Mirkarimi

The dirty fight over clean power

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› amanda@sfbg.com

A charter amendment for renewable energy and public power appears headed for the November ballot, and already Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is rounding up front groups and touting inaccurate figures in an attempt to scuttle the plan.

The San Francisco Clean Energy Act, introduced by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, would mandate that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission "produce a comprehensive plan for providing clean, secure, cost-effective electricity for city departments and residents and businesses."

If passed, San Francisco would exceed state standards by requiring 51 percent clean, renewable energy by 2017; 75 percent by 2030; and 100 percent by 2040. Workforce development is also part of the plan, and if it’s determined that public ownership of the grid is the way to go, any employees fired by PG&E will be hired by the SFPUC.

"The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is talking about taking over PG&E," Brandon Hernandez, the corporation’s manager of government relations, said at a June 27 Rules Committee hearing on the legislation. "PG&E’s system is not for sale," he asserted. He then went on to say a takeover would cost the city "at least $4 billion."

PG&E spokesperson Darlene Chiu told the Guardian: "That’s our estimate for what our system costs in San Francisco."

But the California State Board of Equalization says all of PG&E’s state-assessed San Francisco property was worth $1.2 billion in 2007. The board’s appraisers assess PG&E’s property for tax purposes and their final figure includes millions of dollars of property that San Francisco would not want to own.

PG&E threw other punches at the city. Hernandez threatened the loss of as much as $29 million per year in taxes and charitable giving. "We no longer will be contributing to San Francisco’s nonprofits and service organizations," he said of groups that received $5 million from PG&E last year.

That money buys some political loyalty. The only organizations that spoke against the measure — the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the Bay Area Council, and the A. Phillip Randolph Institute — all received bucks deluxe from PG&E. Between 2004 and 2006, the Chamber of Commerce Foundation received $166,000 from the utility; the Bay Area Council and Economic Forum grossed $132,500; and APRI banked slightly more than $100,000.

The Chamber’s vice president of public policy, Rob Black, criticized the move toward municipalization because it would make San Francisco, like other municipal utilities, exempt from the state-mandated 20 percent renewable energy by 2010. "The Los Angeles utility is at 48 percent coal. That’s not green, that’s not renewable. That’s something we need to be very careful about," he told the committee.

According to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, their power mix is actually 44 percent coal. But Black didn’t bother to check; he just took his figures from PG&E moments before, while conferring with Hernandez and Chiu. When questioned by the Guardian, Black said, "They didn’t come to me. I went to them."

He reiterated the concern that municipally-owned power isn’t required by the state to be clean and green, and becoming so could increase rates. "If we’re creating cheaper energy, where’s the incentive to do conservation?" he asked.

According to statistics from the meeting, the average PG&E household spends $74.55 per month on electricity, with 12 percent of the energy used hailing from renewable resources. An equivalent customer in the Sacramento Municipal Utility District has a bill of $46.60 for 18 percent renewable.

APRI’s James Bryant said his Bayview community group has issues with the costs and the idea that former PG&E employees would be hired by the city and subsequently receive worse retirement plans.

When asked if he was there because his organization gets money from PG&E, Bryant said, "Not really." He added, "I don’t have anything to do with their decisions. They don’t have anything to do with my decisions.

"Of all the amoral things PG&E does, they fund very worthy grassroots organizations and then lean on them to speak against things," Sup. Tom Ammiano said when expressing his support for the legislation. "Not only is San Francisco going to have public power, the state of California is going to have public power."

Other public comments overwhelmingly supported the measure. Some energy activists have been concerned that the legislation would derail or delay efforts to move toward renewables through the community choice aggregation (CCA) program.

Fighting for the right to party

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› steve@sfbg.com

It’s become increasingly difficult and expensive to stage street fairs, concerts, or other parties in San Francisco, a trend chronicled by the Guardian over the past two years (see "Death of fun," 05/23/06 and "Death of fun, the sequel," 04/25/07). But event and nightlife promoters have responded with a proposed ballot measure that would write the right to party into the city’s charter.

The "Promoting and Sustaining Music and Culture in San Francisco" charter amendment would acknowledge the importance of special events to the city’s character, streamline the process for obtaining city permits, and require the nine-plus city departments that promoters must deal with to submit reports outlining how their policies and fee structures will need to be altered to comply with the new mandate for fun.

The measure was developed by the Save SF Culture Coalition, whose members include the Entertainment Commission, Black Rock City LLC (which stages Burning Man as well as events here in town), the Late Night Coalition, and the Outdoor Events Coalition (a group formed last year to counter city policies and neighbor complaints that threatened to scuttle the North Beach Jazz Festival, How Weird Street Faire, concerts in Golden Gate Park, and other events). The measure is sponsored by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and has picked up four other supervisors as cosponsors, so it needs just one more vote for the Board of Supervisors to place it on the November ballot.

"It was long overdue that the city produce a master plan and vision that promotes a sustainable environment for music, culture, and entertainment throughout the city," Mirkarimi said.

In fact, event promoters say they’ve been hit by a quadruple whammy that threatens their livelihoods and the vibrant nature of the city: rising fees charged by city departments looking to close budget gaps, increased concern over alcohol consumption and other liability issues, more conflicts over noise in increasingly dense neighborhoods such as SoMa, and the ability of a handful of complaining neighbors to create event-killing permit conditions. And those last two problems are only likely to get worse as the city grows.

"We want the city to create a sustainability policy that will save our outdoor events in the face of all the development that is going on," said John Wood, a member of the Late Night Coalition and a promoter who also serves on the San Francisco Love Fest board of directors. "We need to be able to say, ‘This is city policy and you’re not following it.’"

Promoter and club owner Terrance Alan was an original member of the Entertainment Commission, which was formed in 2003 in part to resolve complaints over noise and manage relations between nightclubs and their neighbors. But he said the agency has little staff and no leverage over other city departments involved in permitting, which includes the Planning, Building, Port, Police, Fire, Health, and Recreation and Park commissions and departments, as well as the Municipal Transportation Authority and Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT), the body that approves street-closure permits.

"We have been completely unsuccessful at getting their attention," Alan said. But this new measure, he said, would "set the stage for ongoing discussions that need to be happening."

Or as Wood put it, "It would give us ammunition in the future battles we’re going to have. It’s not going to make those battles go away."

Recreation and Park Department spokesperson Rose Dennis said her agency must deal with many competing concerns, ranging from budgetary issues to being responsive to complaints raised by citizens. "We understand that it might feel heavy-handed, but we have a duty to do so because we have to balance a number of concerns," Dennis said. "[Event promoters] have a bottom line, and we have a bottom line. We have a lot of people to serve."

Yet she said the department will comply with the measure and adjust its policies, fees, and procedures as needed if the measure is approved by voters.

At a June 27 Board of Supervisors Rules Committee hearing, there was lots of support for the measure and no real opposition. "We’re concerned about the future of arts and culture in San Francisco," Steven Raspa, who does special events for Black Rock City, said at the hearing.

All three committee members voiced support for the measure, but because it needed some minor changes, a final vote was pushed back to July 9. Proponents characterize the measure as trying to bring some balance to a situation in which the loudest wheels — those of NIMBYs complaining about noise or party detritus — keep getting greased.

"The bureaucracy is hearing from these neighborhood groups all the time," Wood said. "We feel that we are the majority and we need to demonstrate that politically."

Amanda Witherell contributed to this report.

To read the measure or learn more, visit www.savesfculture.com

Save SF’s campaign finance program

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OPINION In 2000, San Francisco voters approved a system of public financing of campaigns for the Board of Supervisors, which in 2006 was expanded to the mayoral race. By eliminating the need for candidates to raise large amounts of private money, the program has been extremely successful at helping sever the link between big money and political decisions. But now this flagship program is threatened: Mayor Gavin Newsom is proposing to raid several million dollars from the public campaign fund.

Last September the mayor put forth a plan to take $6 million from the fund and give it to one of his pet programs: SF Promise. The cost of this program was only $525,000 the first year, begging the question of why the mayor was grabbing $6 million from the fund. Of course, Newsom had actively opposed public financing for the mayoral race, so it’s possible he wanted to defund the program. Supervisor Aaron Peskin wisely introduced legislation to fund SF Promise from the city’s reserve funds, thereby warding off the raid.

Now another proposal has surfaced to remove $5 million from the fund. According to Ethics Commission spending projections, removing $5 million will create a $1.7 million to $4.3 million shortfall for the next mayoral race in 2011 — and that’s just to meet minimum baseline funding.

The justification for this plan is that the city is facing a budget crunch and needs these funds. The mayor promises, promises, promises to return the funds later — but the only way to legally secure those funds is through a charter amendment, which the Mayor’s Office has declined to support.

This latest rationale rings hollow, and we only have to look across the bay to see why. Earlier in the decade, Oakland adopted public campaign funding, and after it was used in one election cycle, Oakland was hit with a budget deficit. The City Council decided to dip into the public financing funds in the gap. They promised, promised, promised that they would restore the funding once the deficit problems were resolved. Yet to this day Oakland still does not have public financing of campaigns — because, while it’s still the law, there’s simply no money in the fund.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, members of the Budget Committee seem to be prepared to vote in favor of this dangerous proposal as early as July 3. While Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly have wisely expressed opposition, Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who has been a public financing supporter in the past, has so far expressed support for the cut. McGoldrick could end up being the swing vote, joining with public financing opponent Sup. Sean Elsbernd and mayoral ally Sup. Carmen Chu to support this legislation.

Dipping into the public financing fund for any reason sets a terrible precedent and undermines the integrity of this valuable program. Just as politicians should not draw their own district lines because of a conflict of interest, they should not undermine previously established campaign finance laws.

Rob Arnow and Steven Hill

Rob Arnow and Steven Hill have been the architects of public financing for mayoral and Board of Supervisors elections. Steven Hill also is director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation. Contact them at info@voterownedelections.org.

 

Clean Energy Act excites supervisors

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At today’s Rules Committee, Supervisors Bevan Dufty, Tom Ammiano, and Chris Daly, all expressed enthusiasm for San Francisco’s Clean Energy Act. Daly and Ammiano even broke into chants of “victory, victory” during discussion of approving the measure for November’s ballot.

“In 2002 I supported Prop D and I look forward to supporting this measure,” said Dufty during his comments on this new public power ballot initiative. “I think PG&E has not held the public trust in San Francisco well,” he added, citing the smear campaign PG&E launched against Mark Leno during his bid for State Senate.

The measure, known as the “San Francisco Clean Energy Act,” would amend the city charter to require that, within 120 days of passing the legislation, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission must “produce a comprehensive plan for providing clean, secure, cost effective electricity for city departments and residents and businesses.” This may include construction city-owned transmission lines, as well as procuring the resources to advance the Community Choice Aggregation plan of 51 percent renewables by 2017.

It actually goes one step farther and says if CCA falls through, the city must still get 51 percent of their energy from renewable and clean sources, 75 percent by 2030, and 100 percent by 2040. A green jobs workforce development must also be part of the plan, and if it’s determined that public ownership of the grid and resources is the way to go, any employees fired by PG&E, the private company that provides our power now, will be hired by the PUC.

Sup. Ross MIrkarimi, who introduced the measure, rattled off figures from Alameda, Santa Clara, Palo Alto, and Sacramento, all of whom have publicly-owned utilities and all of whom charge the average household rates far below PG&E.

His figures, for a 500 kilowatt hour household:

Clean Energy — tomorrow!

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The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow (Friday) to discuss the new clean-energy charter amendment. It’s a long-overdue measure that would give San Francisco control of its own energy future and set aggressive mandates for sifting to renewable resources for electricity.

The measure is sponsored by Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin, and includes the following:

1. A mandate that 51% of the city’s electricity is generated from renewable resources by 2017, 75% by 2030, and 100% by 2040. This would be one of the few laws in the country that requires a city to move toward a 100 percent renewable portfolio. It also requires the Public Utilities Commission to issue a report every two years explaining how the city is meeting those goals. This would be a model for cities around the nation (and around the world), and would put San Francisco in the forefront of the movement to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change. Since state and federal governments are moving far too slowly on the most important environmental issue of our lives, cities are going to have to take the lead, and San Francisco – one of the most progressive communities in the nation — should be showing everyone else how to do to that.

2. A mandate that the city move toward acquiring its distribution system for the sale of electricity. Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which now supplies the residential and business customers in San Francisco, is spending a huge amount of money on a greenwashing campaign to convince residents that it’s moving away from fossil fuels. That’s a big lie: PG&E’s current power profile is 44 percent fossil fuels, 24 percent nuclear, 20 percent large hydro, and only 12 percent renewable – and the utility admits that it will not even make the state’s mandate of 20 percent renewable by 2010. . The only way this city is going to have a truly environmentally sound energy program is if we run it ourselves.

Of course, a publicly run utility has other big advantages. Public-power agencies all over the country have lower electric rates and many bring in huge amounts of revenue, which the city desperately needs. And public-power is good for the economy

3. Mandate green jobs and job training for San Franciscans. There’s a lot of money in renewable energy, and thousands and thousands of good jobs. The measure mandates that the PUC as part of creating a public power agency create job-training programs to help San Franciscans build careers in green energy.

The hearing is at 10 am. Be there and support this crucial legislation.

Free solar power?

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› sarah@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY San Francisco’s new solar incentive program just might make the conversion to green power almost free to city residents when combined with other state and federal programs, some of which expire at the end of this year.

This is an unlikely city for such a dynamic, as we reported a couple months ago (see "Dark days," 04/16/08), given our small lot sizes, high costs, and the fact that we have about twice as many renters as homeowners. The solar program also hit some political snags.

Promoted since December 2007 by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Assessor/Recorder Phil Ting, the Solar Energy Incentive program has been struggling to get Board of Supervisors approval since January when Sups. Chris Daly, Jake McGoldrick, Ross Mirkarimi, and Aaron Peskin objected to the use of public money to fund the program, which will subsidize solar installations on private homes and businesses.

These San Francisco Public Utilities Commission funds were intended to expand publicly owned power projects such as solar panel installation on city property. But as the SFPUC’s Barbara Hale explained to the Guardian, new laws prevent cities from qualifying for state rebates if they convert municipally owned buildings to solar, making those conversions a comparatively losing financial equation.

So on June 10, the board approved Newsom’s program in an 8-3 vote, with Mirkarimi lending his support after he secured funding for a complementary $1.5 million, one-year solar pilot program targeted at nonprofits and low-income families. The San Francisco Solar Energy Incentive program will provide $3 million in solar rebates annually for 10 years.

As Mirkarimi aide Rick Galbreath told the Guardian, "Nonprofits can’t always move as fast as the private sector, and solar advocates, who have been pushing other programs since December, have already got things in the pipeline."

Some of those other programs combine with the new city one in interesting ways. "What if solar were free? Then everyone would install it, right?" was the question posed by Tom Price, whom we profiled in January (see "Solar man," 01/02/08) for founding Black Rock Solar, which does large public interest solar projects using volunteer labor.

Now Price thinks the free solar power that he’s been able to leverage for schools and hospitals just might be available to the average San Franciscan. "This program inadvertently could make solar in San Francisco the cheapest it’s ever been," Price told us. "At least for a short window of time."

Under the city’s program, solar rebates begin at $3,000 for homeowners — and rise in $1,000 increments to a maximum of $6,000 if residents use local installers, hire city-trained workers, and live in city-designated environmental justice districts. For private businesses, the rebate cap is set at $10,000. But that amount can rise if combined with the state and federal incentives that expire at the end of the year.

"I’m one of three tenants. Each of us has an electrical meter, each of us is eligible for a $5,000 rebate under the city’s program," said Price, who rents on Potrero Hill and hopes to pull off an almost no-cost conversion with his landlord.

Price estimates the solar conversation will cost about $15,000 per tenant. So, if two conversions are done (there’s only space for two conversions on most of the city’s Edwardian and Victorian homes), Price’s landlord can subtract two $5,000 cash rebates, plus the Pacific Gas and Electric Co.–administered California solar incentive, plus a $2,000 federal tax credit.

Price said landlords can also take advantage of a 30 percent investment tax credit on top of a 60 percent tax deduction that Dave Llorens of Next Energy found buried deep within the economic stimulus package signed by President George W. Bush earlier this year. Landlords can then arrange to sell cheap, renewable power to their tenants.

