Mayor

Newsom: support just-cause eviction law

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Newsom: support just-cause eviction law

EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom, reeling from criticism of his disappearing act last week and his failure to quickly reengage with San Francisco, has an opportunity to repair some of his tattered image, particularly among progressives, and mend fences with the majority of the Board of Supervisors. It wouldn’t even require a dramatic or groundbreaking step — all he has to do is agree to sign legislation by Sup. John Avalos extending eviction protections to roughly 20,000 vulnerable San Francisco renters.

The Avalos legislation clears up a lingering loophole in the city’s rent-control ordinance, a leftover piece of a bad deal that tenants were forced to accept when the city first moved to limit rent hikes 20 years ago. Back in 1978, with greedy landlords taking advantage of a housing shortage to jack up rents by astronomical rates, the supervisors and then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein were under immense pressure to pass some kind of control. But the landlord-friendly mayor and at-large elected board were unwilling to do what Berkeley had done across the bay by setting permanent limits on how much landlords could raise prices. Instead, they approved a watered-down measure aimed largely at fending off a tenant initiative that would have gone further.

The deal capped rent hikes — but only for existing tenants, allowing landlords to raise rents whenever a unit became vacant. And, after the real estate industry whined that rent control would cause developers to stop building new housing in San Francisco (a dubious claim if ever there was one), the supervisors agreed to exempt all newly constructed housing (that is, anything built after 1979) from any rent regulations at all.

That housing is still exempt from rent control — and because the rent control law also includes eviction protections for tenants, the post-1979 housing stock is also exempt from those rules.

Most San Francisco tenants enjoy what’s known as "just-cause" eviction rules — that is, you can’t toss a tenant out on the streets without a reason. Failure to pay rent, of course, is legal grounds to send someone packing; it’s also okay to force a tenant out if the owner wants to move in.

But for the roughly 20,000 renters living in newer units, evictions can happen on a landlord’s whim — and one of the most dangerous problems is the lack of protection for people who live in a foreclosed building. Tenants in older, pre-1979 buildings have the right to continue to live in the property, under the same lease or rental agreement, after a sale or foreclosure. The Avalos bill would extend that protection (and the other just-cause protections) to all tenants in the city.

It’s hardly a radical idea — and given the boom in high-end housing construction in this city over the past decade (slowed only by the economic crash), the claim that tenant protections will doom new housing is demonstrably false. It would save vulnerable residents from losing their homes, protect people who live (through no fault of their own) in foreclosed properties, and restore a level of fairness to the local housing market.

The measure will almost certainly get six votes on the board, so the only real obstacle is the threat of a Newsom veto. The mayor should state publicly that he supports the measure and will sign it — which could be the start of a new, more promising chapter in Newsom’s political career.

Herrera to Russoniello: Back off or we’ll see you in court!

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By Steven T. Jones

In the wake of today’s Board of Supervisors vote to override Mayor Gavin Newsom’s veto of requiring due process to play out before city officials turn undocumented juveniles over to federal immigration authorities, City Attorney Dennis Herrera sent an fascinating letter to U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello, a conservative who had threatened to bring charges against employees who follow the new law.

Herrera is walking a thin line between Newsom, who unilaterally weakened the city’s long-standing Sanctuary City law last year under pressure from nativists and the San Francisco Chronicle; and supervisors and immigrant rights activists who say the mayor’s new policy violates the principle that people are innocent until proven guilty. Newsom has threatened not to enforce the new policy, which becomes law in 30 days, citing the legal threat to city employees.

But Herrera has now attempted to remove that threat by asking Russoniello to withdraw it, and issuing a threat of his own if the holdover Republican attorney doesn’t back down: San Francisco may turn to the courts to overturn Russoniello’s interpretation of federal law, which Herrera calls “broad.”

The important part of the letter states: “Because of the Board of Supervisor’s adoption of the Amendment, and in view of your earlier assertions that certain City officials may have violated federal criminal laws regarding their past handling of certain juvenile arrestees and your seemingly broad interpretation of the harboring statute, I ask that the U.S. Attorney’s Office provide an assurance that if the city proceeds to implement this Amendment in accordance with its terms, City law enforcement officers and employees will not be prosecuted for violating federal criminal laws. I would appreciate your timely response to this letter, preferably by December 7, 2009. If the U.S. Attorney’s Office does not provide us with an adequate assurance that it will not prosecute City officials or employees who would implement the Amendment, my Office may be compelled to explore with City policymakers other options regarding the implementation and enforcement of the Amendment, including the possibility of filing a declaratory relief action in federal court.”

For a complete interpretation of the frightening implications of Newsom’s policy stance, read tomorrow’s Guardian cover story.

Editorial: Newsom: support just-cause eviction law

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For the roughly 20,000 renters living in newer units, evictions can happen on a landlord’s whim.

EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom, reeling from criticism of his disappearing act last week and his failure to quickly reengage with San Francisco, has an opportunity to repair some of his tattered image, particularly among progressives, and mend fences with the majority of the Board of Supervisors. It wouldn’t even require a dramatic or groundbreaking step — all he has to do is agree to sign legislation by Sup. John Avalos extending eviction protections to roughly 20,000 vulnerable San Francisco renters.

The Avalos legislation clears up a lingering loophole in the city’s rent-control ordinance, a leftover piece of a bad deal that tenants were forced to accept when the city first moved to limit rent hikes 20 years ago. Back in 1978, with greedy landlords taking advantage of a housing shortage to jack up rents by astronomical rates, the supervisors and then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein were under immense pressure to pass some kind of control. But the landlord-friendly mayor and at-large elected board were unwilling to do what Berkeley had done across the bay by setting permanent limits on how much landlords could raise prices. Instead, they approved a watered-down measure aimed largely at fending off a tenant initiative that would have gone further.

What’s up with the Ramos red herring?

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Text by Sarah Phelan

My editor Tim Redmond just asked why just every story about the city’s sanctuary ordinance seems to start with Ramos?

It’s a good question, especially since the Campos legislation would ensure that folks like Ramos would be deported, “not once, but twice,” as Campos puts it.

So why does the Ramos red herring keep popping up? Maybe it’s because anti-immigrant groups keep mentioning Ramos in an effort to keep the media focused on “security” issues, and not on “child welfare” arguments.

Most arguments around juvenile immigrant policy issues typically split into these two camps–the security camp and the child welfare camp– as noted in a 2009 Congressional Research Services report on juvenile immigrants by Chad C. Haddal.

In his 28-page report, Haddal observes that the debate over policy questions regarding unaccompanied alien children, or UAC, (as the federal government describes juvenile immigrants who appear to be here without family) “has polarized in recent years between two camps: child welfare advocates and immigration security advocates.”

As Haddal observes, tthe child welfare group “has for decades advocated a more refugee-oriented policy toward UAC, arguing that the UAC are largely victims of trafficking, abuse and economic circumstances. Security advocates, by contrast, advocate a more restrictive policy of deportation and repatriation, charging that unauthorized immigration is associated with increased community violence and illicit activities such as gang memberships. The UAC policy question is how to provide for the security of the United States while simultaneously safeguarding the rights and safe treatment of unaccompanied alien children.”

