot measure, but by Mayor Ed Lee.
It’s really a case of the pot calling the kettle black: Lee is saying Wiener’s ballot measure will hurt the General Fund, but supervisors contend Lee hurt Muni’s budget when he pulled his Vehicle License Fee measure off the ballot.
Wiener’s new Muni funding measure was a contingency plan after Lee dropped the VLF, which blew a $33 million hole in Muni’s proposed budget.
The agency said such an outcome would make it impossible to improve transit travel time and reliability, and fund pedestrian safety projects. It would also mean fewer buses and lightrail vehicles, a decline in existing infrastructure, and less funding for bicycle infrastructure, among other problems.
In other words, without ballot measures to increase Muni funding, the SFMTA is screwed.
But when Lee’s license fee measure initially polled poorly, he got cold feet and yanked it. Yet he continued to push forward with a $500 million transportation bond measure, which remains on the ballot. Now he’s feverishly hoping to stop any competing ballot measures which may have the remote possibility of hurting its chances to succeed.
“I agree with the mayor on many things,” Wiener told the Guardian. But, “ultimately the mayor is elected and I have to exercise my best judgment. It’s not personal, it’s a policy disagreement.”
We asked Sup. David Campos if there’s a fear that these cuts would only hit projects the supervisors favor.
“I think there’s definitely that fear,” he told us. But he noted something important.
“When we’re talking about punishing, you’re not punishing a supervisor, you’re punishing a district they represent,” he said. “Ultimately, you’re punishing constituents.”
Still, at this point, it’s not entirely clear the directives from Howard will target specific supervisor’s projects.
“We’re concerned,” Campos said, “but we need to ask the budget director what this means.”
Update [8/1]: Supervisor Scott Wiener sent an email to press today giving further backstory on the memo from Kate Howard regarding the budget.
From his email:
“On Wednesday, in what can only be described as an empty scare tactic, the Mayor’s Office announced that due solely to the transit measure (totaling .25% of the budget), all departments were directed to formulate emergency 1.5% contingency cuts for the 2015/16 fiscal year. The Mayor’s Office further indicated that the cuts will be directed at the “priorities” of the six Supervisors who voted to place the measure on the ballot.
For whatever reason, the Mayor’s Office felt the need to issue these emergency instructions now – a full year before the fiscal year at issue, in the middle of an election campaign, without even knowing whether the measure will pass, and regarding an amount of money that is tiny in the context of the budget. Moreover, there will be a full budget process next spring for the 2015/16 fiscal year, and if the measure passes, the $22 million at issue will simply be part of that budget.
What the Mayor’s Office neglected to mention in its announcement is the existence of a $32 million hole in MTA’s budget for the 2015/16 fiscal year. If this gap isn’t filled – and [Supervisor Wiener’s] measure will fill two-thirds of it – MTA will have to forego plans to purchase new vehicles, rehabilitate run down vehicles, replace failing train switches and signals, rehabilitate broken station elevators, make needed pedestrian safety improvements, and implement the Embarcadero Bikeway.”