"What if I sign an agreement with my landlord to pay $50 per month for the right to have access to his solar system?" Price said. "So now the money that would have been going to PG&E goes to the landlord."

And it’s clean, free power, rather than PG&E’s expensive power generated largely from nuclear and fossil fuel sources.

"This makes San Francisco the first place a tenant and a landlord can really work together to make solar power affordable," Price said. "And that in turn will help drive adoption of renewable energy."

A heart once nourished

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

Community court, every second Thursday at 10 a.m. Narcotics Anonymous on Wednesday. Apprenticeships for construction workers, Monday, bright and early.

The ancient letter board just inside the entrance of the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center tells much of the story of this neighborhood institution. Since 1981 it’s been a crucial hub for the Western Addition, a mostly level stretch of terrain west of downtown that rivals the Mission District and Bayview–Hunters Point as the source of the most despair from senseless gun violence.

For decades Ella Hill was a safe haven, a place where kids and seniors felt comfortable, where people could learn and teach and talk and work together, a little oasis in the world of urban hurt.

A placard affixed to one wall of the entryway honors Thurgood Marshall, the nation’s first African American US Supreme Court justice. In a small office nearby, a tutor assists a young girl with the multiplication table. Elsewhere, a list of rules forbids profanity, play-fighting, and put-downs.

There’s also a poster of Ella Hill Hutch, the first black woman elected to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, where she served from 1978-81.

But in 2006, a man was murdered during daylight hours in the center’s gymnasium before dozens of witnesses. That slaying was one of at least five brutal incidents that took place in the shadow of Ella Hill between 2006 and 2007; three more murders occurred within blocks. Many remain open cases today.

And now the center is having serious problems — troubles that reflect those of the city’s African American population, which has been plagued by violence and socioeconomic changes that are closing opportunities and forcing longtime residents out the city.

Several census tracts in the neighborhood that at one time contained between 3,000 and 6,000 black residents are down to 1,000 or far less, according to a San Francisco State University study commissioned by the city last year. The report showed that between 1995 and 2000 San Francisco lost more of its black population than 18 other major US cities.

Ironically, the city is now preparing to close the final dark chapter on 50 years of federally subsidized redevelopment in the Western Addition. But the displacement that the bulldozers set off half a century ago continues today, unabated.

That exodus has compounded structural problems at the center just when its remaining clients need it most. The nonprofit late last year underwent an organizational shake up and brief takeover by the Mayor’s Office to save it from imminent financial collapse. The center’s executive director of two years, George Smith III, was fired with little public explanation last year, and a permanent head was named only recently.

As with many aspects of this troubled community, it was unaddressed violence that fed the fire. Simply subsisting in the heart of a violent neighborhood was strain enough for Ella Hill. But suffering an attack from within seemed too much to bear for an institution some call "San Francisco’s Black City Hall."

The 2006 killing took one man’s life, but Ella Hill itself — still facing an uncertain financial future — felt the searing rounds too. Now some wonder if the nonprofit can survive the very violence and poverty it was created to help end in a neighborhood that’s changing forever.

In Ella Hill’s noisy gymnasium at the building’s east end, two teams of middle schoolers practice basketball.

"My job is to be in the best position to box him out for a rebound," their coach says as they crowd around the free throw line.

The kids are radiant and attentive now. But from this same basketball court on April 27, 2006, the Western Addition briefly edged ahead of the rest of the city in extreme bloodshed.

Donte White, 22, was working part-time at the center. As he supervised a basketball game, two unidentified males entered Ella Hill. One brandished a firearm and shot White at least eight times in the face, neck, and chest as several kids looked on in utter horror. Among them was White’s young daughter.

Police arrested 25-year-old Esau Ferdinand for the attack five months after White’s murder. But within two weeks prosecutors decided they could no longer hold him and declined to press charges when a key witness disappeared on the eve of grand jury proceedings.

Even with other witnesses filling the gym, police gathered few additional leads, an all-too-common story in a neighborhood where residents often prefer to avoid both law enforcement and vengeful criminal suspects.

The center installed cameras and an alarm. A buzzer was placed on the front door. But the new security measures cut against Ella Hill’s image as a demilitarized zone, and the center remains shaken by White’s murder. Some parents began barring their children from going there.

"Can you imagine something like that, someone coming into a rec center in the middle of the day with a firearm and shooting and killing a guy?" asks Deven Richardson, who resigned from Ella Hill’s board in 2007 to focus on his real estate business. "That really set us back big time in terms of morale. It really was a dark moment for the center."

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, whose district includes Ella Hill, says that after he took office in 2004, he learned that the police weren’t stationed at the center during prime hours and had never created a strategy for attaching themselves to the center the way they had at other safe-haven institutions in the city, like schools. He told us he’s had to "really work" to get the nearby Northern Station more integrated into Ella Hill.

"Before the murder of Donte White, there had also been a series of incidences inside Ella Hill Hutch," Mirkarimi said over drinks at a Hayes Valley bar. "Nothing that resulted in anybody getting killed, but certainly enough indicators that really should have been taken more seriously by the mayor."

In June 2006, shortly after White’s shooting, the San Francisco Police Commission and the Board of Supervisors held a tense public meeting at the center. Residents, enraged over the wave of violence that summer in the Western Addition, shouted down public officials, including Chief Heather Fong, who was forced to cut short a presentation on the city’s crime rate.

That same month, the supervisors put a measure on the ballot to allocate $30 million over three years for violence-prevention efforts like ex-offender services and witness relocation. But Mayor Gavin Newsom, following a policy of fortifying law enforcement over community-based alternatives, opposed the measure because it excluded the police department. Prop. A, designed to finance groups like Ella Hill with connections to the neighborhood that the police will never have, lost by less than a single percentage point.

Meanwhile, four homicides in the neighborhood that year joined frequent anarchic shootouts in the Western Addition, including many that never made headlines because no one was killed. The fatalities led to promises by City Hall that the area would be saturated with improved security, including additional security cameras that have mostly proved useless in helping the police solve violent crimes.

On June 3, 2006, 19-year-old Antoine Green was standing on McAllister Street near Ella Hill early in the morning when he was shot to death in the head and back. On Aug. 16, 38-year-old Johnny Jackson’s chest was filled with bullets as he sat in the front seat of a Honda Passport on Turk Street not far behind Ella Hill. A woman next to him in the car suffered a critical gunshot wound to the head.

Two more killings occurred further east at Larch Way, a popular location for murder in the neighborhood.

Burnett "Booski" Raven, a 32-year-old alleged member of the Eddy Rock street gang, was found bleeding at 618 Larch Way early Oct. 7, his body laying halfway in the street and containing at least 10 gunshot wounds. On July 22, police found 23-year-old John Brown, another purported Eddy Rock member, wedged under a Chevy pickup truck, dead from up to seven gunshots.

Brown had reportedly survived two prior shootings, but the Western Addition’s cultural condemnation of "snitching" to police has so infected the neighborhood that he allegedly told police not to bother investigating either of the attacks.

Loïc Wacquant, a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, says neighborhoods like the Western Addition that once contained stable black institutions — schools, churches, and community centers that glued residents together — have been overwhelmed by the rise of a white-collar, service-based economy, the decline of unions, and the withdrawal of meaningful social safety nets.

Cities have responded to the resulting marginalization with more police officers, more courts, and more prisons. But the failure of those institutions to cure rising violence "serves as the justification for [their] continued expansion," Wacquant quoted Michel Foucault, the famous late UC Berkeley sociologist, in the academic journal Thesis Eleven earlier this year.

The roots of the Western Addition’s tragedy go back to the early post-World War II era. In 1949, Congress enacted laws giving cities extraordinary powers to clear out land defined as "blighted." In San Francisco, that meant neighborhoods where low income people of color lived.

The Western Addition was devastated. Huge blocks of houses were bulldozed. Clubs, stores, restaurants — the heart of the black neighborhood — were wiped out. Many residents were forced out of the neighborhood and sometimes the city forever; others lost their property and their livelihoods (see "A half-century of lies," 3/21/2007).

By the 1970s, neighborhood activists were hoping that at the very least the Redevelopment Agency would pay for a recreation facility for kids. But city officials wouldn’t put up the money, recalls the Rev. Arnold Townsend, a longtime political fixture in the city and associate pastor of the Rhema Word Christian Fellowship.

Townsend said activist Mary Rogers — whom he calls "the greatest champion kids ever had in this community" and a famous critic of redevelopment — gave up on City Hall and went to Washington DC, where she sat in at a meeting that happened to include Patricia Harris, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under President Jimmy Carter. Rogers, joined by a group of colleagues from San Francisco, bumped into Harris afterward.

"[Harris] shook Mary’s hand like politicians do, and Mary wouldn’t let her hand go until she had a meeting," Townsend said. "They were having a tug-of-war over her hand."

Rogers’ determination paid off, and enough political channels opened up that money for the center became available. Then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein cut the ribbon for the $2.3 million Ella Hill Hutch Community Center four months after the supervisor’s death, complete with outdoor seating for seniors, a gymnasium, tennis courts, and child-care facilities.

A young counselor named Leonard "Lefty" Gordon who worked at the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, one of the city’s oldest black institutions — it was founded in 1919 on Presidio Avenue, where it remains today — was named executive director of Ella Hill three years later and led the center to wide acclaim for 17 years.

A recreation coordinator at Ella Hill started a reading program for young athletes after discovering that a local high school football star wasn’t aware he’d been named the city’s player of the year: the teenaged boy couldn’t read the newspaper to find out. Other programs for tutoring and job training targeting young and old residents were likewise started under Gordon.

Many of the people we interviewed recalled the "kitchen cabinet" meetings convened by Lefty Gordon at Ella Hill as among their fondest memories. Everyone from the "gangbangers to police" attended Gordon’s meetings, Townsend said, and made them a repository of complaints about what was happening in the neighborhood.

Alphonso Pines, a former Ella Hill board member and organizer for the Unite Here! Local 2 union, eagerly showed up at the meetings for months after attending 1995’s Million Man March in Washington.

"I hate to see brothers die, regardless of whether it’s at Ella Hill," Pines said of Donte White’s 2006 killing. "But that was personal for me, because that was the place where I had sat on the board for years. That was real shocking."

Lefty’s son, Greg Gordon, said that his legendary father — who died of a heart attack in May of 2000 — worked so hard for the center that he allowed his own health to deteriorate.

Most beneficiaries of Ella Hill’s social services now live in the southeast section of the 94115 ZIP code, roughly bordered by McAllister and Geary streets to the south and north, and Divisadero and Laguna streets to the west and east.

The majority of Ella Hill’s approximately $1.4 million annual budget comes from government sources, either through grants or nonprofit contracts.

Newsom, through his community development and housing offices, has given $860,000 over the past three years to Ella Hill to help job-ready applicants obtain construction work and other general employment in the neighborhood. The center launched its JOBZ program in 2006, targeting formerly incarcerated young adults and others with a "hard-to-employ" status.

Caseworkers must convince some participants to leave gangs, deal with outstanding warrants, pay back child support, expunge criminal records, or eliminate new offenses, all of which can exacerbate a desire to give up. Sometimes the center has to buy people alarm clocks.

"None of these other programs that are being funded in this community want to deal with the kinds of kids or people who come to Ella Hill…. [It] is the last stop for everybody," said London Breed, head of the African American Art and Culture Complex on Fulton Street and a Western Addition native. "That’s where people go who have no place else to go, which is why it’s so important."

Most nonprofits working for the city must regularly report their operational costs or show how program funds are being spent on graduation ceremonies and trips to university campuses. The required forms are mind-numbingly bureaucratic and reveal little about what a place like Ella Hill might face on a practical level each day. But last year, former executive director George Smith betrayed a crack in Ella Hill’s veneer.

"Once again violence has impacted the community with three incidents in close proximity to the complex this month alone," he wrote to the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, which supports the center with college preparation grants. "One of the victims was a young man scheduled to graduate from high school in June."

On May 25, 2007, 19-year-old Jamar Lake was leaving a store on Laguna and Eddy streets, northeast of Ella Hill, when a teen suspect opened fire on him. Paramedics were so worried about security in the neighborhood that they fled before attempting resuscitation, according to a report from the San Francisco Medical Examiner. Lake died at General Hospital that day.

Weeks later, a manic 12-hour long feud erupted between several gunmen on McAllister Street. Seven people were wounded during two daytime shootings that took place in the Friendship Village Apartments, across the street from Ella Hill.

Then in July, a suspect randomly and fatally stabbed 54-year-old Kenneth Taylor in the neck as he sat on a park bench near sundown at Turk and Fillmore streets, within easy view of the SFPD’s Northern Station. Police didn’t respond until Taylor stumbled to the sidewalk and collapsed; a witness had to flag down a patrol car.

Following the Lake shooting, the mayor and police department promised, as they had the year before, that foot patrols would be increased in the 193-unit Plaza East Housing Development and other public housing projects in the Western Addition.

But the city’s most visible response has bypassed Ella Hill — which has some street credibility — altogether. Instead, City Attorney Dennis Herrera went to court to get injunctions against street gangs in June 2007.

Herrera’s initial filing came days after the wild shootout on McAllister Street, but the timing was coincidental. The city attorney also had been preparing injunctions against gangs in the Mission and Bayview-Hunter’s Point for months. For the Western Addition, the city attorney noted a "recent rise in violent crimes perpetrated by the defendants," and asked that the members of three gangs be banned from associating with one another inside two "safety zones" marked along the contours of their respective territories, a 14-square-block area that straddles Fillmore Street and rests just north of Ella Hill.

"The conditions within the two safety zones have become particularly intolerable in 2007 as the deadly rivalry between the Uptown alliance and defendant Eddy Rock has intensified," Herrera’s office told the court. "In 2007 alone, this rivalry is the suspected cause of at least three homicides and numerous shootings within the two safety zones."

Some critics viewed barring people from congregating with one another a civil rights violation. And worse, they feared it would merely shove more African Americans and Latinos out of the Western Addition, which would benefit the city’s wealthiest white residents.

"All of this stuff about gang injunctions is a bunch of malarkey," said Franzo King, archbishop of the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church on Fillmore Street. "You don’t really have gangs here…. [In San Francisco] they’re a big club."

Herrera nonetheless convinced a Superior Court judge to issue the injunctions after filing 1,200 pages of evidence arguing that the three "clubs," which include only about 65 people named by the city, are endless public nuisances and force organizations like Ella Hill to battle with them for the affections of Western Addition youth.

Police admit that the injunctions since last year have, in fact, led people to simply leave the neighborhood. Still, they insist the injunctions have reduced trouble in the Western Addition. The Knock Out Posse, for instance, is evaporating, they say.

Paris Moffett, a 30-year-old alleged Eddy Rock leader, told the Guardian in a separate story on the gang injunctions last November that he and others were organizing to quell violence in the neighborhood and would do so in defiance of the gang injunctions (see "Defying the injunction," 11/28/07).

But on the day that story ran, Moffett hampered his new cause when, according to a March 27 federal indictment, police arrested him in Novato for possessing a large quantity of crack and MDMA, as well as a Colt .45 semiautomatic.

After Lefty Gordon died, the center went through a couple of directors in relatively short order. Robert Hector, a second-in-command to Lefty Gordon, helmed the center briefly; he was replaced with George Smith III, who left in 2007.

Meanwhile, problems at Ella Hill grew.

"The seniors just stopped their participation," Anita Grier, a former Ella Hill board member who first ran for the San Francisco City College Board of Trustees in 1998 at Gordon’s encouragement, told us. "Things were never excellent, but they just got much worse once [Gordon] was no longer director."

The center, a standalone nonprofit, had long struggled financially in part because it relied so much on contracts and grants from the city rather than pursuing funds from private donors. Mirkarimi says Ella Hill’s structure is unlike any other community center in the city. Many other centers are directly maintained by the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department.

Contract revenue from one Ella Hill program, such as providing emergency shelter to the homeless, was often diverted to keep another on life support or to simply cover the center’s utility bills.

By early 2007, the center faced a financial catastrophe. Donald Frazier joined Ella Hill’s board as president in January 2007 and embarked on a reform effort to turn the center around. He commissioned what came to be a blistering audit that revealed the nonprofit owed over $200,000 in state and federal payroll taxes. As a result, the center faced $63,000 more in penalties and accrued interest.