What’s interesting about Haddal’s analysis is that it poses the question of why the “child welfare” side of the argument fell by the wayside in San Francisco, under Mayor Gavin Newsom’s leadership.

Could it be because the mayor’s criminal justice department was dominated by Republican leaders who had Newsom’s ear last summer, just as he was making his doomed entry into the gubernatorial race? And that now that Newsom has let himself be backed into a policy corner, he doesn’t seem to be able to acknowledge the child welfare argument, let alone debate it with Campos in a public arena?

OMG — Gav loves the press!

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By Tim Redmond

Okay, I promise this is my last post on Gavin Newsom today, unless he resigns or something.

By ya gotta love this comment, by a smug and smiling Nathan Ballard, about Newsom’s attitude toward the media; “The mayor loves to talk to the media,” Ballard proclaims. “Just not today,” noted Channel 7’s Teresa Garcia.

“Maybe later,” Ballard says, slinking away.

The mayor’s future

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By Tim Redmond

Melissa Griffin thinks Gavin Newsom should run for …. U.S. Senate!

Actually, that’s not really news, since most political observer think it’s his only choice at this point (either that, or lose his celebrity status altogether, which I don’t think he could tolerate). Problem is, neither Dianne Feinstein nor Barbara Boxer seems ready to retire anytime soon, so he’ll have to wait a while — and what the hell will he do in the meantime?

There are all sorts of fun things to speculate on — Feinstein could decide to run for governor (highly unlikely, unless Jerry Brown decides not to run, which is also highly unlikely, unless Feinstein agreed that if she won, she’d appoint her old friend Jerry to her Senate seat, which would leave Newsom out in the cold.)

Or something could happen to one of the two (Feinstein is 76, Boxer 69), but both are in pretty good health, and it’s ugly for a politician to have to sit around hoping that someone dies so he can have the job.

I don’t think Feinstein’s running for governor, but if she does, she’ll win and choose the next senator, and it won’t be Gavin Newsom. So I’m afraid he’s going to be flailing around for a while (and at a certain point, after he’s termed out as mayor, maybe the Lt. Gov. job won’t look quite so bad).

Gavin’s long honeymoon is way over

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Gavin Newsom’s long, long political honeymoon is crashing — and his recent secret escape to Hawaii hasn’t helped him a bit. Even the Chron is now getting a little snippy with the mayor, who showed up back at work today but wouldn’t talk to the press.

Heather Knight goes so far as to bring up the issue Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has been pushing for months:

Ballard wouldn’t say whether the SFPD’s mayoral security detail accompanied the Newsoms to Hawaii. The cost of guarding the mayor and his family has been a dispute at City Hall recently because the mayor’s office and police department won’t say how much taxpayer money is used on it.

But we’ve got to say, if the choice is going to gubernatorial fundraisers or lounging on the beach in Hawaii, we bet his security staff was pleased with the latter.

Think about that sort of press: The public gets the image of the mayor ducking comment, ducking his responsibilities, ducking the whole damn city — while his bodyguards lounge on the beach on the taxpayer dime.

It probably didn’t go down that way, but still: Lookin’ bad, Gav.

Newsom and the next chapter

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By Tim Redmond

It’s a little weird that Gavin Newsom just disappeared after dropping out of the governor’s race. I had a feeling that he wasn’t going to hold up well under the pressure; he loves celebrity, loves to be on the A-List and loves to hear himself talk, but he can’t take a punch. And getting hit, a lot, is a big part of statewide politics. So I suspect that when he realized that this particular dream was over — clunk! — and that in two years, he’s not going to be anything but Gavin Newsom, citizen, he had a little meltdown.

This ought to be cause for concern: Somebody has to run the city for the next two years, and either Newsom is going to buck up, get back to work and try to change the way he does business — or he’s going to be a bitter lame-duck who can’t get anything accomplished except to go all Nixonian and attack his enemies.

I’m really hoping it’s the former — and now that he’s off his statewide horse, I think it’s safe to say that most of the supervisors, including the progressives he so disdains, would be more than willing to start working with him. I’d love to see the mayor come back from Hawaii with a clear understanding of what went wrong with his campaign. As we point out in an editorial today:

If the real Gavin Newsom had been anything like the campaign picture his handlers tried to present, he would have been a serious candidate. Newsom the candidate was a leader who brought San Franciscans together to get things accomplished. He was a progressive thinker who created universal health care and an effective budget process with a rainy day fund that prevented teacher layoffs. He was bold enough to challenge federal and state law on same-sex marriage and demand equality for all.

But Newsom the mayor was actually a snippy politician who refused to work with the Board of Supervisors and would never engage his opponents. He was great at press releases but short on accomplishments — universal health care and the rainy day fund were projects put together by Tom Ammiano, one of the supervisors the mayor disdained, who is now a state Assembly member. He refused to take a lead role fighting Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to promote clean energy and public power. And for all his success in moving same-sex marriage forward, he never once managed to bring that kind of progressive energy or policy-making to economic issues. His budget this year was the same as Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget — cuts and fees only. No new taxes.

As a result, the progressives and independent voters in his own town didn’t support his campaign — and without the environmentalists, labor, tenants, and progressive elected officials from San Francisco behind him, there was no way he could generate an honest grassroots movement.

I’d love to see the mayor reach out to the folks who have been snubbed all these years. Let’s talk about making the city budget work for everyone — and if that means some new revenue sources (which lots of other cities seemed to be able to pull off), at least he doesn’t have to worry about running statewide after raising local taxes.

He can take a hard look at where his cuts have really hit and try to work with labor to spread the pain a little better and chop from the top, not just the bottom.

He can become a real, serious clean-energy leader by strongly supporting CCA and taking a visible public role in the campaign against PG&E’s anti-public-power initiative.

The city’s ready for a Gavin, Chapter Two. And he wouldn’t be the first politician to rebound from a defeat, learn his lesson and start his career up again.

Any bets on whether that’s going to happen?

The battle for District 6

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The battle for District 6

tredmond@sfbg.com

The race to replace Chris Daly — the always progressive, sometimes hotheaded supervisor who has dominated District 6 politics for almost a decade — is becoming one of the most important battles of 2010, with the balance of power on the board potentially in play.

Through whatever accident of politics and geography, San Francisco’s even-numbered districts — five of which will be up for election next fall — haven’t tended to fall in the progressive column. Districts 2 (Marina-Pacific Heights) and 4 (Outer Sunset) are home to the city’s more conservative supervisors, Michela Alioto-Pier and Carmen Chu. District 8 (the Castro) has elected the moderate-centrist Bevan Dufty, and District 10 is represented by Sophie Maxwell, who sometimes sides with the progressives but isn’t considered a solid left vote.

District 6 is different. The South of Market area is among the most liberal-voting parts of San Francisco, and since 2000, Daly has made his mark as a stalwart of the board’s left flank. And while progressive are hoping for victories in districts 8 and 10 — and will be pouring considerable effort and organizing energy into those areas — Daly’s district (like District 5, the Haight/Western Addition; and District 9, Mission/Bernal Heights) ought to be almost a gimme.

But the prospect of three progressive candidates fighting each other for votes — along with the high-profile entry of Human Rights Commission director Theresa Sparks, who is more moderate politically — has a lot of observers scratching their heads.