Mirkarimi blames community leaders in his district for refusing to acknowledge a crisis at the center and for not turning to City Hall for help when Ella Hill appeared to be slowly rotting from the inside out.

The mayor’s staff, he adds, wanted to believe Ella Hill was working on its own and should’ve continued to do so because, despite its financial reliance on the city, it was technically an independent nonprofit. In reality, Mirkarimi said, "They were afraid to piss off black people, is what it comes down to. They were afraid to tell it like it is — that things weren’t working."

Sending delinquent invoices to the city, failing to institute reasonable accounting standards, and falling far behind on its payroll taxes all threatened the government contracts and grants that kept San Francisco’s Black City Hall afloat. By extension, the audit concluded, that meant Western Addition residents who relied on Ella Hill were "victimized" by the center’s improper use of its limited resources.

Aside from the audit, which Ella Hill instigated itself, there’s no indication in the records of agencies funding the center that any problems were occurring, which implies the city wasn’t paying attention.

"As far as I’m concerned," Mirkarimi said, "we had a renegade institution, and the only reason it wasn’t renegade in an illegal sense was because the lease allowed them to have a parallel governance structure. But it was renegade in the sense that the city neglected to supervise properly."

In November 2007, just after residents hijacked a chaotic board meeting with an extended public comment period, Frazier told the directors in closed session that the Redevelopment Agency was planning to restrict future funding for the center due to its management problems.

One month later, the mayor dispatched an aide, Dwayne Jones, along with redevelopment agency director Fred Blackwell, to a meeting at Ella Hill with an ultimatum. Jones told the assembled that new interim appointees would be taking over the center’s bank books, recreating its bylaws, and electing a new board and executive director. The old board would essentially be dissolved. According to observers at the meeting, Jones told them that if they resisted the plan, funds received by Ella Hill from various city agencies would be jeopardized, as would its low-cost lease of city property.

Two defiant board members viewed the move as a "hostile takeover" of a private nonprofit organization by the mayor and voted against it, but the rest of the board agreed to the restructuring. Mirkarimi says there was simply no alternative.

"Right now it needs to be shrunk to what it can do really well, instead of doing what they had to do in the last five years, an incremental sloppy way of programming," he said.

The interim board in April named a former Ella Hill employee and Park and Rec administrator, Howard Smith — unrelated to George Smith — to be the center’s new executive director. But after all the changes Ella Hill made to fix its leadership problems, there are no assurances the city won’t leave Ella Hill without the money it needs to keep the doors open next year.

It’s noon on a recent Friday and Ella Hill’s new executive director is scrambling to keep things together. An employee wants him to glance at a form. Another man wants to come in and play basketball. Smith has a board meeting minutes from now, but he’s scheduled an interview with the Guardian at the same time.

Smith’s a well-built man dressed in a pressed suit, polished shoes, and a sharply-knotted tie. He’d mostly avoided our calls for weeks. Word spread in the neighborhood that the Guardian was planning some sort of hit piece on Ella Hill.

But it won’t be a newspaper that capsizes the center.

A significant portion of the center’s funding will be threatened over the next year. The redevelopment agency is scheduled to end its 45-year reign in the Western Addition by then, a blessing of sorts since so many people in the neighborhood feel it’s done nothing but upend the lives of black residents. But the end of the agency means that redevelopment funds for Ella Hill’s job placement programs, about $400,000 annually, will disappear.

In addition, about $300,000 more a year will dry up since the San Francisco Human Services Agency hasn’t renewed an emergency homeless shelter contract with the center. Mirkarimi believes the mayor, too, will try to stop providing Ella Hill with funding through his community development office next year.

If Newsom does back away, Mirkarimi warns, there will be "a very loud showdown."

"What I’m worried about is that the Newsom administration is basically cutting and running on this, and I’m not going to allow that to happen, at least not without a fight," he said.

The alternative is for Rec and Park to take over managing Ella Hill’s facilities with DCYF continuing to fund youth programs there while the Redevelopment Agency commits community benefits dollars from a legacy fund to the center — the least it can do after a half-century of transforming the neighborhood, locals be damned.

An interagency council made up of the center’s primary funders could collectively watchdog its performance, Mirkarimi says. Once Ella Hill’s leaders prove that the center has fully returned to its original mission, it can consider expanding to serve other populations in the neighborhood, or even seek a plan to detach further from the city.

The mayor’s spokesperson, Nathan Ballard, did not respond to an e-mail containing detailed questions, and his aide, Dwayne Jones, did not return several phone calls. But Smith said during a later lunch interview at the Fillmore Café that he agrees with Mirkarimi’s idea.

"There are so many programs out there that say they’re doing something on paper, but they’re really not doing it," Smith said. "They’re running ghost programs. So what I’ve been saying at Ella Hill since I got there is, ‘We will do exactly what we said we were going to do.’<0x2009>"

In the meantime, Smith is determined to prove that Ella Hill’s history has only just begun. The mural of Lefty Gordon outside the center received a fresh coat of paint recently, and the color pops. The sidewalk is being repaved and new handrails installed. The walls inside are clear of the aging posters and letter board that hung there a few months ago.

Before heading off to his board meeting, Smith teasingly asks an adolescent boy meandering in the center’s entryway for 75 cents. The boy’s always hitting him up for pocket change.

"I don’t got any," the boy responds.

"You don’t have any," Smith corrects.

Smith suddenly realizes what time it is.

"Hey, why isn’t this guy in school?" he wonders aloud.

At that moment, only the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center was asking the question. *

Dufty to run for mayor?

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dufty_sm-thumb.jpg
Stephen Seewer, the LGBT chair of the Commonwealth Club, called to tip me off to a big story that the media missed: Sup. Bevan Dufty announced on Monday at the Commonwealth Club that he’s running for mayor of San Francisco! Political watchers have long known this was a possibility, but how did we miss such an important announcement?
So I spoke with Dufty, who told me that he is indeed thinking about it, but far from making it official: “I don’t feel like it was a formal announcement.”
Dufty said Seewer caught him off-guard at the event with a question about whether he plans to run for mayor. Dufty says he answered by talking about the ambitious agenda he intends to pursue over the next two years and, as he tells it to us, he then told the audience, “Hopefully, I’ll look like a strong candidate for mayor.”
OK, maybe that’s not quite an official declaration, but it’s no secret that Dufty has his eye on the job. Others who seems to be setting themselves up for a run and have made similar statements of interest include Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, Sup. Aaron Peskin, and District Attorney Kamala Harris (provided she doesn’t get tapped by President Barack Obama to be attorney general). And I wouldn’t be surprised if Senator Carole Migden takes a step back after losing reelection, licks her wounds, and returns to the fray as a mayoral candidate.

A vote for public power in November

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EDITORIAL Working with environmentalist cover, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. have moved aggressively to derail a move that would have given the city control over some local power generation. Instead, the mayor is now pushing to keep Mirant Corp. running the one electricity plant that still operates within city limits.

The politics of the deal are complicated, but the driving force is clear: PG&E didn’t want the city moving even a small step toward public power, and as usual, the big utility is getting its way.

The power plant deal proves exactly why Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin should move forward with a November charter amendment for public power.

As Amanda Witherell reports, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has been trying for years now to win approval for three city-owned combustion turbines that would generate electric power at a plant at the foot of Potrero Hill. The idea: the turbines, also known as "peakers," would generate enough power during peak-use periods to convince the state to shut down the dirtier Mirant Plant.

Many environmentalists opposed the proposal, saying that the city shouldn’t be building any new fossil-fuel plants. That’s a legitimate argument. But California’s Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), the agency that controls the electric grid, insisted that renewable energy alone wouldn’t provide enough reliable power for San Francisco, and said the only way to shut down Mirant was to put in the peakers.

PG&E has been trying for months to derail the peakers — not, of course, out of any concern for the environment, but because the city would own the power plants. At first Newsom stuck by his PUC — but after seven PG&E lobbyists came into his office and gave him the facts of life (see "PG&E offers Newsom a blank check" at sfbg.com), he backed down. And now, after meeting with the CEOs of PG&E and Mirant, Newsom is pushing the worst possible alternative: he wants to retrofit the Mirant plant and let the private company operate its own peakers.

Same fossil fuel plants in the Bayview. Same type of air pollution. And the facility would be owned by a private company.

The supervisors need to reject this proposal with extreme prejudice — and the environmentalists who fought the city peakers ought to be just as loud in their opposition to Mirant’s retrofit.

The good news is that this ridiculous Newsom–PG&E deal ought to put the focus at City Hall back on public power, because that’s the only way to create a really green power profile in San Francisco.

Matthew Wald, who has coved energy policy for decades, wrote an interesting piece in the New York Times June 8 discussing why no private company wants to invest money in technology that would reduce carbon emissions from power plants. "Cutting carbon dioxide emissions is a fine idea, and a lot of companies would be proud to do it," Wald wrote. "But they would prefer to be second, if not third or fourth."

That’s because no private utility wants to take the risks and try something new that another company could then copy. In economic terms, carbon reduction is a public good — it’s something that benefits everyone, and nobody has the exclusive right to make money off of it. Private companies have been notoriously bad at investing in public goods.

But that’s not how public power agencies work. A San Francisco power agency would have every motivation to develop and use technology that saves consumers money or protects the environment. There’s no issue of profits to protect; in fact, one of the mandates of a city agency should be reducing carbon emissions and promoting renewable energy.

We have always been sympathetic to the concerns that the city-owned peakers would emit greenhouse gases. But if the city owned the plants, the city could shut them down anytime, whenever enough renewables were available. Mirant won’t shut down anything that is bringing in cash.

Mirkarimi and Peskin are working on the details of a public power measure, but the outlines ought to be clear: it should mandate that the SFPUC create and implement a plan to put the city in the retail power business, in compliance with the letter and spirit of the Raker Act — and get rid of PG&E and Mirant. The supervisors should put that on the November ballot.

The public power initiative: let’s roll

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Coming home after almost two weeks in Sweden with the annual World Association of Newspapers (WAN) assembly and study tour, I was struck once again how nothing seems to change in San Francisco when it comes to the PG&E/Raker Act scandal.

PG&E was still firmly in control of the city’s energy policy in the mayor’s office. Mayor Gavin “The Green Knight” Newsom had capitulated spectacularly to PG&E and had reversed his policy of supporting a plan by his PUC that would have given the city control over some local power generation at the Mirant power plant (the peaker proposal.) The mayor had met secretly with PG&E executives and stiffed representatives from the Potrero Hill neighborhood and the environmental, environmental justice, public power, and community choice aggregation (CCA) movements.

The Hearst-owned Chronicle continued its long corporate tradition of blacking out the real story of the accelerating PG&E/Raker Act scandal. The utility was beautifully executing its divide and conquer strategy it has honed ever since the days that John Muir and the Sierra Club fought in vain to stop the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park for the city’s public water and power supply. (In that battle at that time, the Guardian would have stood with Muir.)

Amanda Witherell laid out the latest sorry episode in her story in Wednesday’s Guardian. Her lead: “Green City Mayor Gavin Newsom finally outlined what he calls a ‘more promising way forward than the current proposal’ of building two publicly owned power plants in San Francisco. The way forward: retrofit three existing diesel turbines at the Mirant Potrero Power Plant, while simultaneously shutting down Mirant’s most polluting smokestack, Unit 2.”

Our editorial laid out the political context: “The politics of the deal are complicated, but the driving force is clear: PG&E didn’t want the city moving even a small step toward public power, and as usual, the big utility is getting its way…PG&E has been trying for months to derail the peakers–not, of course, out of any concern for the environment, but because the city would own the power plants. At first Newsom stuck by his SPUC but when seven PG&E lobbyists came into his office and gave him the facts of life (see ‘PG&E offers Newsom a blank check‘), he backed down.

“And now, after meeting with the CEOs of PG&E and Mirant, Newsom is pushing the worst possible alternative: he wants to retrofit the Mirant plant and let the private company operate its own peakers. Same fossil fuel plants in the Bayview. Same type of air pollution. And the facility would be owned by a private company.”

Repeating for emphasis: When PG&E spits, City Hall swims. When PG&E spits, the mayor swims.

And so PG&E and Newsom have set the stage for the next phase in this great battle to kick PG&E out of City Hall, enforce the federal Raker Act mandating public power for San Francisco, and bring our own cheap, clean Hetch Hetchy public power to the residents and businesses of San Francisco.

The next stage is the emerging new public power initiative that Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin are working on, with a wide swath of neighborhood and public power forces, aimed for the November ballot as a charter amendment.

This would be the third go at taking on PG&E head-on on the November ballot. This time it has a good chance of succeeding since PG&E and Newsom have gone out of their way to make the case for public power in 96 point Tempo Bold for all to see and savor. The measure will also be helped by massive turnout with Obama, seven supervisorial races, a clutch of solid progressive measures, and a smart, aggressive Obama like grassroots organizing campaign.

Let’s roll. B3, who wonders when he will no longer see the fumes from the Mirant plant from his office window at 135 Mississippi Street at the bottom of Potrero Hill

Click here to read this week’s article, Newsom’s power play.

Click here for this week’s editorial, A vote for public power in November.

Newsom’s power play

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› amanda@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Mayor Gavin Newsom finally outlined what he calls a "more promising way forward than the current proposal" of building two publicly owned power plants in San Francisco.

The way forward: retrofit three existing diesel turbines at the Mirant-Potrero Power Plant, while simultaneously shutting down Mirant’s most polluting smokestack, Unit 3.

Newsom wrote a letter to the Board of Supervisors just before a June 3 hearing on the power plants, describing a May 23 meeting that he convened with SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, California Independent System Operator President Yakout Mansour, California Public Utilities Commission Chair Mike Peevey, Mirant CEO Ed Muller, and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. CEO Bill Morrow.

"In the meeting, we vetted the possibility of retrofitting the diesel turbines [currently owned and operated by Mirant] and asked each stakeholder to give us the necessary commitments to advance this alternative," Newsom wrote. The board then voted to shelve the power plant plan until July 15 so the retrofit option can be vetted.

Most significant, Newsom’s meeting with top dogs at energy companies, who stand to lose a lot from San Francisco owning its own power source — and the resulting correspondence — elicited a new response from Cal-ISO, the state’s power grid operator, about exactly how much electricity generation San Francisco needs.

For the first time, Cal-ISO said it will allow Mirant’s Unit 3 to close as early as 2010, when the 400-MW Transbay Cable comes online, saying that the city no longer needs to install a combustion turbine peaker plant at the airport.

Sup. Sophie Maxwell expressed frustration that the questions she, her staff, and other stakeholders have been asking for the past several years are suddenly getting different answers. "I think we’re seeing a big movement by Cal-ISO. This is huge. Before, we asked all these questions, [but] they weren’t saying what they’re saying now," she told the Guardian after the hearing.

When asked why she thought this was happening now, she simply pointed to PG&E. "Who stands to benefit from us not generating our own power? Who sent out all that stuff?" she asked, referring to the flyers depicting filthy power plants that PG&E has been mailing to residents in an effort to drum up public sentiment against the city’s plan to build peakers. "Have they been concerned about what’s clean, about our people?"

Some environmental activists are hailing the change as a triumph. "David has just moved Goliath, but we need to keep pushing," said Josh Arce of Brightline Defense, which sued to stop the city’s plan to build the two power plants. He said his organization’s goal is ultimately to have no fossil fuel plants in the city. But when asked about the retrofit alternative, he said, "We don’t support it; we don’t not support it."

Cal-ISO has insisted that San Francisco needs 150 MW of electricity to stave off blackouts. This grid reliability is currently provided by Mirant-Potrero, but the plant’s Unit 3 is the greatest stationary source of pollution in the city. Bayview residents, who have borne a disproportionate share of the city’s industrial pollution, have been agitating for more than seven years to close the plant. Much of the leadership has come from Maxwell, who represents the district and has championed the plan to replace the older Mirant units with four new ones owned and operated by the city.

That vision was integrated into San Francisco’s 2004 Energy Action Plan, which Cal-ISO has used as a guiding document for the city’s energy future. The plan outlines a way to close Mirant by installing four CTs and 200 MW of replacement power. "Cal-ISO has consistently said in writing, in verbal instructions, and at meetings, that the CTs are the only specific project that was sufficient to remove the RMR [reliability must-run contract] from Mirant," said SFPUC spokesperson Tony Winnicker.

As San Francisco’s energy plans have evolved over recent years, SFPUC staff have been instructed at numerous public hearings in front of the Board of Supervisors to ask Cal-ISO if all four CTs are still necessary. Letters obtained by the Guardian show Cal-ISO has never said the airport CT isn’t necessary until now. When asked why, Cal-ISO spokesperson Stephanie McCorkle said, "The questions are not the same. That’s why the answers are different."

When pushed for more details on what’s different, she said, "We feel the introduction of the Mirant retrofit fundamentally changes our approach to the fourth peaker. I think it’s the megawatts. It’s basically the retrofit that changes the picture."

Mirant’s peakers currently put out 156 MW, an amount that may be reduced by retrofitting. The city’s three peakers would produce 150 MW. Winnicker couldn’t explain why the story is changing, telling us, "We’re really deferring to the leadership of the mayor and the board because they’ve been able to get a really different view from Cal-ISO than we’ve been able to get."

"We’ve always said we’re open to alternatives," McCorkle said. "We can only evaluate what’s presented to us and the Mirant retrofit was only presented in mid-May." Opponents of the peaker plan say the new position indicates SFPUC officials haven’t been pushing Cal-ISO hard enough or asking the right questions.

"The city hasn’t done its due diligence insisting on different configurations of the peakers," Sup. Ross Mirkarimi told us. "What we’re learning now we could have learned two years ago." He went on to add, "With the abundant paper trail, one can only surmise or conclude there may have been a presupposed bias on the part of the PUC to the answers expected from Cal-ISO."

The SFPUC has been instructed by the mayor’s office to determine if Mirant retrofit diesels would be as clean as the city’s CTs. Until that can be proved, some are withholding support.

"I haven’t seen any information that a Mirant retrofit is as clean as the peakers," City Attorney Dennis Herrera told the Guardian. "From my perspective, I want the most environmentally clean solution."

To that end, some would like to see a formal presentation to Cal-ISO of a "transmission-only" alternative, which would outline a number of line upgrades and efficiencies that would obviate the need for any in-city power plants. Sup. Maxwell introduced a resolution urging the SFPUC to put such a proposal before Cal-ISO and to enact strict criteria for any alternative to the city’s CTs.

"We need to remember that Mirant was a bad actor. Mirant is not to be trusted," Maxwell said. "We sued them and we won our suit," she added, citing litigation brought by the city against the private company for operating the power plants in excess of its permitted hours and for market manipulation during the 2001-02 energy crisis.

Maxwell’s legislation, cosigned by six other supervisors, lays those concerns out and cautions, "In view of this history, the city should be cautious and vigilant in taking any steps that expand the operation of Mirant’s facilities in San Francisco."

The legislation also reminds policymakers that San Francisco’s Electricity Resource Plan identifies eight specific goals — one of which is to "increase local control over energy resources." It goes on to say, "City ownership of electric generating supplies can reduce the risk of market power abuses and enable the city to mandate the use of cleaner fuels when feasible or to close down any such generation when it is no longer needed."

Maxwell’s resolution also outlines a series of conditions that any alternative to the city’s peakers would have to meet. The alternative would have to be as clean or cleaner than the city peakers, have the same comprehensive community benefits package that was attached to the city’s peaker plan, have no impact on the bay’s water, and only be run for reliability needs.

The City Attorney’s Office said these criteria are not set in stone — it’s a resolution and therefore requires some level of enforcement or action. Mirkarimi, who signed on to the resolution, is still uncomfortable with it as it stands, saying it should include discussion of the city’s new community choice aggregation (CCA) plan for creating renewable public power projects.

Some environmentalists cautioned that the transmission-only approach still leaves too much control in the hands of others. "We shouldn’t let PG&E be the ones to solve this problem," said Eric Brooks, a Green Party rep and founder of Community Choice Energy Alliance. He’s urging city officials to put all the city’s energy intentions — from the CCA plan for 51 percent renewables by 2017 to an exploration of city-funded transmission upgrades — into a presentation for Cal-ISO.

Brooks noted a conspicuous absence from the May 23 meeting with the mayor: "CCA and environmentalists weren’t at the table, as usual."

Election as prologue

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› steve@sfbg.com

San Francisco politics shifted June 3 as successful new coalitions altered the electoral landscape heading into the high-stakes fall contests, when seven of the 11 seats on the Board of Supervisors are up for grabs.
Progressives had a good election night even as lefty shot-caller Sup. Chris Daly suffered a pair of bitter defeats. And Mayor Gavin Newsom scored a rare ballot box victory when the southeast development measure Proposition G passed by a wide margin, although voters repudiated Newsom’s meddling with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission by approving Prop. E.

But the big story wasn’t these two lame duck politicians, who have served as the two poles of local politics for the past few years. It was Mark Leno, who handed Sen. Carole Migden her first electoral defeat in 25 years by bringing together progressives and moderates and waging an engaged, effective ground campaign. In the process, he may have offered a portent of things to come.

The election night speech Leno gave just before midnight — much like his entire campaign — didn’t break along neat ideological lines. There were solidly progressive stands, like battling the religious right’s homophobia, pledging to pursue single-payer health care, and blasting Pacific Gas & Electric Co. for funding sleazy attack pieces against him, reaffirming his commitment to public power.

But he also thanked Newsom and other moderate supporters and heaped praise on his political consulting firm, BMWL, which has run some of downtown’s nastiest campaigns. "It was clean, it was smart, and it was effective," Leno said of his campaign.

The Migden campaign, which had the support of Daly and many prominent local progressives, often looked dirty by comparison, marred by past campaign finance violations that resulted in Migden getting slapped with the biggest fine in state history and by Daly’s unethical misuse of the Guardian logo on a mailer that made it appear as if we had endorsed Migden.

Old alliances seemed to crumble around this election, leaving open questions about how coalitions will form going into an important November election that’s expected to have a crowded ballot and huge turnout.

UNITY AND DIVISION


There are things that unite almost all San Franciscans, like support for public schools. In this election that support came in the form of Prop. A — a measure that will increase teacher salaries through a parcel tax of about $200 per property owner — which garnered almost 70 percent of the vote.

"These numbers show that people believe in public education. They believe in what we’re doing," school superintendent Carlos Garcia told a jubilant election night crowd inside the Great American Music Hall.

Also uniting the city’s Democrats was the news that Barack Obama sewed up the party’s presidential nomination June 3, ending a primary battle with Hillary Clinton that had created a political fissure here and in cities across the country.

"The winds of change are blowing tonight. Let me congratulate Barack Obama on his victory," Leno said on election night, triggering a chant of "Yes we can" from the crowd at the Upper Market bar/restaurant Lime.

Local Clinton supporters were already switching candidates on election night, even before Clinton dropped her campaign and announced her support for Obama four days later.

"As a strong Hillary person, I’m so excited to be working for Obama these next five months," DCCC District 13 member Laura Spanjian, who won reelection by placing fourth out of 12 slots, said on election night. "It’s my number one goal this fall."

Leno also sounded conciliatory themes. In his election night speech, Leno acknowledged the rift he created in the progressive and LGBT communities by challenging Migden: "I know that you upset the applecart when you challenge a sitting senator."

But he vowed to repair that damage, starting by leading the fight against the fall ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage and overturn the recent California Supreme Court decision that legalized it. He told the crowd, "I invite you to join together to defeat the religious right."

A day later we asked Leno about whether his victory represented a new political center in San Francisco and he professed a desire to avoid the old political divisions: "Let’s focus on our commonalities rather than differences," he said, "because there is real strength in a big-tent coalition."

But this election was more about divisions than unity, splits whose repercussions will ripple into November in unknown ways. Shortly before the election, Daly publicly blasted "Big Labor" after the San Francisco Labor Council cut a deal with Lennar Corporation, agreeing to support Prop. G in exchange for the promise of more affordable housing and community benefits.

On election night, Newsom couldn’t resist gloating over besting Daly, whose affordable housing measure Prop. F lost big. "I couldn’t be more proud that the voters of San Francisco supported a principled proposal over the political proposal of a politician," Newsom told us on election night, adding, "Today was a validation of community investment and involvement over political games."

While Daly and some of his progressive allies have long warned that Leno is too close to Newsom to be trusted, one of the first points in Leno’s speech was the celebrate the passage of Prop. E, which gives the Board of Supervisors more power to reject the mayor’s appointees to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. "As an early supporter I was happy to see that," Leno said.

Susan Leal, the former SFPUC director who was ousted by Newsom earlier this year, said she felt some vindication from the vote on Prop. E, but mostly she was happy that people saw through the false campaign portrayals (which demonized the Board of Supervisors and erroneously said the measure gave it control over the SFPUC.)

"This is one of the few PUCs where people are appointed and doing the mayor’s bidding is the only qualification," Leal told us on election night.
Sup. Tom Ammiano, who will be headed to the Assembly next year, agreed: "It shows the beauty contest with the mayor is over and people are willing to hold him accountable."

ANALYZING THE RESULTS


On the day after the election, during a postmortem at the downtown office of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, political consultants Jim Stearns and David Latterman sized up the results.

Latterman called the Prop. E victory "the one surprise in the race." The No on E campaign sought to demonize the Board of Supervisors, a strategy that clearly didn’t work. Firing Leal, a lesbian, helped spur the city’s two major LGBT groups — the Harvey Milk and Alice B. Toklas Democratic clubs — to endorse the measure, which could have been a factor when combined with the high LGBT turnout.

"This may have ridden the coattails of the Leno-Migden race," Stearns said.

In that race, Stearns and Latterman agreed that Leno ran a good campaign and Migden didn’t, something that was as big a factor in the outcome as anything.
"Migden did too little too late. The numbers speak for themselves. Leno ran a really good race," Latterman said, noting how Leno beat Migden by a large margin in San Francisco and came within a few thousand votes of beating Joe Nation on his home turf of Marin County.

"It was a big deal for Leno to get so close to Nation in Marin," Stearns said.

Leno told us the polling his campaign did late last year and early this year showed he had a strong advantage in San Francisco, "so with that, I invested a lot of time and energy in Marin County."

Stearns attributed the big Prop. G win to its large base of influential supporters: "The coalition-building was what put this over the top." Daly chalked it up to the $4 million that Lennar spent, saying it had bought the election. But Stearns, who was a consultant for the campaign, didn’t agree: "I don’t think money alone ever wins or loses campaigns."

Yet he said the lack of money and an organized No on G/Yes on F campaign did make it difficult to stop the Lennar juggernaut. "You need to have enough money to get your message out," Stearns said, noting that "Nobody knew that the Sierra Club opposed [Prop. G]."

In the one contested judge’s race on the ballot, Gerardo Sandoval finished in a virtual dead heat with incumbent Judge Thomas Mellon. The two will face off again in a November runoff election because a third candidate, Mary Mallen, captured about 13 percent of the vote.

"How angry is Sandoval with Mallen now?" Latterman asked at the SPUR event. "If that 13 percent wasn’t there, Sandoval wins."

Both Latterman and Stearns agreed that this election was Sandoval’s best shot at unseating a sitting judge. "He’s going to face a tougher test in November," Stearns said.

The other big news was the lopsided defeat of Prop. 98, which would have abolished rent control and limits on condo conversions in addition to its main stated aim of restricting the use of eminent domain by local governments.

"It just lost bad," Latterman said of Prop. 98, the second extreme property rights measure to go down in recent years. "It just needs to go away now…. This was a resounding, ‘Just go away now, please.’<0x2009>"

LOOKING FORWARD


Aside from the Leno victory, this election was most significant in setting up future political battles. And progressives won a big advantage for the battles to come by picking up seats on the city’s two Democratic County Central Committees, a successful offensive engineered largely by Daly and Peskin, who were both elected to the eastside DCCC District 13.

"On the DCCC level, we took back the Democratic Party," said Robert Haaland, a progressive who was reelected to the DCCC District 13.

"The fight now is over the chair. The chair decides where the resources go and sets the priorities, so you can really do a lot," Haaland told us.

Many of the fall supervisorial contests feature races between two or three bona fide progressives, so those candidates are going to need to find issues or alliances that will broaden their bases.

In District 9, for example, the candidates include housing activist Eric Quezada (who lost his DCCC race), school board president Mark Sanchez, and Police Commission member David Campos — all solid progressives, all Latino, and all with good bases of support.

Campos finished first in his DCCC District 13 race just ahead of Peskin. Speaking on election night at the GAMH, Campos attributed his strong showing to walking lots of precincts and meeting voters, particularly in the Mission, an effort that will help him in the fall.

"A lot of Latino voters are really eager to be more involved [in politics]," Campos said. "Speaking the language and being an immigrant really connects with them."

Campos thinks public safety will be a big issue on voters’ minds this fall, an issue where he has strength and one that progressives have finally seized. "Until Ross Mirkarimi came along, progressives really weren’t talking about it," Campos said.

So, does Campos’ strong DCCC showing make him the front runner? When I asked that question during the SPUR event, Latterman said he didn’t think so. He noted that Sanchez has always had strong finishes on his school board races, citywide contests that includes the Portola area in District 9 but not in DCCC District 13. In fact, Latterman predicted lots of acrimony and close contests this November.

"If you like the anger of Leno vs. Migden, we’ll have more in the fall," Latterman said of the competitive supervisorial races.

Leno hasn’t been terribly active in local contests since heading to Sacramento, and he told us that his focus this fall will be on state ballot fights and the presidential race. He hasn’t made endorsements in many supervisorial races yet, but his two so far are both of progressives: Ross Mirkarimi in District 5, and David Chiu in District 3. And as he makes more supervisorial endorsements in the coming months, Leno told us, "I will be fighting for progressive voices."

Sarah Phelan contributed to this story.

Mayor uses Shipyard to announce budget, Monday

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It’s 4 PM on a Friday afternoon, that hour when most employees are counting the seconds to the weekend—and wishing that Monday morning wasn’t only 65 hours away.

But does the Mayor’s Office know what time it is?

And if so, why have we only just found out that Mayor Gavin Newsom is planning to make his Monday morning budget announcement, at 10: 30 am, June 2, at the Hunters Point Shipyard?

The announcement will be made at
View Larger Map“>606 Hunter’s Point Shipyard.
(Unless, Newsom is planning a repeat of his disappearing Olympic Torch stunt.)

The location happens to be the San Francisco Police Department’s Tactical Operations center. Press are being asked to present press credentials for entry.

Could it be that this announcement is being made at the very last minute because the choice of location gives Newsom the appearance of impropriety? Newsom backing Prop.G on the June 3 ballot, the measure that developer Lennar has spent over $3.5 million in an effort to grab even more of San Francisco’s waterfront real estate, adding highly desirable land at Candlestick Point to the shipyard’s wastelands, so it can develop even more luxury condos?

Or could it be because he didn’t want to tip of supporters of Prop. F, the competing measure on the June 3 ballot that requires that 50 percent of development in the Bayview is affordable to people who actually live there—households that tend to make $68,000 and under and can’t afford to buy $500,000 condos and million-dollar townhouses?

Whatever the reasons, the running dogs of the press weren’t the only ones left in the dark about the budget locale.

No one on the Board of Supervisors was informed until 4PM, Friday afternoon, either. That’s when a mayoral aide came by the office of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who sits on the Board’s Budget and Finance Committee, to deliver the news of this hitherto top secret location.

Normally, Board members get an invitation at least 10-14 days beforehand.

Mirkarimi calls the move “highly unorthodox and outrageous.”

“What’s really unforgivable is that we are facing the worst budget deficit in San Francisco’s history,” Mirkarimi said. “The Mayor needs to be fostering collaboration, and enlisting the support of everyone he can, especially those who have influence on the budget process. It’s unfortunate that the casualty in all this is our desire to work together.”