Is it possible that the progressives, who have only minor disagreements on the major issues, will beat each other up and split the votes enough that one of the city’s more liberal districts could shift from the progressive to the moderate column?

A FORMIDABLE CANDIDATE


A few months ago, District 6 was Debra Walker’s to lose. The Building Inspection Commission member, who has lived in the district for 25 years, has a long history on anti-gentrification issues and strong support in the LGBT community.

Jim Meko, who also has more than a quarter century in the district and chaired the Western SOMA planning task force, was also a progressive candidate but lacked Walker’s name recognition and all-star list of endorsements.

Then rumors began to fly that school board member Jane Kim — who moved into the district a few months ago — was interested in running. Kim has been a leading progressive voice on the school board and has proven she can win a citywide race. She told me she’s thinking seriously about running, but hasn’t decided yet.

Having Kim in the race might not have been a huge issue — in District 9 last year, three strong progressives competed and it was clear that one would be the ultimate winner. But over the past two weeks, Theresa Sparks has emerged as a likely contender — and if she runs, which seems more than likely at this point, she will be a serious candidate.

Sparks picked up the kind of press most potential candidates would die for: a front-page story in SF Weekly and a long, flattering profile in San Francisco magazine, which called her "San Francisco’s most electrifying candidate since Harvey Milk." Sparks does have a compelling personal tale: a transgender woman who began her transition in middle age, survived appalling levels of discrimination, became a civil rights activist and now is seeking to be the first trans person elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

She has experience in business and politics, served on the Police Commission, and was named a Woman of the Year by the California State Assembly (thanks to her friend Sen. Mark Leno, who would likely support her if she runs).

"Anyone who knows Theresa knows that she is smart, a formidable candidate, can fundraise, and will run a strong race," Robert Haaland, a trans man and labor activist who supports Walker, wrote on a Web posting recently.

She’s also, by most accounts (including her own) a good bit more moderate than Walker, Meko, and Kim.

LAW AND ORDER


Sparks doesn’t define herself with the progressive camp: "I think it’s hard to label myself," she said. "I try to look at each issue independently." Her first major issue, she told me, would be public safety — and there she differs markedly from the progressive candidates. "I was adamantly against cuts to the police department," she said. "I didn’t think this was a good time to reduce our police force."

She said she supported Sup. David Campos’ legislation — which directs local law enforcement agents not to turn immigrant youth over to federal immigration authorities until they’re found guilty by a court — "in concept." But she told me she thinks the bill should have been tougher on "habitual offenders." She also said she supports Police Chief George Gascón’s crackdown on Tenderloin drug sales.

And she starts off with what some call a conflict of interest: Mayor Gavin Newsom just appointed her to the $160,000-a-year post as head of the HRC, and she doesn’t intend to step down or take a leave while she runs. She told me she doesn’t see any problem — she devoted more than 20 hours a week to Police Commission work while holding down another full-time job. "I don’t know why it would be an issue," she said, noting that Emily Murase ran for the school board while working as the director of the city’s Commission on the Status of Women.

But some see it differently. "It would be as if the school superintendent hired someone to a senior job just as that person decided to run for school board," Haaland said.

Sparks’ election would be a landmark victory for trans people. For a community that has been isolated, dismissed, and ignored, her candidacy (like Haaland’s 2004 run in District 5) will inspire and motivate thousands of people. And it’s a tough one for the left — opposing a candidate whose election would mean so much to so many members of one of the city’s most marginalized communities could be painful. "A lot of folks will say that the progressives will never support a transgender candidate," Haaland noted.

But in terms of the city’s geopolitics, it’s also true that electing Sparks would probably move District 6 out of the solidly progressive column.

"If we lose D6, it’s huge," Walker noted. "This is where most of the new development is happening, where law-and-order issues are playing out, where we can hope to save part of the city for a diverse population."

More than that, if progressives lose District 6 and don’t win District 8, it will be almost impossible to override mayoral vetoes and control the legislative agenda. And that’s huge. On issue like tenants rights, preventing evictions, controlling market-rate housing development, advancing a transit-first policy — and raising new revenue instead of cutting programs — the moderates on the board have been overwhelmingly on the wrong side.

Kim, for her part, doesn’t want to talk about the politics of the 2010 elections — except to say that she’s thinking about the race and will probably decide sometime in the next two months. But she agreed with my analysis of how any left candidate should view this election: if she’s going to enter, she needs to present a case that, on the issues that matter, she’d be a better supervisor than either of the two long-term district residents with strong progressive credentials already in the race.

"I don’t have an answer to that now," Kim told me. "And when I make my decision, I will."

The pension fund evictions

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The pension fund evictions

news@sfbg.com

In the wake of some big money-losing real estate deals, the California Public Employee’s Retirement System, the largest public pension fund in the nation, is reviewing its investment policies. But it’s too late to help working-class people displaced by two major CalPERS investments.

In 2006, at the height of the real estate bubble, CalPERS put $600 million into real estate deals in New York City and East Palo Alto that, critics say, have led to rent hikes, displacements, and harassment of moderate-income tenants.

The pension fund invested $100 million in Page Mill Properties II, which used the money, along with a sizable bank loan from Wachovia, in a 2006 building-purchase frenzy. The outfit wound up with more than 100 buildings in East Palo Alto — some 1,800 housing units. Another $500 million went to Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, cash that was used in the $5.4 billion deal to snag the Manhattan apartment complexes Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

Those investments are currently teetering on financial ruin. The San Jose Mercury News reported Sept. 9 that Page Mill Properties missed a $50 million dollar balloon payment on its $243 million loan. Now the properties owned by Page Mill are in receivership, placing the landlord’s future and CalPERS’ investment in peril. (Our calls to Page Mill haven’t been returned.)

A Sept. 9 New York Times article quoted real estate analysts predicting that Tishman Speyer and BlackRock would exhaust their funds by December and face loan defaults. A recent New York state court ruling may hold the companies responsible for an estimated $200 million in improper rent overcharges.

Rent overcharges — in violation of rent-control laws — is one piece of what some have labeled "predatory equity" schemes. A May 9, 2008 Times article described the idea: buy rental housing with a lot of middle-income tenants, remove those tenants from rent-controlled units, and re-rent the places to richer people at higher rent. The outcome was supposed to be a quick, profitable return on high-risk investments.

TROUBLE IN EAST PALO ALTO


The Page Mill properties in East Palo Alto border the more affluent neighborhoods of Palo Alto and Menlo Park on the west side of Highway 101. The neighborhood is home to service workers and public employees, many of them people of color. "It’s choice real estate, no question about it. I don’t think Page Mill’s plan was to serve the low-income tenants," Andy Blue of the advocacy group Tenants Together told us.

But local officials haven’t been thrilled with the results. "We are under siege by Page Mill Properties," East Palo Alto Mayor Ruben Abrica told the Mercury News last month. The city is locked in several court battles with the real estate outfit, including two over the city’s rent stabilization ordinance.

A resolution passed by the City Council last year stated that Page Mill had imposed rent increases beyond the 3 percent allowed by the ordinance, and urged CalPERS to intervene.

In an document e-mailed to CalPERS and obtained by Tenants Together, Page Mill claims its rent increases averaged 9 percent. But a class-action suit filed by several Page Mill tenants reported increases of more than 30 percent. A 2008 injunction filed by the city against Page Mill cited increases ranging from 5 percent to 40 percent.