Woo-hoo, a planning party

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marketoctaviacorner.jpg
What are you doing after work tomorrow? Critical Mass? The Alterna-Mass that all the cool bikers are talking about? Maybe a happy hour somewhere, or heading home to get dolled up for the Bohemian Carnival?
Hey, how about the Market-Octavia Plan Party?
— cue the crickets —
OK, OK, maybe a party to mark the successful end of the years-long process to create and win political approval for a new Market & Octavia Neighborhood Plan is something that only a policy wonk can get excited about. But it is a very San Francisco type of plan, creating strict limits on new parking, good affordable housing incentives, and design standards promoting walkability. As plan participant and party promoter Jason Henderson said, “This is the plan that sets the precedent for a more sustainable, car-lite future for San Francisco.”
Not doing it for you? Try this quote from the party invite: “Munchies and partial hosted bar.” Better? It’s also at the Rickshaw Stop, the coolest bar in Hayes Valley, from 5:30-9:30. And it will feature speeches by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, Planning Commission President Christina Olague and lots of others who helped bring this baby home.
So come on down…if you’re into that sort of thing.

The peakers vs. Mirant

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EDITORIAL In the late 1960s, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District made a terrible decision and began building a nuclear power plant. Rancho Seco started generating power in 1977.

But over the next 10 years, environmental activists put pressure on the elected board that runs SMUD — and in 1989, the public power agency shut down the nuke with 11 years left on its operating license.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. built Diablo Canyon nuclear plant about the same time — but despite massive public protests, it’s still running today. That’s a big difference between public power and private utilities — and its one the San Francisco Supervisors need to recognize as they debate power plants in the southeast part of town. Because right now, two big private power companies are setting the agenda for the city’s energy policy.

And if they’re in control, the environment will be the loser.

Over the past several weeks, Mayor Gavin Newsom has met with representatives of PG&E — which is desperately trying to keep the city out of the retail electric power business — and Mirant Corp., which seems quite happy to keep operating its power plant at the foot of Potrero Hill. And as a result, the mayor has changed his position, is backing away from a plan for three city-owned power plants, and is prepared to offer the worst possible alternative: he wants to retrofit the dirty Mirant plant and keep it running.

That’s unacceptable, and the supervisors need to reject it.

The background on this issue, for those who haven’t been paying attention, is fascinating and a bit complex.

For years, residents of the southeast neighborhoods have been trying to shut down the Mirant plant, which runs a natural gas-fired turbine and three diesel-powered auxillary generators. California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO), which manages the state’s electricity grid, has balked at removing the only large-scale generating facility within city limits, saying San Francisco can’t bring all of its power in from outside.

Until recently, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — with Newsom’s blessing — has proposed that the city operate three natural gas turbines, known as peaker plants, that would run only when demand for power is high. Cal-ISO says the peakers would fulfill the in-city reliability requirement, and if they’re built, the Mirant Plant would be shuttered.

The peakers (which the city already owns, thanks to a lawsuit settlement) are fossil fuel plants and release air pollution — not as much, the city says, as the Mirant plant, but not zero. So environmental justice activists want to stop the new plants, saying the city can make do with conservation, new renewable energy facilities, and a new power line across the Bay. So far, Cal-ISO disagrees, but the activists are pushing the city to try harder to make the state accept a greener option.

So PG&E and the environmentalists are both trying to stop the supervisors from approving the peakers. PG&E sees them as public power, and is funding a sophisticated lobbying and direct-mail campaign against the city peakers.

That effort has turned Newsom around: as Amanda Witherell reports on page 15, the mayor is apparently prepared to offer a new plan that would scrap the city-owned peakers in favor of retrofitting the diesel units at the Mirant plant. PG&E would bring more cables into the city and would work on conservation efforts.

Conservation is fine, and PG&E ought to be pushing those efforts anyway. But the proposal makes no sense.

For starters, all evidence suggests that even after a retrofit, the Mirant plant would still generate fossil fuel pollution, quite possibly more than the city peakers. So the southeast would continue to get dumped on, with no significant relief. And the plan would leave PG&E and Mirant in control of generating and distributing power in the city.

We’re sympathetic to the environmental justice arguments, and we’ve been consistent in our position that the city shouldn’t build or operate new fossil fuel plants unless the scientific evidence shows they’ll be cleaner than any reasonable alternative. We would much prefer that San Francisco refrain from any new fossil fuel sources and rely instead on a completely renewable portfolio. But for all the problems we have with the peakers, they would, at least, be owned by the city.

That’s a crucial issue: if San Francisco controls the plants, San Francisco can turn them off any time, the moment the city’s renewable efforts convince Cal-ISO that the peakers aren’t needed (or even before that, if we want to risk a legal fight with the state). If a private company owns the generators, the plant will continue to run as long as it makes money.

If there’s a credible way to avoid any fossil fuel generation, we’re all in favor. But if the choice is between the peakers and retrofitting Mirant, it’s a no-brainer. And the real lesson here is that the supervisors should be moving forward with Sups. Mirkarimi and Peskin’s charter amendment to create a full public power agency at City Hall. *

Go directly to court

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› news@sfbg.com

After nearly four hours of debate punctuated by boos and cheers from an impassioned audience, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee decided May 14 not to release $500,000 in reserve funds for Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed Community Justice Center.

The project, modeled after courts in Manhattan and Brooklyn and touted by Newsom for years, would be a tribunal for bringing in quality-of-life crime violators — usually the homeless or other street denizens — immediately after they’re cited and, in theory, getting them right into social services or community service work.

But the 3-2 committee vote against the project was based on this year’s big budget shortfall, Newsom’s opposition to other expenditures outside the normal budget process, lack of demonstrable savings or benefits from the program, and the fact that the social services it claims to offer are being cut.

"Let’s be clear here. We’re having this discussion while we’re contemputf8g some of the most draconian service reductions, at least that I’ve seen here, in seven-and-a-half years," Sup. Chris Daly said at the hearing.

He cited $3.3 million in cuts to senior services, $17 million in cuts to the Department of Health, closure of the homeless service center Buster’s Place, and a reduction in mental health services as examples.

In early May, Newsom vetoed an initiative sponsored by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi that would allocate $76,000 to record and post the proceedings of various municipal boards and commissions on the city’s Web site. The board voted 8-3 to successfully override that veto on May 13.

At the CJC hearing, Daly read a letter from Newsom dated April 30 saying he wanted to hold out on new spending initiatives like the Mirkarimi measure until new programs could be considered in the larger context of the 2008-09 fiscal year budget deliberations that begin in June.

"This is his veto message based on the dire budget situation," Daly said. "These words are directly applicable to the item in front of us."

Sup. Bevan Dufty and other Newsom allies on the board are expected to try to overcome the committee votes by introducing the proposal to the full board. Dufty told us, "I recognize there are members of the committee who aren’t comfortable with it, but I asked that the full board weigh in because I felt like everybody on the board ought to have a decision whether this moves forward or not."

Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard blasted the committee vote, telling the Guardian, "It was cowardly for Chris Daly and his colleagues to vote against the Community Justice Center. They lack the courage to support this program that will help get low-level offenders back on the right track. Why? Their fear outweighs their capacity to care: they fear the idea of agreeing with Gavin Newsom more than they care about people in the Tenderloin who are suffering and need help. They ought to be ashamed of themselves."

But critics say the proposal is rife with problems. Peter Masiak, lead tenant organizer for the Central City SRO Collaborative, said the CJC plans did not call for enough staff members to handle all the cases on its own. The staff would therefore have to refer people to service providers like his group, whose budgets are on the chopping block.

"It does nothing if you’re creating an expensive mechanism for referring people to services you’re cutting," he said at the hearing. "I’m concerned I’m going to have to tell my clients the only way they can get services is to stand on the street and smoke crack."

Deborah Newman of the City Budget Analyst’s Office said the CJC would cost approximately $2.9 million annually to operate. The $500,000 discussed May 14 originally was set aside for two holding cells — one for men and one for women — subleasing the court space, tenant improvements to the space, and social services.

Newman said that after tenant improvements, social services salaries, new cells, and subleases, new expenses would cost the city $2.4 million, even with a $1 million federal earmark supplied by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. CJC supporters said savings produced by the court would justify these costs.

San Francisco Superior Court Commissioner Ron Albers said San Francisco has used problem-solving and collaborative courts for more than a decade, citing the award-winning behavioral health court for mentally ill offenders as one example of how these courts can stop the courts’ current revolving-door system.

"This is a difficult budget time, but we can target high-end users of expensive programs and save money," he said.

Albers added that under the current system, people charged with misdemeanors must wait two days for an arraignment, while those charged with felonies wait three days. At $152 per day per bed, taxpayers spend thousands of dollars a year on people whose charges are ultimately dropped.

A representative of the mayor’s budget office told the hearing that the CJC could also save money by eliminating the need to build more jail pods, thus lowering the sheriff’s budget. But Harvey Rose of the Budget Analysts’ office said the CJC has failed to document any actual savings.

"Savings means that a budget is going to be cut, and we have seen no cuts in any budget," Rose said.

Some Tenderloin residents said that because crime is so rampant in their neighborhood, it would unacceptable for the city not to take action in some way, and they urged approval of the CJC. Yet others object to the double standard of creating what they dub the "poverty court." *

Yup, Newsom buckles to PG&E on Mirant plant

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

When PG&E spits, City Hall swims. Mayor Newsom to Potrero Hill: Drop dead.

For more than 40 years, the Guardian has watched every San Francisco mayor without exception buckle to PG&E and help the giant utility keep its illegal private power monopoly intact in San Francisco.

The latest to buckle, this time more openly and ignominiously than most, appears to be Mayor Gavin Newsom, who is revving up his campaign for governor and wants to keep PG&E nice and cuddly by his side.
Here’s the story as it leaked from City Hall this weekend. For 40 years, the people of Potrero Hill and the southeastern part of the city have fought to close down the fossil-burning Mirant power plant at the bottom of Potrero Hill. Newsom personally supported the plan to close Mirant and replace it with city-owned peaker power plants. And his Public Utilities Commission has spent years developing a plan to do just this. (Alas, the peakers were the PUC’s only alternative and the PUC demanded that they be sited at the Mirant plant, amongst the long suffering Potrero Hillians, never a serious thought to anywhere more uptown. This rightly agitated the environmental justice community, but that is another story.)

PG&E has been fighting the peakers because they would be PG&Es worst nightmare: a major public power beachhead in San Francisco. As the historic vote neared last Tuesday at the Board of Supervisors, PG&E counted the votes and found it did not have a 6-5 majority. And so it did what it has historically done to protect its illegal private power monopoly in San Francisco, It rolled out its heavy artillery, went directly to the mayor, and started pounding away on a weak and wavering Newsom.

This time, as reported in the Bruce and Tim Redmond blogs, seven lobbyists (you heard me, seven) called on him in his City Hall office and told him to kill the peaker proposal, or else, and offered him a blank check to do a Mirant retrofit. Newsom buckled.

PG&E got Newsom to ask for an extension on the vote, which he got for a week, and he lamely announced that he would be looking for some kind of last minute alternative to the peakers PG&E so dreads. The alternative appears to be the PG&E alternative: junk the peakers and do a retrofit of the existing Mirant plant. This would subject the Potrero Hill neighborhood, and the mushrooming Mission Bay population, to the ruinous plant for the duration.

As a City Hall source put it to me, “This is the dumbest of all options, retrofitting the Mirant plant so that it’s a little cleaner, but still nowhere near as clean as the peakers, way less efficient, and a waste of land to boot. It is the mayor’s choice to avoid upsetting PG&E.” The vote is scheduled again for this Tuesday, but it may be postponed again if neither PG&E nor the peaker supporters don’t have the votes.

Hey, remember Dick Sklar, the former PUC executive director who Newsom recently appointed to the PUC to peddle the mayor’s PG&E policies (and remember Sup. Chris Daly, who cast the deciding vote for Sklar’s confirmation.and said that Sklar was “neutral” on PG&E.) Sklar was right in there as expected, pumping away for PG&E and helping facilitate the latest mayoral cavein to PG&E. As the Guardian has maintained for years, if people at City Hall want to work for PG&E, they should be dispatched to PG&E so they can work for the utility directly, not work for PG&E on the city payroll.

The only real way out of this PG&E uber alles mess is for the people to kick PG&E out of City Hall and bring real public power to the city. As Guardian readers know since 1969, San Francisco is the only city in the U.S. that is required by federal law to be a public power city, because of the Raker Act that allowed the city to dam Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park for the city’s water and power supply.

The best emerging plan is the public power initiative that Sups. Ross Mirkarimi, who opposes the peakers, and Aaron Peskin, who supports the peakers, are working on with public power forces to put on the fall ballot. Click here to read more about the initiative.

Question: Will Hearst corporate allow its reporters and editors to cover the PG@E/Raker Act scandal and the real public power story. Stay tuned for details and how the public can provide input and support.

To repeat: When PG&E spits, City Hall swims. Mayor Newsom to Potrero Hill: Drop dead.

P.S. Deadline summary: The vote lineup at blogtime, according to our check and City Hall sources. For: Peskin, Dufty, Maxwell, McGoldrick. Against: Mirkarimi, Ammiano, Daly, Alioto-Pier. Swinging away: Chu, Elsbernd, Sandoval. Prediction: The vote will be postponed again, probably until July or so, to give the PUC time to study the PG@E alternative put forth by Newsom. So PG@E may win this skirmish, but obviously the battle for public power and to enforce the Raker Act goes on.

B3, who watches the fumes from the Potrero plant every day from my office window at 135 Mississippi Street, courtesy of PG&E and Hearst journalism

The real energy-policy choice

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EDITORIAL According to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, if San Francisco wants to see the Potrero Hill power plant, which spews pollution over the southeast part of the city, close down next year, the city’s going to have to operate its own fossil fuel plants in the neighborhood. Some environmentalists say that’s not true — that the city could develop enough renewable energy and use existing backup systems to obviate the need for the so-called peaker plants.

Opposition to the plants comes from the Sierra Club, Supervisors Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi — and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

Even for people who spend an inordinate amount of time studying energy policy, it’s a confusing mess of a situation — and San Francisco, of all cities, shouldn’t have to be facing it.

The peaker dilemma exists for a reason: San Francisco has allowed private-sector companies like PG&E and Mirant, which owns the existing Potrero plant, to control the city’s energy systems. The good news is that the fight over the power plants is driving a new move for public power — a move that ought to bring together the public interest activists on both sides of the plant divide.

Sups. Ross Mirkarimi, a peaker foe, and Aaron Peskin, a peaker supporter, plan to introduce a Charter Amendment mandating that the city’s Public Utilities Commission create a plan to establish a retail power agency in San Francisco. The amendment would provide the badly needed kick start to get city officials to act on San Francisco’s historic mandate for a municipal electricity system.

Peskin and Mirkarimi may not agree on the three peaker plants the PUC wants to site at the foot of Potrero Hill, but they do agree that PG&E is up to no good here. The giant private utility desperately wants to keep the city from developing its own electric power plants: the city peakers would be competition for PG&E and would open the door for the city to get more directly into the electricity business. Although the fliers put out by the "Close It Coalition," funded by PG&E, talk about environmental issues, that’s just old-fashioned greenwashing. PG&E is building similar combustion turbine gas-fueled generators all over the state.

Why should this be the city’s only choice?

If there’s going to be a fight over energy policy in San Francisco, it ought to focus on the real long-term questions: Who should control the local grid, and the future supply of electricity, and the decision over how much of the local portfolio should be in renewable resources? Should PG&E continue to hold that power, or should the city take it over?

The movement for public power is exploding all over California. In Marin County, a group called Marin Clean Energy is mounting a sophisticated campaign for a community-controlled power agency that would use 100 percent renewable power. The South San Joaquin County Irrigation District is trying aggressively, against a full-scale PG&E political assault, to buy out PG&E’s distribution facilities and create a new public power system. Stockton is looking at becoming a public power city.

San Francisco is pursuing CCA, but needs to do much more. This is, after all, the only city in the nation that has a mandate under federal law to sell retail electricity.

If the city had created a public power agency years ago, the peakers wouldn’t be an issue. San Francisco would have been able to develop more extensive renewable power sources, create a long-term energy plan, and concentrate on shutting down fossil fuel plants instead of building them.

But whatever the outcome of that fight, it’s time to think about the future — and the future is community-owned energy programs. That’s the choice that ought to be on the ballot in November.

PS: Stop the presses — has Newsom buckled to PG&E? The mayor at the last minute May 13 has orchestrated a delay in the peaker vote — at the behest, we hear, of PG&E, which is begging the mayor to do anything to stop public power. Now he wants to retrofit the Mirant plant. That’s an unacceptable option and needs to be rejected.

Here comes the public power initiative!

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By Bruce B. Brugmann (Scroll down to see the historic Mirkarimi/Peskin/City Attorney resolution)

Today, at the Board of Supervisors meeting, Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin introduced
a Charter Amendment mandating that the city’s Public Utilities Commission create a plan to establish a retail power agency in San Francisco and start the process of kicking PG&E out of City Hall and the rest of the city.

The amendment, as our editorial in Wednesday’s Guardian outlines, would “provide the badly needed kick start to get city officials to act on San Francisco’s historic mandate for a municipal electricity system.”

The move is prompted by the battle over whether the city should replace the ruinous Mirant private power plant with city-owned power plants called peakers at the foot of Potrero Hill. PG&E has quietly orchestrated a major political and public relations onslaught to kill the peakers because they would be what PG&E fears most: city-owned public power.

In fact, as Tim Redmond’s blog discloses, PG&E even marched seven lobbyists (yes, seven) into the office of would-be-green Mayor Gavin Newsom, who once personally backed the plan and whose Public Utilities Commission backs the plan. PG&E jacked Newsom around and muscled him into asking for a delay in today’s scheduled power plant vote to give PG&E more time to kill the peakers.

The rationale: some sort of vague and ridiculous idea of retrofitting the Mirant plant and keeping the PG&E uber alles status quo.

IF PG&E ultimately loses the peaker vote (and it will be close), PG&E will most likely run a referendum on the November ballot against this dread move to peaker public power. So the Mirkarimi and Peskin move is aimed at putting a counter initiative on the November ballot and breathing new life into the historic battle to enforce the federal Raker Act (which mandated San Francisco have a public power system) and bringing our own cheap Hetch Hetchy public power to the people of San Francisco. (See Guardian stories and editorials since l969.) The initiative would be timed to take advantage of the expected heavy turnout of Obama forces for the presidential election and for the election of supervisors.

The legislative digest sums up the amendment in a paragraph of City Hall legalese:

The amendment is to “address the need to change electricity production, delivery, and use to ensure environmentally sustainable and affordable electric supplies for residents, businesses, and city departments and to require the Public Utiliies Commmission to comprehensively study and determine the most effective means of providing clean, sustainable, reliable, and reasonably-priced electric service to San Francisco residents, businesses, and city departments.”

The amendment was written and signed by Deputy City Attorney Theresa Mueller and approved as to form by City Attorney Dennis Herrera. It was introduced by the president of the board (Peskin) and a powerful supervisor who is obviously running for board president and mayor (Mirkarimi). These references are important: when the public power movement was reinvigorated in the late l990s, it faced a massive lineup of PG&E stalwarts inside City Hall: City Attorney Louise Rennie, Mayor Willie Brown, the PUC executive director and PUC commission, and all the supervisors with the notable exception of Sup. Tom Ammiano.

Mikarimi led the two famous initiative campaigns as campaign manager in 2000 and 2001, which PG&E defeated with muscle, mutli milliions, and staunch daily paper support. Now, Mirkarimi is inside City Hall in a starring role leading the charge for community choice aggregation (CCA) and now a public power initiative. And the whole thing scares the hell out of PG&E.as never before.
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Hurray! The battle is on!

P.S. PG&E marches in: You can see how PG&E works by seeing who was at the critical May 5 meeting in the mayor’s office. No public power people, nobody from the Sierra Club, and no environmental justice activists who are also opposing the peakers (but for understandable environmental reasons.) But standing tall at the secret meeting were seven PG&E lobbyists, led by Travis Kiyota, and such PG&E friendly folks as PUC Commissioner Dick Sklar (remember him?), Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, and a representative from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

PG&E and NRDC arranged to have a timely letter on NRDC letterhead, dated May 12 , come to the supervisors from Robert Kennedy Jr., with ccs to Newsom, President Michael Peevey of the California Public Utilities Commission, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The letter was of course released to the press and the public on the eve of the vote. PG&E, NRDC, and Kennedy had at least one line right: “Where San Francisco ultimately decides to invest its precious energy dollars is a choice that will send a message to cities around the country.”

The tipoff: nowhere do the PG&E supporters, including the Chronicle editorialists who suddenly took a down-with-the-peakers stand yesterday, nor the Examiner, with a wimpy story today on Newsom’s sudden change of plans, mention those dread three letters that divulge the secret agent at work (PG&E) nor that dread phrase that tells what the secret agent is really up to (killing public power.) C’mon, folks, this isn’t that hard to figure out. Is there some law somewhere that says the local media can’t cover what PG&E is doing to perpetuate the PG&E/Raker Act scandal and once again kill public power? (See “The Shame of Hearst” in previous Guardian and blog items.)

On guard. The pubic power forces are once again moving up to the front lines, muskets at the ready. B3 (who sees the fumes from the Mirant plant every minute of every day from my Potrero Hill office window)

Click here to read Mirkarimi and Peskin’s recent Charter Amendment.

Click here to read Redmond’s recent blog, PG&E offers Newsom a blank check

Click here for this week’s PG&E editorial.

Two former mayors help Mirkarimi launch campaign

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As I predicted, Friday’s campaign kickoff event for Sup. Ross Mirkarimi wasn’t simply about whether he’ll be reelected to the Board of Supervisors. It was the launch of a movement to reshape San Francisco’s political landscape in a way that could maintain progressive control of the Board of Supervisors and propel Mirkarimi into the mayor’s office a few years from now.
Yet rather than relying strictly on a reenergized progressive movement, the event seemed to signal that Mirkarimi is aiming to create a bigger tent that capitalizes on his strength on criminal justice issues, among other domains of the moderates. Notably, those in attendance included two former mayors: Art Agnos (no surprise) and Willie Brown (big surprise, and a strong indicator that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s coalition is fraying).
As Sup. Aaron Peskin told the capacity crowd at Yoshi’s on Fillmore Street, “There may come a day when Ross is the chief executive of this city.”

More than just Mirkarimi’s kickoff

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Image from sfgreenparty.org

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi kicks off his campaign for reelection this evening at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in the heart of the Fillmore. The Board of Supervisors’ only Green Party member is popular in his District 5 — made up of the super lefty Haight and crime-plagued Western Addition, where Mirkarimi has shown real leadership in pushing police foot patrols and other reforms — and is expected to cruise to a relatively easy victory.

But today’s event carries a far larger symbolic significance: it is the beginning of a long campaign to create a progressive narrative for San Francisco that counters the centrist and fairly superficial approach of Mayor Gavin Newsom. And that’s a struggle that will carry through this fall’s high-stakes supervisorial elections, into the vote for a new board president in January, and on into the next mayor’s race — all of which could feature Mirkarimi in a starring role.

Newsom axes sunshine

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EDITORIAL Shortly before he left on a trip to Israel last week, Mayor Gavin Newsom quietly vetoed a bill that would have greatly expanded public access to the workings of San Francisco government. The supervisors need to override that veto as quickly as possible.

The measure, by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, seems so simple that it’s hard to imagine why it would be controversial. Mirkarimi wants the city to audiotape or videotape any meeting of any public agency at City Hall, and post that tape on the Web within 72 hours.

That would make it much easier for people following local government actions to see or hear the actual testimony and discussion at board and commission meetings, most of which take place during the day when people with jobs can’t attend. The Board of Supervisors meetings are televised, as are most board committee meetings, but dozens of other agencies meet regularly with few people attending and virtually no press coverage. And there’s no easy way to find out exactly what went on at those meetings.

Posting the recordings on the Web is part of a larger agenda promoted by sunshine advocates who want to see the city use easily available and inexpensive modern technology to promote open government (see Sunshine in the digital age, 3/12/08). Among their proposals: at the very least, post and stream the audio portion of all meetings on the Internet. Most meetings are already recorded anyway, and all the meeting rooms are equipped with recording gear. But those recordings aren’t easy to access. The only way to get a copy of the proceedings is to send $10 for a DVD and $1 for an audiotape to the city, then wait a week for your media to arrive in the mail. How hard could it be to put that material on the Web?

Sunshine activists want to go a lot further. They suggest, for example, that every document and e-mail created by a city employee be sent automatically to a public server where it can be viewed over the Internet. And if there was adequate wi-fi service at City Hall (there isn’t), bloggers could post video of the meetings themselves.

Mirkarimi’s bill didn’t go anywhere near that far. All he asked was that the meetings that take place in rooms equipped for audio or video taping be recorded and that the files be placed on the Web. The total cost was pegged at $131,000 per year, but the city’s cable-TV franchise deal would require Comcast to pay $55,000 for the necessary new equipment. So the final tab would be only $72,000 a year. That’s such a minuscule percentage of the city’s $5 billion budget that it fits into the category of what Mirkarimi calls "decimal dust."

And yet in an April 30 veto message, Newsom said he found the cost too high. "I would urge the Board of Supervisors to hold off on new spending initiatives" until the next budget cycle, he said.

That’s crazy. We recognize that money is tight, but Newsom has pushed all sorts of new programs and initiatives that cost more than $72,000. In fact, he spent almost twice that much ($139,700) gussying up his office back in January.

Four supervisors voted against Mirkarimi’s bill: Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd, Jake McGoldrick, and Michela Alioto-Pier, so Mirkarimi appears to have seven votes to override the veto. It will take one more — one more supervisor willing to stand up for open government — to make this program happen. It’s embarrassing to see neighborhood supervisors voting against sunshine. Call the four and demand they vote to override. Chu: 554-7460. Elsbernd: 554-6516. McGoldrick: 554-7410. Alioto-Pier: 554-7752.

Endorsements

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>>Click here for the full-text version of this story

Wait, wasn’t the primary election back in February? Yes, it was — in a way. The California Legislature, in an effort to make the state more relevant (that turned out well, didn’t it?) moved the presidential primary several months earlier this year but left the rest of the primary races, and some key initiatives, for the June 3 ballot. There’s a lot at stake here: three contested Legislative races, two judicial races, a measure that could end rent control in California … vote early and often. Our endorsements follow.

National races

Congress, District 6

LYNN WOOLSEY


It’s an irony that the congressional representative from Marin and Sonoma counties is far to the left of the representative from San Francisco, but Lynn Woolsey’s politics put Nancy Pelosi to shame. Woolsey was against the Iraq war from the start and the first member of Congress to demand that the troops come home, and she continues to speak out on the issue. At the same time, she’s also a strong advocate for injured veterans.

Woolsey, who once upon a time (many years ago) was on welfare herself, hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to have trouble making ends meet. She’s a leading voice against cuts in social service spending and is now pushing a bill to increase food stamp benefits. She richly deserves reelection.

Congress, District 7

GEORGE MILLER


George Miller, who has represented this East Bay district since 1974, is an effective legislator and strong environmentalist. Sometimes he’s too willing to compromise — he worked with the George W. Bush administration on No Child Left Behind, a disaster of an education bill — but he’s a solid opponent of the war and we’ll endorse him for another term.

Congress, District 8

NO ENDORSEMENT


Cindy Sheehan, the antiwar activist, is moving forward with her campaign to challenge Nancy Pelosi as an independent candidate in November, and we wish her luck. For now, Pelosi, the Speaker of the House and one of the most powerful people in Washington, will easily win the Democratic primary.

But Pelosi long ago stopped representing her San Francisco district. She continues to support full funding for Bush’s war, refused to even consider impeachment (back when it might have made sense), refused to interact with war critics who camped out in front of her house … and still won’t acknowledge it was a mistake to privatize the Presidio. We can’t endorse her.

Congress, District 13

PETE STARK


You have to love Pete Stark. The older he gets, the more radical he sounds — and after 32 years representing this East Bay district, he shows no signs of slowing down. Stark is unwilling to be polite or accommodating about the Iraq war. In 2007 he announced on the floor of the House that the Republicans "don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement." He happily signed on to a measure to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. He is the only member of Congress who proudly admits being an atheist. It’s hard to imagine how someone like Stark could get elected today. But we’re glad he’s around.

Nonpartisan offices

Superior Court, Seat 12

GERARDO SANDOVAL


There aren’t many former public defenders on the bench in California. For years, governors — both Democratic and Republican — have leaned toward prosecutors and civil lawyers from big downtown firms when they’ve made judicial appointments. So the San Francisco judiciary isn’t, generally speaking, as progressive or diverse as the city.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval, who will be termed out this year, is looking to become a judge — and there’s no way this governor would ever appoint him. So he’s doing something that’s fairly rare, even in this town: he’s running for election against an incumbent.

We’re happy to see that. It’s heartening to see an actual judicial election. Judges are technically elected officials, but most incumbents retire in the middle of their terms, allowing the governor to appoint their replacements, and unless someone files to run against a sitting judge, his or her name doesn’t even appear on the ballot.

Sandoval is challenging Judge Thomas Mellon, a Republican who was appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson in 1994. He’s not known as a star on the bench: according to California Courts and Judges, a legal journal that profiles judges and includes interviews with lawyers who have appeared before them, Mellon has a reputation for being unreasonable and cantankerous. In 2000, the San Francisco Public Defenders Office sought to have him removed from all criminal cases because of what the defense lawyers saw as a bias against them and their clients.

Sandoval hasn’t been a perfect supervisor, and we’ve disagreed with him on a number of key issues. But he’s promised us to work for more openness in the courts (including open meetings on court administration), and we’ll give him our endorsement.

State races and propositions

State Senate, District 3

MARK LENO


It doesn’t get any tougher than this — two strong candidates, each with tremendous appeal and a few serious weaknesses. Two San Francisco progressives with distinguished records fighting for a powerful seat that could possibly be lost to a third candidate, a moderate from Marin County who would be terrible in the job. Two people we genuinely like, for very different reasons. It’s fair to say that this is one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make in the 42-year history of the Guardian.

In the end, we’ve decided — with much enthusiasm and some reservations — to endorse Assemblymember Mark Leno.

We will start with the obvious: this race is the result of term limits. Leno, who has served in the state Assembly for six years, argues, convincingly, that he is challenging incumbent state Sen. Carole Migden because he feels she hasn’t been doing the job. But Leno also loves politics, has no desire to return to life outside the spotlight, and if he could have stayed in the Assembly, the odds that he would have taken on this ugly and difficult race are slim. And if Leno hadn’t opened the door and exposed Migden’s vulnerability, there’s no way former Assemblymember Joe Nation of Marin would have thrown his hat into the ring. We’ve always opposed term limits; we still do.

That said, we’ll hold a few truths to be self-evident: In a one-party town, the only way any incumbent is ever held accountable is through a primary challenge. Those challenges can be unpleasant, and some — including Migden and many of her allies — argue that they’re a waste of precious resources. If Migden wasn’t scrambling to hold onto her seat, she’d be spending her money and political capital trying to elect more Democrats to the state Legislature. But Leno had every right to take on Migden. And win or lose, he has done a laudable public service: it’s been years since we’ve seen Migden around town, talking to constituents, returning phone calls and pushing local issues the way she has in the past few months. And while there will be some anger and bitterness when this is over — and some friends and political allies have been at each other’s throats and will have to figure out how to put that behind them — on balance this has been good for San Francisco. Migden has done much good, much to be proud of, but she had also become somewhat imperious and arrogant, a politician who hadn’t faced a serious election in more than a decade. If this election serves as a reminder to every powerful Democratic legislator that no seat is truly safe (are you listening, Nancy Pelosi?), then the result of what now seems like a political bloodbath can be only positive.

The Third Senate District, a large geographic area that stretches from San Francisco north into Sonoma County, needs an effective, progressive legislator who can promote issues and programs in a body that is not known as a bastion of liberal thought.

Both Migden and Leno can make a strong case on that front. Leno, for example, managed to get passed and signed into law a bill that amends the notorious pro-landlord Ellis Act to protect seniors and disabled people from evictions. He got both houses of the Legislature to approve a marriage-equality bill — twice. During his tenure in the unpleasant job of chairing the Public Safety Committee, he managed to kill a long list of horrible right-wing bills and was one of the few legislators to take a stand against the foolish measure that barred registered sex offenders from living near a park or school. Migden helped pass the landmark community-aggregation bill that allows cities to take a big step toward public power. She’s also passed several key bills to regulate or ban toxic substances in consumer products.