According to the Fair Rent Coalition’s Web site, nearly half the people affected were cost-burdened as defined by government standards — meaning that more than 30 percent of their income already went to rent. The result of the rent increases, according to the city’s resolution, was the displacement of low-income tenants from their homes.

In fact, vacancy rates in East Palo Alto spiked after Page Mill came on the scene. According to numbers crunched by the Fair Rent Coalition and based on 2007 census data, the vacancy rate reached 24 percent in 2008. Before Page Mill started buying up property, vacancy rates were as low as 2 percent. Further, there were 182 evictions between 2007 and 2009 according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

RAW DEAL IN MANHATTAN


The Tishman Speyer deal has gotten a lot of press on the East Coast — much of it highly critical. The two massive housing complexes were built for middle-income renters and were one of the few moderate-income communities remaining in Manhattan.

David Jones, president of the Community Service Society of New York, wrote in a Sept. 17 Huffington Post piece that it was the intention of Tishman Speyer to shove aside moderate income to make room for more affluent renters who can afford the higher rents. He called it a "classic example of ‘predator equity.’"

Dina Levy, who works with the New York advocacy group Urban Homesteading, agrees with that assessment. She told us in a phone interview that it was obvious what plans the real estate firms had in mind for the properties.

She said that CalPERS, as a public agency, should have been more careful about getting involved in this sort of investment. She told us that other bankers she talked to thought the deal was toxic and stayed away. "Why would CalPERS put money into a deal that’s predicated on displacing families?" Levy asked.

The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 23 that CalPERS is extensively reviewing its relationship with Apollo Global Management, which handled a majority of its real estate equity. The fund also issued a new policy on its dealings with placement agents.

But so far, there has been no public investigation of the East Palo Alto and New York investments. Tenancy advocacy groups and East Palo Alto have asked CalPERS to take an active role in the management of Page Mill’s property.

"It doesn’t appear that the human impact of their investments were considered at all as part of this," Tenants Together executive director Dean Preston told us.

Preston’s group is trying to get CalPERS to adopt predator-free investment guidelines — a policy that already has been instituted by New York’s pension fund.

CALPERS DUCKS


In a February letter to Tenants Together, CalPERS called itself a "limited partner in the partnership" and expressed concern over the situation in East Palo Alto, stating that it is reviewing the allegations.

But tenant advocates say the giant fund has been missing in action. "There hasn’t been anything that they’ve told us they’ve been doing or that we’ve seen them do," Preston said.

That hands-off approach appears to violate CalPERS’ stated policies. Two months before allocating funds to Page Mill, CalPERS coauthored and signed the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI). No. 2 of the six principals states: "We will be active owners and incorporate ESG [environmental, social, and corporate governance] issues into our ownership policies and practices."

CalPERS has been eyeing real estate windfalls since 2002. According to memos and letters given to us by the Fair Rent Coalition, agency staffers that year were discussing an "opportunistic real estate fund." The result of those discussions: discretionary authority given to the senior investment officer for investments up to $100 million, with anything beyond that requiring approval from the chief investment officer.

Paradoxically, the compensation package that rates the senior investment officer’s performance has no provision for the social responsibilities. This coming year’s compensation package now includes a "Best Practices" measure on ethics and risk management. But there’s still no provision for social responsibility.

The California Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement, and Social Security monitors the pension fund, but CalPERS has autonomous authority over its investments. Chief consultant Karon Green told us that the committee is "going to watch to see what the board does and gauge our response based on that."

CalPERS has yet to respond to our inquiries, and hasn’t responded to our public records request for documents pertaining to what Page Mill and its CEO David Taran proposed for the East Palo Alto properties.

Similar requests were made by Tenants Together and the Fair Rent Coalition. CalPERS responded that those documents were confidential, although some e-mails were handed over to the advocacy groups the day before they were to meet with the CalPERS board in December 2008.

Although it calls itself a "limited partner," the e-mails illustrate a closer relationship between CalPERS and Page Mill. In an e-mail to CalPERS, Taran asked for a copy of the public records request made by a San Jose journalist so "we can review them and get back to you regarding what should not be produced and is confidential."

Preston points to the larger policy issue. "If there were a few bad real estate managers who were investing in this, then they should lose their jobs," he said. "But the idea that they just sweep under the rug their $100 million loss in East Palo Alto and their $500 million loss in New York, and whatever other schemes they’re involved in, is just unacceptable."

Christopher Lund, a Page Mill tenant and communications director for the Fair Rent Coalition, agrees. "They’ve gotten burned on some of these high-risk investments over the past year or two. But institutional memory is short and in 10 years when the real estate market is booming, if there’s no transparency and no oversight, this is going to happen somewhere else."

Am I illegal mama?

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Am I illegal mama?

OPINION "Am I illegal mama?" My mixed-race, Mexican, Chinese, Puerto Rican, and Irish six-year-old son gazed up at me with the largest of puppy eyes after we watched a corporate media television report on Mayor Gavin Newsom’s rejection of the legislation by David Campos that would give due process to migrant youth caught up in the criminal in-justice system.

After recovering from my sorrow at my son’s logical interpretation of our criminalizing, dehumanizing society, I went on to explain that as far as I was concerned no human is illegal — or an alien, for that matter. I told him that the whole concept of "illegal people" is rooted in our society’s attempt to create more products for the ever-hungry prison-industrial-complex by criminalizing poor youth of color, migrant workers, and houseless adults and elders in poverty for the sole act of being poor, seeking work not having housing, and so on. (Yes, I do talk to my son with truth and candor about such things because that is how my African-Boricua-Taina mama raised me.)

His discovery, albeit terrible, did not shock me. Rather, it was the final nudge I needed to release a public statement from all the multiracial, multicultural, multilingual mamas, grandmothers, aunties, uncles, fathers, and grandfathers I write with, make art with, co-mama with, co-teach with, and am in relationships with at POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE. We are people who believe that not only is no human being illegal, but that all these borders are false constructs of imperialism. We believe in the rights of children, if you believe that all children, and all people, deserve basic due process rights — which is all the sanctuary legislation by Sup. David Campos grants.

So Mayor Newsom, why reject this modest legislation? Have you become so blinded by your desire to be tough on crime that you don’t even recognize the voices and desires of your voting public in San Francisco, who overwhelmingly organized and spoke in favor of this?

But you can’t blame Newsom alone. Corporate media and corporate government fuels this notion of illegality in relation to human beings and has so ingrained the terms "illegal" and "alien" as ways of describing human beings that many people use these words without direct malice or intent to harm. So, like most insidious racially unjust policies and practices in American culture, these terms and notions roll along, gaining steam and power.

In an attempt to address this ongoing disinformation campaign about migration and immigrants, POOR Magazine launched the Voces de Inmigrantes en Resistencia Project to ensure that the silenced voices of immigrants in poverty are not only heard but are redefined as journalists, poets, media producers, and scholars.

After our talk, my son looked up at me and said, "Mama, I have an idea — if all us people, kids, and adults in the world all stand together holding hands, then they won’t be able to separate us or hurt any of us." Then he stopped and very slowly and carefully added, "Or crim-in-alize us." *

Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia is the coeditor, cofounder and co-madre of POOR Magazine. She is also the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing Up Homeless in America, published by City Lights.