Migden’s record isn’t all positive, though. For a time, she was the chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee — although she gave up that post in 2006, abandoning a job that was important to her district and constituents, to devote more time to campaigning for Steve Westly, a moderate candidate for governor. When we challenged her on that move, she showed her legendary temper, attacking at least one Guardian editor personally and refusing to address the issue at hand. Unfortunately, that isn’t unusual behavior.

Then there’s the matter of ethics and campaign finance laws. The Fair Political Practices Commission has fined Migden $350,000 — the largest penalty ever assessed against a state lawmaker — for 89 violations of campaign finance laws. We take that seriously; the Guardian has always strongly supported ethics and campaign-finance laws, and this level of disregard for the rules raises serious doubts for us about Migden’s credibility.

Sup. Chris Daly posted an open letter to us on his blog last week, and he made a strong pitch for Migden: "While there are only a few differences between Carole and Mark Leno on the issues," he wrote, "when it comes to San Francisco politics, the two are in warring political factions. Carole has used her position in Sacramento consistently to help progressive candidates and causes in San Francisco, while Leno is a kinder, gentler Gavin Newsom."

He’s absolutely right. On the local issues we care about, Migden has been with us far more than Leno. When the public power movement needed money and support in 2002, Migden was there for us. When the University of California and a private developer were trying to turn the old UC Extension campus into luxury housing, Migden was the one who helped Sup. Ross Mirkarimi demand more affordable units. Migden was the one who helped prevent a bad development plan on the Port. Migden stood with the progressives in denouncing Newsom’s budget — and Leno stood with the mayor.

The district supervisorial battles this fall will be crucial to the city’s future, and Migden has already endorsed Eric Mar, the best progressive candidate for District 1, and will almost certainly be with John Avalos, the leading progressive in District 11. Leno may well back a Newsom moderate. In fact, he’s made himself a part of what labor activist Robert Haaland aptly calls the "squishy center" in San Francisco, the realm of the weak, the fearful, and the downtown sycophants who refuse to promote progressive taxes, regulations, and budgets at City Hall. His allegiance to Newsom is truly disturbing.

There’s a war for the soul of San Francisco today, as there has been for many years, and Leno has often tried to straddle the battle lines, sometimes leaning a bit to the wrong camp — and never showing the courage to fight at home for the issues he talks about in Sacramento. We’ll stipulate to that — and the only reason we can put it aside for the purposes of this endorsement is that Leno has never really had much in the way of coattails. He supports the wrong candidates, but he doesn’t do much for them — and we sincerely hope it stays that way.

While Leno is too close to Newsom, we will note that Migden is far too close to Gap founder and Republican leader Don Fisher, one of the most evil players in local politics. She proudly pushed to put Fisher — who supports privatizing public schools — on the state Board of Education.

A prominent local progressive, who we won’t identify by name, called us several months ago to ask how were going to come down in this race, and when we confessed indecision, he said: "You know, I really want to support Carole. But she makes it so hard."

We find ourselves in a similar position. We really wanted to support Migden in this race. We’d prefer to see the state senator from San Francisco using her fundraising ability and influence to promote the candidates and causes we care about.

But Migden has serious political problems right now, baggage we can’t ignore — and it’s all of her own making. Migden says her problems with the Fair Political Practices Commission are little more than technical mistakes — but that’s nonsense. She’s played fast and loose with campaign money for years. When it comes to campaign finance laws, Migden has always acted as if she rules don’t apply to her. She’s treated FPPC fines as little more than a cost of doing business. This latest scandal isn’t an exception; it’s the rule.

Unfortunately, it’s left her in a position where she’s going to have a hard time winning. Today, the election looks like a two-person race between Leno and Nation. And the threat of Joe Nation winning this primary is too great for us to mess around.

Despite our criticism of both candidates, we would be happy with either in the state Senate. We’re taking a chance with Leno; he’s shown some movement toward the progressive camp, and he needs to continue that. If he wins, he will have a huge job to do bringing a fractured queer and progressive community back together — and the way to do that is not by simply going along with everything Newsom wants. Leno has to show some of the same courage at home he’s shown in Sacramento.

But right now, today, we’ve endorsing Mark Leno for state Senate.

State Senate, District 9

LONI HANCOCK


This is another of several tough calls, another creature of term limits that pit two accomplished and experienced termed-out progressive assembly members against each other for the senate seat of termed-out Don Perata. We’ve supported both Loni Hancock and Wilma Chan in the past, and we like both of them. In this one, on balance, we’re going with Hancock.

Hancock has a lifetime of experience in progressive politics. She was elected to the Berkeley City Council in 1971, served two terms as Berkeley mayor, worked as the US Department of Education’s western regional director under Bill Clinton, and has been in the State Assembly the past six years. On just about every progressive issue in the state, she’s been an activist and a leader. And at a time when the state is facing a devastating, crippling budget crisis that makes every other issue seem unimportant, Hancock seems to have a clear grasp of the problem and how to address it. She’s thought through the budget calculus and offers a range of new revenue measures and a program to change the rules for budget passage (two-thirds vote in the legislature is needed to pass any budget bill, which gives Republicans, all but one who has taken a Grover Norquist–inspired pledge never to raise taxes, an effective veto).

Chan, who represented Oakland in the assembly for six years, is a fighter: she’s taken on the insurance industry (by cosponsoring a major single-payer health insurance bill), the chemical industry (by pushing to ban toxic materials in furniture, toys, and plumbing fixtures), and the alcoholic-beverages lobby (by seeking taxes to pay for treatment for young alcoholics). She’s an advocate of sunshine, not just in government, where she’s calling for an earlier and more open budget process, but also in the private sector: a Chan bill sought to force health insurance companies to make public the figures on how often they decline claims.

But she seems to us to have less of a grasp of the budget crisis and the level of political organizing it will take to solve it. Right now, at a time of financial crisis, we’re going with Hancock’s experience and broader vision.

State Assembly, District 12

FIONA MA


We were dubious about Ma. She was a pretty bad supervisor, and when she first ran for Assembly two years ago, we endorsed her opponent. But Ma’s done some good things in Sacramento — she’s become one of the leading supporters of high-speed rail, and she’s working against state Sen. Leland Yee’s attempt to give away 60 acres of public land around the Cow Palace to a private developer. She has no primary opponent, and we’ll endorse her for another term.

State Assembly, District 13

TOM AMMIANO


This one’s easy. Ammiano, who has been a progressive stalwart on the Board of Supervisors for more than 15 years, is running with no opposition in the Democratic primary for state Assembly, and we’re proud to endorse his bid.

Although he’s certain to win, it’s worth taking a moment to recall the extent of Ammiano’s service to San Francisco and the progressive movement. He authored the city’s domestic partners law. He authored the living wage law. He created the universal health care program that Mayor Newsom is trying to take credit for. He sponsored the 2002 public-power measure that would have won if the election hadn’t been stolen. He created the Children’s Fund. He authored the Rainy Day Fund law that is now saving the public schools in San Francisco. And the list goes on and on.

Beyond his legislative accomplishments, Ammiano has been a leader — at times, the leader — of the city’s progressive movement and is at least in part responsible for the progressive majority now on the Board of Supervisors. In the bleak days before district elections, he was often the only supervisor who would carry progressive bills. His 1999 mayoral challenge to incumbent Willie Brown marked a tectonic shift in local politics, galvanizing the left and leading the way to the district-election victories that brought Aaron Peskin, Matt Gonzalez, Jake McGoldrick, Chris Daly, and Gerardo Sandoval to office in 2000.

It’s hard to imagine the San Francisco left without him.

Ammiano will do a fine job in Sacramento, and will continue to use his influence to push the progressive agenda back home.

State Assembly, District 14

KRISS WORTHINGTON


This is another tough one. The race to replace Loni Hancock, one of the most progressive and effective legislators in the state, has drawn two solid, experienced, and well-qualified candidates: Berkeley City Council member Kriss Worthington and former council member Nancy Skinner. We like Skinner, and she would make an excellent assemblymember. But all things considered, we’re going with Worthington.

Skinner was on the Berkeley council from 1984 to 1992 and was part of a progressive majority in the 1980s that redefined how the left could run a city. That council promoted some of the best tenant protection and rent control laws in history, created some of the best local environmental initiatives, and fought to build affordable housing and fund human services. Skinner was responsible for the first local law in the United States to ban Styrofoam containers — a measure that caused McDonald’s to change its food-packaging policies nationwide. She went on to found a nonprofit that helps cities establish sustainable environmental policies.

Skinner told us that California has "gutted our commitment to education," and she vowed to look for creative new ways to raise revenue to pay for better schools. She’s in touch with the best economic thinkers in Sacramento, has the endorsement of Hancock (and much of the rest of the East Bay Democratic Party establishment), and would hit the ground running in the legislature.

Worthington, Berkeley’s only openly gay council member, has been the voice and conscience of the city’s progressive community for the past decade. He’s also been one of the hardest-working politicians in the city — a recent study by a group of UC Berkeley students found that he had written more city council measures than anyone else currently on the council and had won approval for 98 percent of them.

Worthington has been the driving force for a more effective sunshine law in Berkeley, and has been unafraid to challenge the liberal mayor, Tom Bates, and other leading Democrats. His campaign slogan — "a Democrat with a backbone" — has infuriated some of the party hierarchy with its clear (and intended) implication that a lot of other Democrats lack a spine.

"All of the Democrats in the assembly voted for 50,000 more prison beds," he told us. "We needed a Barbara Lee [who cast Congress’ lone vote against George W. Bush’s first war resolution] to stand up and say, ‘this is wrong and I won’t go along.’"

That’s one of the things we like best about Worthington: on just about every issue and front, he’s willing to push the envelope and demand that other Democrats, even other progressive Democrats, stand up and be counted. Which is exactly what we expect from someone who represents one of the most progressive districts in the state.

It’s a close call, but on this one, we’re supporting Kriss Worthington.

State ballot measures

Proposition 98

Abolition of rent control

NO, NO, NO


Proposition 99

Eminent domain reforms

YES, YES, YES


There’s a little rhyme to help you remember which way to vote on this critical pair of ballot measures:

"We hate 98, but 99 is fine."

The issue here is eminent domain, which is making its perennial ballot appearance. Californians don’t like the idea of the government seizing their property and handing it over to private developers, and the most conservative right-wing forces in the state are trying to take advantage of that.

Think about this: if Prop. 98 passes, there will be no more rent control in California. That means thousands of San Francisco tenants will lose their homes. Many could become homeless. Others will have to leave town. All the unlawful-evictions laws will be tossed out. So will virtually any land-use regulations, which is why all the environmental groups also oppose Prop. 98.

In fact, everyone except the Howard Jarvis anti-tax group hates this measure, including seniors, farmers, water districts, unions, and — believe it or not — the California Chamber of Commerce.

Prop. 99, on the other hand, is an unapologetic poison-pill measure that’s been put on the ballot for two reasons: to fix the eminent domain law once and for all, and kill Prop. 98 if it passes. It’s simply worded and goes to the heart of the problem by preventing government agencies from seizing residential property to turn over to private developers. If it passes, the state will finally get beyond the bad guys using the cloak of eminent domain to destroy all the provisions protecting people and the environment.

If anyone has any doubts about the motivation here, take a look at the money: the $3 million to support Prop. 98 came almost entirely from landlords.

This is the single most important issue on the ballot. Remember: no on 98, yes on 99.

San Francisco measures

Proposition A

School parcel tax

YES, YES, YES


Every year, hundreds of excellent teachers leave the San Francisco Unified School District. Some retire after a career in the classroom, but too many others — young teachers with three to five years of experience — bail because they decide they can’t make enough money. San Francisco pays less than public school districts in San Mateo and Marin counties and far less than private and charter schools. And given the high cost of living in the city, a lot of qualified people never even consider teaching as a profession. That harms the public school system and the 58,000 students who rely on it.

It’s a statewide problem, even a national one — but San Francisco, with a remarkable civic unity, is moving to do something about it. Proposition A would place an annual tax on every parcel of land in the city; the typical homeowner would pay less than $200 a year. The money would go directly to increasing pay — mostly starting pay — for teachers. The proposition, which has the support of almost everyone in town except the Republican Party, is properly targeted toward the newer teachers, with the goal of keeping the best teachers on the job past that critical three to five years.

Parcel taxes aren’t perfect; they force homeowners and small businesses to pay the same rate as huge commercial property owners. The way land is divided in the city most big downtown properties sit on at least five, and sometimes as many as 10 or 20 parcels, so the bill will be larger for them. But it’s still nowhere near proportionate.

Still, Prop. 13 has made it almost impossible to raise ad valorum property taxes (based on a property’s assessed value) in the state, and communities all around the Bay are using parcel taxes as a reasonable if imperfect substitute.

There’s a strong campaign for Prop. A and not much in the way of organized opposition, but the measure still needs a two-thirds vote. So for the sake of public education in San Francisco, it’s critical to vote yes.

Proposition B

City retiree benefits change

YES


San Francisco has always offered generous health and retirement benefits to its employees. That’s a good thing. But in this unfortunate era, when federal money is getting sucked into Iraq, state money is going down the giant deficit rat hole, and nobody is willing to raise taxes, the bill for San Francisco’s expensive employee benefit programs is now looking to create a fiscal crisis at City Hall. Officials estimate the payout for current and past employees could total $4 billion over the next 30 years.

So Sup. Sean Elsbernd and his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors have engineered this smart compromise measure in a way that saves the city money over the long run and has the support of labor unions (largely because it includes an increase in the pensions for longtime employees, partially offset by a one-year wage freeze starting in 2009) while still offering reasonable retirements benefits for new employees.

Previously, city employees who worked just five years could get taxpayer-paid health benefits for life. Under this measure, it will take 20 years to get fully paid health benefits, with partially paid benefits after 10 years.

It’s rare to find an issue that has the support of virtually everyone, from the supervisors and the mayor to labor. Prop. B makes sense. Vote yes.

Proposition C

Benefit denials for convicts

NO


On the surface, it’s hard to argue against Prop. C, a measure promoted as a way to keep crooks from collecting city retirement benefits. Sup. Sean Elsbernd’s ballot measure would update an ordinance that’s been on the books in San Francisco for years, one that strips public employees found guilty of "crimes of moral turpitude" against the city of their pensions. A recent court case involving a worker who stole from the city raised doubt about whether that law also applied to disability pay, and Prop. C would clear up that possible loophole.

But there are drawbacks this measure.

For starters, the problem isn’t that big: cases of rejected retirement benefits for city workers are rare. And the law still uses that questionable phrase "moral turpitude" — poorly defined in state law, never clearly defined in this measure, and as any older gay person can tell you, in the past applied to conduct that has nothing to do with honesty. The US State Department considers "bastardy," "lewdness," "mailing an obscene letter" and "desertion from the armed forces," among other things, to be crimes of moral turpitude.

Besides, Prop. C would apply not only to felonies but to misdemeanors. Cutting off disability pay for life over a misdemeanor offense seems awfully harsh.

The law that Elsbernd wants to expand ought to be rethought and reconfigured for the modern era. So vote no on C.

Proposition D

Appointments to city commissions

YES


Prop. D is a policy statement urging the mayor and the supervisors to appoint more women, minorities, and people with disabilities to city boards and commissions. It follows a study by the Commission on the Status of Women that such individuals are underrepresented on the policy bodies that run many city operations.

Despite the overblown concerns raised by local Republicans in the ballot arguments, this advisory measure would do nothing to interfere with qualified white males — or anyone else — getting slots on commissions.

Vote yes.

Proposition E

Board approval of San Francisco Public Utilities Commission appointees

YES


"The last thing we need is more politics at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission," was the first line in Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ballot argument against Prop. E. That’s ironic: it was Newsom’s recent political power play — including the unexplained ousting of SFPUC General Manager Susan Leal and the partially successful effort to reappoint his political allies to this important body — that prompted this long overdue reform.

The SFPUC is arguably the most powerful and important of the city commissions, controlling all the vital resources city residents need: water, power, and waste disposal chief among them. Yet with the mayor controlling all appointments to the commission (it takes a two-thirds vote of the Board of Supervisors to challenge an appointment), that panel has long been stacked with worthless political hacks. As a result, the panel never pursued progressive approaches to conservation, environmental justice, public power, or aggressive development of renewable power sources.

Prop. E attempts to break that political stranglehold by requiring majority confirmation by the Board of Supervisors for all SFPUC appointments. It also mandates that appointees have some experience or expertise in matters important to the SFPUC.