Editorial: The next Gavin Newsom

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Editorial: The next Gavin Newsom

EDITORIAL It’s possible that Mayor Gavin Newsom took a long look at himself, his life, and his future last week and decided that politics — intense, 24/7/365 politics — wasn’t what he wanted right now. It’s possible (as Randy Shaw noted in Beyondchron.org) that Newsom "now joins longtime adversary Chris Daly in putting family relationships ahead of one’s political career." It’s possible that he never really wanted a future in electoral politics and was driven to run for governor less by personal ambition than by the desire of his advisors to see him in a higher political role.

In that case, Newsom has a responsibility to do the best job he can over the final two years of his term as mayor, then step away and find something else to do with his life.

But since it’s also possible — even likely — that Newsom still hopes to have a political career, and that his decision to drop out of the governor’s race was as much about his failure to gain any traction as it was about his family obligations, it’s worth talking about why his campaign failed and what he can and should do next.

For starters, Newsom never expected to beat Attorney General Jerry Brown in the big-donor fundraising battle. He was hoping to put together a grassroots operation, to mobilize the Obama constituency, and build a war chest with tens of thousands of small donors organized through social media and technology. And that kind of effort could have worked — Brown has name recognition and money, but not much else. It’s hard to imagine large masses of young activists donating time and energy to his primary campaign.

The problem was, those legions of California activists weren’t terribly excited about Newsom either. And there are good reasons for that — reasons Newsom needs to understand if he wants to run for statewide elected office in the future.

If the real Gavin Newsom had been anything like the campaign picture his handlers tried to present, he would have been a serious candidate. Newsom the candidate was a leader who brought San Franciscans together to get things accomplished. He was a progressive thinker who created universal health care and an effective budget process with a rainy day fund that prevented teacher layoffs. He was bold enough to challenge federal and state law on same-sex marriage and demand equality for all.

But Newsom the mayor was actually a snippy politician who refused to work with the Board of Supervisors and would never engage his opponents. He was great at press releases but short on accomplishments — universal health care and the rainy day fund were projects put together by Tom Ammiano, one of the supervisors the mayor disdained, who is now a state Assembly member. He refused to take a lead role fighting Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to promote clean energy and public power. And for all his success in moving same-sex marriage forward, he never once managed to bring that kind of progressive energy or policy-making to economic issues. His budget this year was the same as Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget — cuts and fees only. No new taxes.

As a result, the progressives and independent voters in his own town didn’t support his campaign — and without the environmentalists, labor, tenants, and progressive elected officials from San Francisco behind him, there was no way he could generate an honest grassroots movement in a Democratic primary.

Now he’s back from the campaign trail — and he has two years to pick up on the lessons of his ignominious political collapse. If he wants any kind of a political future, he needs to change. First, he needs to start engaging and working with the supervisors — even the ones who disagree with him. (Showing up for "question time" would be a huge step). He needs to take the city’s structural budget deficit seriously and present plans for progressive taxes to help close it. He needs to show he can take on big powerful local interests — PG&E, for example — by opposing the utility’s anti-public power initiative and putting his political capital on the line to support community choice aggregation.

Newsom the imperial mayor has, we hope, been a bit humbled. Let’s see if he comes out of this chapter as an embittered, angry (and ultimately unsuccessful) mayor committed to punishing his enemies — or a serious city leader who can live up to his own hype.

Okay, the SF results are in

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By Tim Redmond

Or at least, enough to call the election as far as I’m concerned. With about half the votes counted, nothing has changed from my last post : Prop. A wins, of course. But so does Prop. B — which may go down as the most significant outcome of the evening. It’s a vote of confidence in the Board of Supervisors, especially since there was no real Yes campaign and the No campaign played on the supposed mistrust in government, which apparently isn’t working in San Francisco.

Prop. C wins, of course. Prop. D loses, no surprise. Prop E was always a winner.

I honestly didn’t think Prop. B had a chance. Neither did a lot of its backers. So the district supes are more popular than the mayor or a lot of the established pundits think.

Editorial: The next Gavin Newsom

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Will Newsom emerge as an embittered, angry, and ultimately unsuccessful mayor committed to punishing his enemies or a serious leader who can live up to his own hype?

EDITORIAL It’s possible that Mayor Gavin Newsom took a long look at himself, his life, and his future last week and decided that politics — intense, 24/7/365 politics — wasn’t what he wanted right now. It’s possible (as Randy Shaw noted in Beyondchron.org) that Newsom "now joins longtime adversary Chris Daly in putting family relationships ahead of one’s political career." It’s possible that he never really wanted a future in electoral politics and was driven to run for governor less by personal ambition than by the desire of his advisors to see him in a higher political role.

In that case, Newsom has a responsibility to do the best job he can over the final two years of his term as mayor, then step away and find something else to do with his life.

Which union got hit hardest?

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By Melanie Ruiz

It’s not fair!…Or not equal, anyway.

A chart we’ve created — you can see it here (PDF) — shows how the city’s unions fared during the layoffs and forced givebacks of the last budget cycle. The cuts shown are for Fiscal Year 2009-2010. The layoff figures cover the past three fiscal years.

The figures show that Service Employee International Union (SEIU) Local 1021, representing many front-line workers, took by far the largest hit. For example, Local 1021’s city employees and per diem nurses gave back 3.22% of their total pay and benefits base, whereas the Municipal Executives’ Association (MEA), which represents higher-paid managers, only gave back 1.5%.

The chart, compiled from data provided by the Controller’s Office, seems to support the argument that Local 1021 members have been making for months: Mayor Gavin Newsom has balanced the budget by cutting front-line, lower-paid workers instead of skimming the fat from upper management corridors.

Ed Kinchley, a member of Local 1021’s health care division bargaining team, says he “doesn’t understand why the mayor doesn’t get it — that the people at our level, who are often providing services directly to the general public, need to be properly compensated and treated with some respect.” The numbers show that Local 1021 has been hit hardest by layoffs. Kinchley says it’s “blatantly unfair” that over the past three fiscal years, 82% of the city’s layoffs have been from SEIU bargaining units.

There are more managers than in the past, yet fewer line workers to manage. Kinchley doesn’t see any sensible explanation for these figures, “except for observing the mayor to be out to get us and our union.” For laborers on the front-lines, there is something important that the numbers don’t convey – the consequences of real people loosing their their livelihoods and San Franciscans losing crucial public services.

Nathan Ballard, Newsom’s press spokesperson, hasn’t yet responded to our request for comment.

The Board of Supervisors Budget Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow on legislation by Sup. John Avalos that would trim management positions to save health-care workers; Sup. Chris Daly has another bill to restore funding for front-line health workers. “We will be there,” says Kinchley. “We are looking with a lot of interest in supporting what Supervisors Avalos and Daly are doing at the board.”

Why the Campos legislation matters

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By Tim Redmond

The mayor doesn’t like the Campos sanctuary legislation, and won’t even debate Campos over it (chickenshit; no wonder he couldn’t get elected governor).

So here’s what the mayor doesn’t want to talk about: Kids who are doing nothing wrong — good kids, San Francisco kids going to high school and getting good grades — winding up hauled off the streets and shipped to out-of-town detention centers for possible deportation.

in mid-september, an 18 year old client of mine, let’s call him carlos, went missing for two days. he was waiting for his uncle at a bus stop on 9th and market where a witness told his uncle that the police took him away. his family called the police to locate him, but could not find him. finally, carlos called his family and told them he was in an ICE detention center in arizona. apparently, an undercover police officer tackled him from behind and started asking him questions in english. he didn’t understand and this seemed to upset the police officer more. carlos said the officer hit him, put him in a police car, and took him to 850 bryant. he didn’t get a phone call until he was in arizona.

Thanks to MissionMission for that story. I can tell you, there are many, many more like it in San Francisco.

Campos invites Newsom to debate immigrant youth policy

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Text by Sarah Phelan

Sup. David Campos has responded to Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Oct. 28 veto of his proposal to restore due process to all youth in the city’s juvenile justice system… by inviting Newsom to publicly debate the issue.

Campos said he is extending the invitation because the mayor’s veto, “raises more questions than it answers,”

Campos noted that a veto-proof majority of the Board support his legislation, “because it advances the public safety, inclusion and anti-discrimination goals of our city’s 20-year-old sanctuary ordinance, and because it was carefully vetted with the City Attorney’s Office, which approved it to form.”

Observed that there has been, “ a lot of misinformation about what federal law does and does not require in this context,” Campos also sought to clarify how federal law intersects with the duties of local city employees.

“To be clear, city officials have no affirmative legal duty under federal law to expend limited local resources and funding on immigration enforcement,” Campos said.

Campos cited a July 1, 2008 public memo from the City Attorney’s Office which stated that federal civil law does not require the city to give federal authorities information about children in its juvenile justice system that are suspected of being undocumented.

“In fact, a plethora of legal experts from Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, and UC Davis Law School have all agreed that there is no federal duty to inquire or report,” Campos said. “Moreover, the confidentialiity of juvenile records is protected under state law.”

Noting that the City Attorney’s office and legal experts have made clear that his proposed amendment is “a legally tenable measure,” Campos observed that, “the point at which a referral of a minor is made to ICE is ultimately not a legal decision but a policy decision.”

Campos said he feels a public discussion is appropriate in light of recent comments that Newsom plans not to enforce the amendment.

“The Board and the people of San Francisco deserve to understand more fully why you intend to ignore this policy and the time honored democratic processes followed in enacting it,” Campos said.

“At stake is the protection of innocent immigrant children that have been unjustly separated from their families,” he wrote, citing Juvenile Probation Department 2008 statistics, which show that the majority (68%) of arrested youth were later found innocent of the alleged charges.

“It is important to clarify that there is a huge distinction between child who is merely suspected of having committed a crime and a child who is found by a court to have committed a crime ,”Campos said. “Indeed, our criminal justice system rests on the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty; that is why providing youth an opportunity to contest a charge in court is a matter of basic due process.”

Observing that UC Davis Professor Bill Ong Hing confirmed to the Board’s Public Safety Committee on Oct.5 that there is nothing in federal and state law that would nullify his amendment, Campos said, “The current policy is creating a climate of fear in immigrant communities, which means that immigrants who have been victims or witnesses to crimes are afraid to come forward. When we uphold the fundamental American value of due process for all of our city’s youth, that will make all of us safer as well.”

Newsom vetoes sanctuary amendment, Board mulls options

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

Estella15bc.jpg
All mothers of immigrant youth, like Estella (center) are asking, is for the City to give their kids a day in court before handing them over to the feds for possible deportation. Is that really too much to ask?

No one was surprised when Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed the Board’s newly passed sanctuary ordinance amendment today. That’s because the mayor, in between leaking confidential memos, has been threatening to do that for months

But Newsom’s move leaves the Board mulling its options, including legal action, since mayors don’t seem to have the authority to refuse to enact legislation that’s been approved by a veto-proof majority of supervisors.

Newsom’s move also raises the question of the whereabouts of the 114 juveniles who have been picked up by federal immigration authorities since the mayor began requiring city probation officers to act like extensions of the federal government.

Under the policy that Newsom ordered without public input or review in June 2008, city officials are required to refer kids to US immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) based solely on allegations that they have committed a felony and on the probation officers’ own suspicions that these kids are undocumented.

That seems like a huge burden to place on the probation officers’ shoulders. And meanwhile, we are not aware of
anyone in the Mayor’s Office giving any kind of public accounting of where these 114 youth,s who have been disappeared with the help of our tax payer dollars, are being held, or whether they actually have been deported.

Meanwhile, immigrant advocates report that they have had zero success getting Newsom to meet them in person, in the 16 months since the mayor ordered his policy shift, last summer.

Recently, faced with leaked memos and a damaging misinformation campaign , it’s fallen to the parents of these disappeared children to explain the painful consequences of having their kids unjustly ripped from their families, and still the mayor refuses to meet with them.

Newsom claims that the sanctuary policy “was never meant to serve as a shield for people accused of committing serious crimes.”

If that’s true, then the policy needs the Campos amendment to make it a just and fair treatment of immigrant youth.

Under the Campos amendment, any immigrant juvenile found guilty of having committed a serious crime will be deported. But those found innocent will be spared the terrifying experience of finding themselves in federal hands, awaiting deportation, even though they never actually committed a felony crime.

Campos has repeatedly pointed out that federal law does not require city officials to act as federal agents.

But so far, Newsom’s policy has done just that, and has already led to a 15-year old girl being whisked off to Miami, because she got in a fight with her sister, a 14-year old boy being taken into federal custody because he brought a BB gun to school, another youth being picked up by ICE for graffiti infractions, all because San Francisco probation officials picked up the phone and called ICE, before those kids had a chance to prove their innocence,

That’s why eight supervisors, representing a city a third of whose inhabitants are foreign born, voted yesterday to make a minor amendment that will majorly improve Newsom’s policy. And for that, the Board should be commended.

Sanctuary showdown

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Sanctuary showdown

sarah@sfbg.com

City Hall echoed with delighted whoops of Si se puede! last week, as a veto-proof majority of the Board of Supervisors voted to give juvenile immigrants their day in court before referring them to federal immigration authorities.

But the battle over the civil rights of immigrant kids is far from over, as Mayor Gavin Newsom, Police Chief George Gascón and U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello all insist that they will ignore or defy the city ordinance.

That puts the city in a strange legal position: the supervisors have passed a law that the mayor won’t implement — so it’s not clear what will happen next.

But here’s what is clear — and alarming: under Newsom’s policy, which the sanctuary legislation by Sup. David Campos would overturn, large numbers of immigrant kids are facing possible deportation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Virginia Kice told the Guardian that 150 juveniles from San Francisco have been referred to ICE since June 11, 2008 when Newsom began requiring that the city’s probation officials refer youth to ICE on arrest.Of those, 114 have come into federal custody (and may be facing deportation). Campos, who came to this country from Guatemala as an undocumented teen, said his legislation is a "balanced response" to the shift in sanctuary policy

Under Newsom’s policy, city probation officials are required to refer juveniles booked on a felony and appear undocumented to ICE at the time of arrest.