If anything, this reform is too mild: we would have preferred that the board have the authority to name some of the commissioners. But that seemed unlikely to pass, so the board settled for a modest attempt to bring some oversight to the powerful panel.

Vote yes on Prop. E — because the last thing we need is more politics at the SFPUC.

Proposition F

Hunters Point-Bayview redevelopment

YES


Proposition G

NO


On the face of it, Proposition G sounds like a great way to restart the long-idle economic engine of the Bayview and clean up the heavily polluted Hunters Point Shipyard.

Who could be against a plan that promises up to 10,000 new homes, 300 acres of new parks, 8,000 permanent jobs, a green tech research park, a new 49ers stadium, a permanent home for shipyard artists, and a rebuild of Alice Griffith housing project?

The problem with Prop. G is that its promises are, for the most part, just that: promises — which could well shift at any time, driven by the bottom line of Lennar Corp., a financially stressed, out-of-state developer that has already broken trust with the Bayview’s low-income and predominantly African American community.

Lennar has yet to settle with the Bay Area air quality district over failures to control asbestos dust at a 1,500-unit condo complex on the shipyard, where for months the developer kicked up clouds of unmonitored toxic asbestos dust next to a K-12 school.

So, the idea of giving this corporation more land — including control of the cleanup of a federal Superfund site — as part of a plan that also allows it to construct a bridge over a slough restoration project doesn’t sit well with community and environmental groups. And Prop. G’s promise to build "as many as 25 percent affordable" housing units doesn’t impress affordable housing activists.

What Prop. G really means is that Lennar, which has already reneged on promises to create much-needed rental units at the shipyard, now plans to build at least 75 percent of its housing on this 770-acre waterfront swathe as luxury condos.

And with the subprime mortgage crisis continuing to roil the nation, there is a real fear that Prop. G’s final "affordability" percentage will be set by Lennar’s profit margins and not the demographics of the Bayview, home to the city’s last major African American community and many low-income people of color.

There’s more: The nice green space that you see in the slick Lennar campaign fliers is toxic and may not be fully cleaned up. Under the plan, Lennar would put condo towers on what is now state parkland, and in exchange the city would get some open space with artificial turf on top that would be used for parking during football games. Assuming, that is, that a deal to build a new stadium for the 49ers — which is part of all of this — ever comes to pass.

In fact, the lion’s share of a recent $82 million federal funding allocation will be dedicated to cleaning up the 27-acre footprint proposed for a new stadium. In some places, the city is planning to cap contaminated areas, rather than excavate and remove toxins from the site.

If the environmental justice and gentrification questions swirling around Prop. G weren’t enough, there remains Prop. G’s claim that it will create 8,000 permanent jobs once the project is completed. There’s no doubt that the construction of 10,000 mostly luxury homes will create temporary construction jobs, but it’s not clear what kind of jobs the resulting gentrified neighborhood will provide and for whom.

But one thing is clear: the $1 million that Lennar has already plunked down to influence this election has overwhelmingly gone to line the pockets of the city’s already highly paid political elite, and not the people who grew up and still live in the Bayview.

But there’s an alternative.

Launched as a last-ditch effort to prevent wholesale gentrification of the Bayview, Proposition F requires that 50 percent of the housing in the BVHP/Candlestick Point project be affordable to those making less than the median area income ($68,000 for a family of four).

That’s a reasonable mandate, considering that the city’s own general plan calls for two-thirds of all new housing to be sold or rented at below-market rates.

And if the new housing is built along Lennar’s plans, it will be impossible to avoid large-scale gentrification and displacement in a neighborhood that has the highest percentage of African Americans in the city, the third highest population of children, and burgeoning Latino and Asian immigrant populations.

Lennar is balking at that level, saying a 50-percent affordability mandate would make the project financially unfeasible. But if Lennar can’t afford to develop this area at levels affordable to the community that lives in and around the area, the city should scrap this redevelopment plan, send this developer packing, and start over again.

San Francisco has an affordable housing crisis, and we continue to doubt whether the city needs any more million-dollar condos — and we certainly don’t need them in a redevelopment area in the southeast. Remember: this is 700 acres of prime waterfront property that Lennar will be getting for free. The deal on the table just isn’t good enough.

Vote yes on F and no on G.

Proposition H

Campaign committees

NO


This one sounds just fine. Promoted by Mayor Gavin Newsom, Proposition H is supposedly aimed at ensuring that elected officials don’t solicit money from city contractors for campaigns they are sponsoring. But it lacks a crucial legal definition — and that turns what ought to be a worthy measure into little more than an attack on Newsom’s foes on the Board of Supervisors.

The key element is something called a "controlled committee." It’s already illegal for city contractors to give directly to candidates who might later vote on their contracts. Prop. H would extend that ban to committees, typically run for or against ballot measures, that are under the control of an individual politician.

Take this one, for example. Since Newsom put this on the ballot, and will be campaigning for it, the Yes on H campaign is under his control — he would be barred from collecting cash from city contractors, right? Well, no.

See, the measure doesn’t define what "controlled committee" means. So a group of Newsom’s allies could set up a Yes on H fund, raise big money from city contractors, then simply say that Newsom wasn’t officially aware of it or involved in its operation.

When Newsom first ran for mayor, the committee supporting his signature initiative — Care Not Cash — raised a fortune, and the money directly helped his election. But that wasn’t legally a "controlled committee" — because Newsom never signed the documents saying he was in control.

Prop. H does nothing to change that rule, which means it would only affect campaign committees that a politician admits to controlling. And guess what? Newsom almost never admits that, while the supervisors, particularly board president Aaron Peskin, are a bit more honest.

When Newsom wants to clearly define "controlled committee" — in a way that would have brought the Care Not Cash effort under the law — we’ll go along with it. For now, though, vote no on H.

San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee

The DCCC is the policy-making and operating arm of the local Democratic Party, and it has a lot of influence: the party can endorse in nonpartisan elections — for San Francisco supervisor, for example — and its nod gives candidates credibility and money. There’s been a struggle between the progressives and the moderates for years — and this time around, there’s a serious, concerted effort for a progressive slate. The Hope Slate, which we endorse in its entirety, has the potential to turn the San Francisco Democratic Party into a leading voice for progressive values.

There are other good candidates running, but since this group will have consistent support and is running as a slate, we’re going with the full crew.

13th Assembly District

Bill Barnes, David Campos, David Chiu, Chris Daly, Michael Goldstein, Robert Haaland, Joe Julian, Rafael Mandelman, Aaron Peskin, Eric Quezada, Laura Spanjian, Debra Walker

12th Assembly District

Michael Bornstein, Emily Drennen, Hene Kelly, Eric Mar, Jake McGoldrick, Trevor McNeil, Jane Morrison, Melanie Nutter, Connie O’Connor, Giselle Quezada, Arlo Hale Smith

Alameda County races

Superior Court judge, Seat 21

VICTORIA KOLAKOWSKI


There are two good candidates running for this open seat. Dennis Hayashi, a public-interest lawyer, would make a fine judge. Victoria Kolakowski would make history.

Kolakowski, who works as an administrative law judge for the California Public Utilities Commission, would be the first transgender person on the Alameda bench and, quite possibly, in the entire country. That would be a major breakthrough and important for more than just symbolic reasons: transpeople have extensive interactions with the judicial system, starting with the work to legally change their names; and, all too often, members of this marginalized community wind up in the criminal justice system. Having a sitting TG judge would go a long way toward educating the legal world about the importance of trans sensitivity.

Kolakowski is eminently qualified for the job: as a private intellectual property lawyer and later an ALJ at the CPUC, she’s handled a range of complex legal issues. She currently oversees administrative hearings that are very similar to court proceedings, and she has a calm and fair judicial temperament.

That’s not to denigrate Hayashi, who also has an impressive résumé. He’s spend much of his life in public-interest law, working for many years with the Asian Law Caucus, and he was co-counsel in the historic case that challenged Fred Korematsu’s conviction for refusing to report to a Japanese internment camp during World War II. He’s run the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing and was a civil rights lawyer in the Clinton administration.

We’d be happy to see either on the bench, but we’re going to endorse Kolakowski.

Board of Supervisors, District 5

KEITH CARSON


Keith Carson, the leading progressive on the board, has no real opposition this time around. He’s been a voice for protecting the fragile social safety net of the county, and we’re happy to endorse him for another term.

Oakland races

City Attorney

JOHN RUSSO


John Russo, who has made no secrets of his political ambition, failed in a bid to win the State Assembly seat for District 16 in 2006, and now he’s running unopposed for reelection. Russo has voiced some pretty ridiculous sentiments: he told a magazine for landlords in May 2006 that he opposed all forms of rent control and was against laws requiring just cause for evictions. That’s a horrible stand for a city attorney to take in a city with a huge population of renters. But Russo is smart and capable, and he’s one of the few city attorneys who consistently supports sunshine laws. We’ll endorse him for another term.

City Council, District 1

JANE BRUNNER


An attorney and former teacher, Jane Brunner spends a lot of time pushing for more cops; crime is the top issue in the North Oakland district she represents. And while we’d rather see anticrime approaches that go beyond hiring more officers, we appreciate that Brunner takes on the police department over its hiring failures. We also find her far more preferable on the issue than her opponent, Patrick McCullough, a longtime neighborhood activist who has become something of a celebrity since he shot a teenager who was hassling him in front of his house in 2005.

Brunner is one of the council’s strongest affordable housing advocates and has worked tirelessly for an inclusionary housing law. She deserves reelection.

City Council, District 3

NANCY NADEL


Nadel is hardworking, effective, a leader on progressive economic and planning issues, and one of the best members of the Oakland City Council. She asked the hard questions and demanded improvements in the giant Oak to Ninth project (although she wound up voting for it). She’s pushing for better community policing and promoting community-based anticrime efforts, including a teen center in a part of her district where there have been several homicides. She was a principal architect of the West Oakland industrial zoning plan, which she hopes will attract new jobs to the community (although she also pissed off a few artists who fear they’ll be evicted from living spaces that aren’t up to code, and she needs to address the problem). We’re happy to endorse her for another term.

City Council, District 5

MARIO JUAREZ


Somebody has to try to oust Ignacio De La Fuente, and this time around, Juarez is the best bet. A small-businessperson (he runs a real-estate operation with around 60 employees), he has some surprisingly progressive positions: he not only supports inclusionary housing but told us that he wanted to see the percentage of affordable units increased from 15 to 25 percent. He wants to see community policing integrated fully into Oakland law enforcement. He suggested that Oakland look into putting a modest fee on all airport users to fund local education. And he’s in favor of stronger eviction controls and tenant protections.

De La Fuente, the City Council president, has been the developers’ best friend, has run meetings with a harsh hand, often cutting off debate and silencing community activists, and needs to be defeated. We know Juarez isn’t perfect, but his progressive grassroots-based campaign was strong enough to get him the nod of both the Democratic Party and the Alameda County Greens. We’ll endorse him, too.

City Council, District 7

CLIFFORD GILMORE


Neither of the candidates in this race are terribly impressive, but incumbent Larry Reid has been so terrible on so many issues (supporting big-box development, inviting the Marines to do war games in Oakland, supporting condo conversions, etc.) that it’s hard to imagine how Clifford Gilmore, director of the Oakland Coalition of Congregations, could be worse.

City Council, at large

REBECCA KAPLAN


Rebecca Kaplan is exactly what the Oakland City Council needs: an energetic progressive with the practical skills to get things done. As an AC Transit Board member, she pushed for free bus passes for low income youths — and defying all odds, managed to get all-night transit service from San Francisco to the East Bay. She did it by refusing to accept the conventional wisdom that transit agencies on the two sides of the bay would never cooperate. She put the key players together in a meeting, convinced the San Francisco supervisors to allow AC Transit buses to pick up passengers in the city late at night, and put through an effective program to get people across the bay after BART shuts down.

Kaplan is running for City Council on a progressive platform calling for affordable housing, rational development, and community policing. Her latest idea: since Oakland has so much trouble attracting quality candidates for vacancies in its police department, she suggests the city recruit gay and lesbian military veterans who were kicked out under the Pentagon’s homophobic policies. Her proposed slogan: "Uncle Sam doesn’t want you, but Oakland does."

Vote for Rebecca Kaplan.

School Board, District 1

JODY LONDON


The Oakland schools are still stuck under a state administrator; the district, which was driven by mismanagement into a financial crisis several years ago, paid the price of a state bailout by giving up its independence. The school board has only limited authority of district operations, though that’s slowly changing. The state allowed the board to hire an interim superintendent, meaning issues like curricula and programs will be back under local control. So it’s a time of transition for a district that has had horrible problems, and the board needs experienced, level-headed leadership.

We’re impressed with Jody London, a parent with children in the public schools who runs a small environmental consulting firm. She has been active in the district, co-chairing the 2006 bond campaign that raised $435 million and serving on the bond oversight committee. She has a grasp of fiscal management, understands the challenges the district faces, and has the energy to take them on.

Her main opposition is Brian Rogers, a Republican who has the backing of outgoing state senator Don Perata and is a big fan of private charter schools. Tennessee Reed, a young writer and editor, is also in the race, and we’re glad to see her getting active. But on balance, London is the clear choice.

School Board, District 3

OLUBEMIGA OLUWOLE, SR.


Not a great choice here — we’re not thrilled with either of the two contenders. Jumoke Hinton Hodge, a nonprofit consultant, is too willing to support charter schools. Oluwole, who works with parolees, has limited experience with education. But on the basis of his community background (he’s on the board of the Oakland Community Organization) and our concern about Hodge and charter schools, we’ll go with Oluwole.

School Board, District 5

NOEL GALLO


Noel Gallo, the incumbent, is running unopposed. He’s been a competent member of the board, and we see no reason not to support his reelection.

School Board, District 7

ALICE SPEARMAN


Alice Spearman, the incumbent, isn’t the most inspiring member of the board — and she’s known for making some ill-considered and impolitic statements. But her main opponent, Doris Limbrick, is the principal of a Christian school and has no business running for the board of a public school district. So we’ll go with Spearman again.

Alameda County measures

Measure F

Utility users tax

YES


Measure F extends and slightly increases the utility tax on unincorporated areas of the county. It’s not the greatest tax, but it’s not terrible — and it provides essential revenue to pay for services like law enforcement, libraries, and code enforcement. The parts of Alameda County outside any city boundary have been dwindling as cities expand, but the county provides the only local government services in those areas. And, like every other county in California, Alameda is desperately short of cash. So Measure F is crucial. Vote yes.

Oakland Measure J

Telephone-user tax

YES


Measure J would update a 40-year-old tax on phone use that goes for local services. The tax law applies only to old-fashioned land lines, so cell phone users get away without paying. This isn’t the world’s most progressive tax, but Oakland needs the money and Measure J would more fairly share the burden. Vote yes.

Weigh in on the peakers

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0

The city’s proposal to build two fossil-fuel burning “peaking” power plants on our precious peninsula (one in Portrero/Bayview, the other at the airport) has become a hot topic.

On one side we have Supervisors Michela Alioto-Pier, Chris Daly, and Ross Mirkarimi, allied with PG&E and a host of environmental groups and activists like the Sierra Club, GreenAction, SPUR, and Van Jones, who think building any fossil fuel plants – even if they burn the cleanest fuel available – is a bad idea.

On the other, we have Mayor Gavin Newsom, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, and Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Sophie Maxwell, who believe this is a necessary handshake with the Devil – in order to close down the older, reportedly more polluting Mirant Portrero power plant, the peakers must replace it. (See the $2 million handshake here.) Public power advocates also tend to favor this position as the peakers will be owned by the city and considered a crucial player in energy independence from our local utility monopoly. This is why PG&E, disguised as the CloseIt Coalition, hates the idea.

We can see Mirant’s stack from our Guardian offices, and though we love public power, we hate the idea of replacing one fossil fuel plant with another – particularly if the $250 million for the project could be used to build more city-owned renewable generation for our Community Choice Aggregation power co-op. Last week we ran an editorial suggesting the city explore floating the peakers on a barge, but overall, to build or not to build is the tricky part of this issue. We’ve been watching the back and forth with interest. Follow the jump to read some leading locals weighing in, as well as more data from our research. Feel free to add your own comments, information, and critiques.

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