But under Campos’ amendment, ICE referral would not occur unless a juvenile justice court finds the youth guilty as charged.

Mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard short-circuited the immigrant community’s hopes for due process by announcing that Newsom simply plans to ignore Campos’ legislation.

"The Campos bill isn’t worth the paper it’s written on — it’s unenforceable and he knows that," Ballard told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Campos says that’s nonsense. "The whole point of having a sanctuary ordinance is that we choose not to be in the business of federal immigration enforcement," Campos said. "We are not an arm of ICE."

In a phone interview, Russoniello told the Guardian that Newsom’s policy accords juveniles due process at the federal level, and that federal immigration authorities are not interested in going after people who are obeying laws or are simply out of status.

"Our focus is guns, gangs, and drugs," Russoniello said. "But people who are detained should have no expectation that they will not be deported."

In other words, kids who are arrested on felony charges — who may not be guilty — could be deported anyway.

"Juvenile Probation Department alerts ICE when an individual comes in that they believe may be a deportable juvenile alien," Kice said. "We dispatch an officer to interview the juvenile, elicit biographical information, and do background checks to see if they have a legal basis for being in the country."

So where are the kids Newsom has turned over in the past year? Hard to say. Kice said the federal Human and Health Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement is responsible for ensuring that kids receive appropriate care and protection. "We no longer deal with the custody issues related to juvenile cases," Kice added.

Russoniello said he doesn’t know the whereabouts of the 114 juveniles placed in federal custody since Newsom’s policy took effect in June 2008, but dismissed such concerns as "pretextual."

"Before June 2008, the city’s pretext for sending [Honduran teenagers] back home was to reunite them with their family. Now the complaints are they are being ripped away from their families," he said. "The Campos legislation is mute, it’s irrelevant, and it’s contrary to federal law, and I think the mayor and the chief of police both agree."

Chief Gascón, concerned about the lack of due process and kangaroo courts at the federal level that he experienced as police chief in Mesa, Ariz,, recently told the Guardian he hoped to see Campos and Newsom find a compromise.

Gascón, who was appointed by the mayor, now says he believes Newsom’s hands are tied because of federal laws. "I don’t think the mayor has a choice," Gascón told the Chronicle.

But Sheriff Mike Hennessey, whom ICE pressured to amend his department’s policy toward immigrant detainees last year, thinks the Campos amendment is reasonable. "I don’t think we want to be reporting people who aren’t worthy of prosecution," Hennessey said. "Federal law says that if a probation officer violated the Campos’ amendment, they could not be penalized, under federal law," Hennessey explained. "That’s different from saying they are mandated to report juveniles to the federal authorities."

Juvenile Probation Department Chief William Siffermann told the Guardian that his agency "will continue to discharge its duties and responsibilities in a manner that conforms with all laws and await the outcome of the San Francisco legislative process."

"At the conclusion of that, we will confer with the city attorney and outside legal counsel around any impacts this would have on existing protocols."

Chop from the top

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Chop from the top

rebeccab@sfbg.com

At the Oct. 23 groundbreaking ceremony for the rebuild of San Francisco General Hospital, Mayor Gavin Newsom sang the praises of the public hospital’s staff.

"To all the men and women who work in this remarkable place that changes people’s lives each and every day … every time I come here, I realize you’re not just saving patients, you’re taking care of families," the mayor said. "It’s so difficult to see someone in pain. But to see the smile and the pride their loved ones have because of the job you guys have done is something magical."

Yet some health care workers, marked by their signature purple and yellow T-shirts, clearly weren’t feeling the magic. As Newsom waxed poetic onstage, they stood clustered in the audience displaying a banner proclaiming, "Keep Public Health Healthy." It was meant as a reminder that SEIU Local 1021, the union that represents certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and clerical workers facing significant slashes in pay in the wake of a city budget cuts, is still pushing to have their salaries restored.

On Sept. 15, 500 CNAs and clerical workers received notice that they would be laid off, although some would be reclassified at lower-paying positions, effective Nov. 15. For the CNAs being demoted, the reductions amount to an average of $15,000 annual reduction in pay. For the clerical workers facing downgrades, the cuts reflect an average loss of $5,000.

It wasn’t the first time SEIU workers turned out at one of Newsom’s public appearances. Beginning in August, union members began vocally characterizing the layoffs and demotions as a civil ights issue because they disproportionately affect women and people of color. According to a Department of Public Health assessment, 96 percent of the affected employees are people of color and 79 percent are women.

Mayoral Chief of Staff Steve Kawa insisted this wasn’t an attack on the city’s comparable-worth policy, which guarantees equal pay for work done primarily by women. "We would not do anything against comparable worth, " Kawa told the Guardian. "Even with the change in status in the wage, these workers will be making 18 percent above market."

But Sup. John Avalos framed it differently. "These people are some of the lowest paid frontline workers in the city," he pointed out a recent Board of Supervisors meeting. "I have spoken to many of them in my district. They’re often single women who are raising children, who don’t know how they’re going to survive."

After angry SEIU members made a series of boisterous appearances at Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign events, the mayor finally agreed to meet with them in talks that were mediated by San Francisco Labor Council head Tim Paulson.

"[Newsom] complained at some length during the first meeting about us attacking him," noted SEIU member Ed Kinchley. "We responded that we’re really not attacking him. What we were criticizing was a policy that goes after classifications filled predominantly by women and people of color."

The ongoing flap took a new twist at the Oct. 22 Board of Supervisors meeting, when Sups. Avalos and Chris Daly each announced plans to find funding to restore the public health workers’ salaries. Avalos proposed skimming some excess from management positions, which have swelled in recent years.

"Before cutting vital city services … we should first look to those who have the most, not to those who have the least," Avalos noted. He said he plans to ask the city controller to draft an annual salary ordinance that would reclassify top management positions in order to free enough funding to stop the demotions and wage reductions for the CNAs and clerical workers.

According to a report issued by the city controller, citywide management positions have grown from 739 in budget year 1998-99 to 1,075 in 2008-09, a 68 percent increase. Some individuals were promoted with salary increases ranging from $20,000 to $40,000 annually.

"I don’t know how one does that," Kawa said when asked about Avalos’ proposal. "It doesn’t make any sense to me."

Daly, meanwhile, noted that Department of Public Health Chief Financial Officer Gregg Sass had highlighted a preliminary projection for an $8 million DPH budget surplus in a Sept. 15 memo. Daly announced that he plans to request the money be flagged to go back into the department to stave off deskilling of frontline workers.

When asked if this money was available to fund the CNAs and clerical workers, Sass responded, "I don’t think it is." Emphasizing that it’s a preliminary figure, he added that "any additional funding, should it exist, is a component of the city’s overall ability to stay on budget this year and offset any shortfalls in city revenue … and address the large projected deficit for next year. I don’t see how it could be seen as ‘available’ until the city has better projections of [other tax revenue]."

The union had planned for a lengthy session with mayoral staff to continue negotiations on the same day of the supervisors’ meeting. But when Kawa learned about Avalos’ proposed legislation, he got angry and walked out, according to one SEIU member.

Asked if proposed legislation detracted from the negotiations, Kawa told us that "it made the last one difficult because it was somewhat of a surprise. And usually when you’re in good-faith negotiations, you share with the other folks the activities you’re up to so that you know that they’re actually there to negotiate in good faith."

Back at SF General after the groundbreaking ceremony, Newsom posed for photos with top public health officials, scooping shovels full of loose dirt with golden spades. The giddy atmosphere dissipated when the mayor turned around to find himself ringed by a group of reporters vying for a chance to pepper him with questions. He responded to most of their queries in typical loquacious fashion. But when the Guardian asked him to comment on Avalos’ proposed legislation, his face darkened slightly. "I don’t have any comment," he responded gruffly. Then he was whisked away for more photographs.

Newsom lacks authority to decide what’s legal, Campos says

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

campos2ndvote.jpg
Campos moments after Board approves his legislation to give juvenile immigrants their day in court.

Sup. David Campos said today that Mayor Gavin Newsom lacks the authority to ignore the city’s newly amended sanctuary ordinance. And he rebuked the mayor for making it sound, in comments Newsom made to Fox News, as if being a suspect is the same thing as being a convicted criminal.

“I think it’s important for us to look at the facts before we generalize and make comments,” Campos said.

Campos’ comments came as a veto-proof majority of the Board approved the second reading of Campos proposal to give immigrant juveniles their day in court before handing them over to the feds.

Estella15b.jpg
Flanked by Ariana Gil-Nafarrate of Mujeres Unidas y Activas and Angela Chan of the Asian Law Caucus, Estella, an immigrant mother, recalls how ICE put a hold on her 15-year-old daughter after a fight in school.

Campos proposal changes a policy that Newsom ordered in June 2008, after city probation officials were apprehended in Texas, escorting Hondurans teens to their country of origin.

Campos agrees that the city should halt that practice, and that city officials should refer juvenile felons to ICE. But he disagrees with Newsom’s current practice, which has led to 150 kids being referred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.) to ICE, without first having had the chance to establish their innocence.

Campos says he expects the city to change this policy, as stipulated under his amendment. He says Newsom has 10 days to veto his legislation, and the Board has 30 days to override it, after which the City must change its policy so juveniles are not reported to ICE until they are found guilty of a felony by a juvenile justice.

To illustrate his point about the limits of mayoral power, Campos referred to the California Supreme Court ruling that was triggered by Newsom’s 2004 announcement that he intended to start marrying same-sex couples.

“Even though we have a strong mayor system, the power of the mayor is not absolute,” Campos said. “That’s why we have the Board to enact laws that are reflective of the will of the people.”

If mayors were able to selectively ignore laws, Campos pointed out, “That would be depriving people affected by that law their due process.”

“A public official faithfully upholds the constitution by complying with the mandates of the legislature, leaving the courts the decision of whether the mandates are valid,” Campos said, referring to the state Supreme Court ruling.

“It’s a fallacy that elected officials can ignore a law enacted by the legislature,” Campos continued. “When this law is passed, when the mayor decides to veto it, when the Board decides to override it, we ask the Mayor to do his constitutional duty: let this law be implemented as the system requires it to be. We expect nothing less.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” Campos said, referring to the community’s battle to amend a unilateral policy decision that Newsom made 16 months ago. “This is a proud day for San Francisco, this is a victory for the community. This shows that San Francisco is committed to the notion that we are all human beings, that we are all treated equally.”

Asked about Newsom’s claims that the Campos amendment opens up the entire sanctuary ordinance to challenge, Campos said, “I think the biggest danger to the sanctuary policy was the mayor’s decision to release a confidential memo.”

Asked about Newsom’s claims that the Campos amendment opens up city workers to civil and criminal lawsuits, Campos said “I don’t think he can point to any instance where a city employee has been found liable for following sanctuary ordinance.”

Noting that the sanctuary ordinance just celebrated its 20th anniversary, Campos added, “We expect the mayor and every employee of the city to follow laws that have been duly enacted and If the Mayor does not enact it, then Board will look at its options, including a legal challenge.”

Campos words were followed by the tearful recollections of an immigrant single mother called Estella, who talked about how her 15-year old daughter had an ICE hold placed on her after she got into fight at school.

Following Estella’s public testimony, Abigail Trillin, a staff attorney with LEgal Services for Children, said she like someone from the Mayor’s Office to publicy debate the sanctuary issue with Campos.

“If the mayor’s position is that a minor, who has not been found guilty, needs to be reported to immigration, let’s talk about that,” Trillin said. ” But let’s not put fake federal laws in the way. There is no federal law that says juveniles that are arrested on a felony must be reported. That’s a smoke and mirror thing.”

Pointing to recent statements from law enforcement chiefs in Los Angeles and Sacramento who are supportive of sanctuary laws, Trilliin added, “Anyone who knows about juvenile justice and public safety knows that reporting people who haven’t been found guilty destroys community trust.”

Editor’s Notes

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Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

The new police chief, who started out with a lot of promise, has been sending some very bad signals the past week.

Chief George Gascón told us earlier this month that he was sympathetic to the efforts of Sup. David Campos to protect immigrant kids from deportation. He also said he agreed that the cops and probation officers shouldn’t be deciding when to call in the federal immigration authorities. Yet now that the mayor said he will defy the Campos legislation (see page 11), Gascón told the San Francisco Chronicle he’s siding with Newsom. That’s a pretty cosmic wimp-out — and it only took a few days.

Then there’s the shake-up of top staff — which looks to me like a total cave-in to the Police Officers Association. The POA types (who have been associated with a lot of bad stuff over the years) got tough-guy cop Greg Corrales assigned back as captain of Mission Station (where he got in trouble during the Fajitagate scandal, but ultimately faced no discipline. They got Greg Suhr, who had been demoted on a pretty bogus technicality, a new career shot as captain of the Bayview station.

Paul Chignell, one of the rare almost-liberals in the department who was doing a good job at Taraval Station, has been exiled to the night shift. Al Casciato, who supported community policing, has been bounced out as captain of Northern Station in the Western Addition. "This completely belies Gascón’s promises about community policing," Sup. Ross Mirkarimi told me. "These unannounced and unplanned rotations (of district captains) undermine the whole community-policing idea."

And perhaps most alarming, the chief wants to bring back the old SFPD intelligence unit — once again turning local cops into spies.

The intelligence squad was a nightmare. Back in the early 1990s, an intel cop was spying on Arab American and Palestinian groups and passing along the data to the private Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Cops were spying on peace activists and protesters. They even had a file on me. When all that started to come out, the city properly shut the spy shop down.

Now Gascón wants to bring it back, citing fears about terrorism. As if there aren’t enough government agencies spying on people already. And SFPD has enough trouble solving murders and keeping its own house in order — opening a spy agency is a really, really bad idea.

Gascón is also refusing to tell Mirkarimi and the other supervisors how much taxpayer money gets spent sending officers around with the mayor as he campaigns up and down the state. I could argue that the Newsom for Governor campaign ought to reimburse the city for those expenses — but Gascón won’t even produce a gross figure. His claim: Telling the taxpayers how much the mayor’s security detail costs threaten Newsom’s security.

I don’t buy it. We’re not asking for protection plans, schedules, deployments, or anything else — just a bottom-line cash number. SFPD doesn’t need spies or a black budget. If Gascón thinks that style is going to work here, he’s going to run into trouble, quick.

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