MUNI

Endorsements 2008: San Francisco races

-
0

SAN FRANCISCO RACES

Board of Supervisors

District 1

ERIC MAR


The incumbent District 1 supervisor, Jake McGoldrick, likes to joke that he holds his seat only because Eric Mar’s house burned down eight years ago. Back then Mar, who has had a stellar career on the school board, decided to wait before seeking higher office.

But now McGoldrick — overall a good supervisor who was wrong on a few key votes — is termed out, and progressive San Francisco is pretty much unanimous in supporting Mar as his successor.

Mar, a soft-spoken San Francisco State University teacher, was a strong critic of former school superintendent Arlene Ackerman and a leader in the battle to get the somewhat dictatorial and autocratic administrator out of the district. He’s been a key part of the progressive majority that’s made substantial progress in improving the San Francisco public schools.

He’s a perfect candidate for District 1. He has strong ties to the district and its heavily Asian population. He’s a sensible progressive with solid stands on the key issues and a proven ability to get things done. He supports the affordable housing measure, Proposition B; the Clean Energy Act, Proposition H; and the major new revenue measures. He’s sensitive to tenant issues, understands the need for a profound new approach to affordable housing, and wants to solve the city’s structural budget problems with new revenue, not just cuts.

His chief opponent, Sue Lee, who works for the Chamber of Commerce, doesn’t support Prop. H and won’t even commit to supporting district elections. She ducked a lot of our questions and was either intentionally vague or really has no idea what she would do as a supervisor. She’s no choice for the district, and we found no other credible candidates worthy of our endorsement. Vote for Eric Mar.

District 3

1. DAVID CHIU


2. DENISE MCCARTHY


3. TONY GANTNER


The danger in this district is Joe Alioto. He’s smooth, he’s slick, he’s well funded — and he would be a disaster for San Francisco. Make no mistake about it, Alioto is the candidate of downtown — and thanks to his famous name and wads of big-business cash, he’s a serious contender.

Two progressive candidates have a chance at winning this seat and keeping Alioto off the board. David Chiu is a member of the Small Business Commission (SBC) and the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) and is a former civil rights lawyer who now manages a company that sells campaign software. Denise McCarthy ran the Telegraph Hill Neighborhood Center for 25 years and spent 7 years on the Port Commission.

Tony Gantner, a retired lawyer, is also in the race, although he is running well behind the others in the polls.

We have concerns about all the candidates. Chiu has a solid progressive record as a commissioner and committee member: He was one of only two SBC members who supported the living-wage ordinance and Sup. Tom Ammiano’s city health care plan. He backed Sup. Aaron Peskin, his political mentor, for chair of the DCCC. He backs Prop. H, supports the two revenue measures and the affordable-housing fund, and wants to give local small businesses a leg up in winning city contracts. He has some creative ideas about housing, including a community stabilization fee on new development.

He’s also a partner in a company that received $143,000 last year from PG&E and that has worked with Republicans and some nasty business interests.

Chiu says he doesn’t get to call all the shots at Grassroots Enterprises, which he cofounded. He describes the firm as a software-licensing operation, which isn’t exactly true — the company’s own Web site brags about its ability to offer broad-based political consulting and communication services.

But Chiu vowed to resign from the company if elected, and given his strong record on progressive issues, we’re willing to take a chance on him.

McCarthy has a long history in the neighborhood, and we like her community perspective. She supports Prop. H and the affordable-housing measure. She’s a little weak on key issues like the city budget — she told us she "hadn’t been fully briefed," although the budget is a public document and the debate over closing a massive structural deficit ought to be a central part of any supervisorial campaign. And while she said there "have to be some new taxes," she was very vague on where new revenue would come from and what specifically she would be willing to cut. She supported Gavin Newsom for mayor in 2003 and told us she doesn’t think that was a bad decision. It was. But she has by far the strongest community ties of any candidate in District 3. She’s accessible (even listing her home phone number in her campaign material), and after her years on the Port Commission, she understands land-use issues.

Gantner has been a supporter of the Clean Energy Act from the start and showed up for the early organizing meetings. He has the support of the Sierra Club and San Francisco Tomorrow and talks a lot about neighborhood beatification. But we’re a little nervous about his law-and-order positions, particularly his desire to crack down on fairs and festivals and his strong insistence that club promoters are responsible for all the problems on the streets.

But in the end, Chiu, McCarthy, and Gantner are all acceptable candidates, and Joe Alioto is not. Fill your slate with these three.

District 4

DAVE FERGUSON


What a mess.

We acknowledge that this is one of the more conservative districts in the city. But the incumbent, Carmen Chu, and her main opponent, Ron Dudum, are terrible disappointments.

It’s possible to be a principled conservative in San Francisco and still win progressive respect. We often disagreed over the years with Quentin Kopp, the former supervisor, state senator, and judge, but we never doubted his independence, sincerity, or political skills. Sean Elsbernd, who represents District 7, is wrong on most of the key issues, but he presents intelligent arguments, is willing to listen, and isn’t simply a blind loyalist of the mayor.

Chu has none of those redeeming qualities. She ducks questions, waffles on issues, and shows that she’s willing to do whatever the powerful interests want. When PG&E needed a front person to carry the torch against the Clean Energy Act, Chu was all too willing: she gave the corrupt utility permission to use her name and face on campaign flyers, signed on to a statement written by PG&E’s political flak, and permanently disgraced herself. She says that most of the problems in the city budget should be addressed with cuts, particularly cuts in public health and public works, but she was unable to offer any specifics. She refused to support the measure increasing the transfer tax on property sales of more than $5 million, saying that she didn’t want to create "a disincentive to those sales taking place." We asked her if she had ever disagreed with Newsom, who appointed her, and she could point to only two examples: she opposed his efforts to limit cigarette sales in pharmacies, and she opposed Saturday road closures in Golden Gate Park. In other words, the only times she doesn’t march in lockstep with the mayor is when Newsom actually does something somewhat progressive. We can’t possibly endorse her.

Dudum, who ran a small business and tried for this office two years ago, continues to baffle us. He won’t take a position on anything. Actually, that’s not true — he’s opposed to the Clean Energy Act. Other than that, it’s impossible to figure out where he stands on anything or what he would do to address any of the city’s problems. (An example: When we asked him what to do about the illegal second units that have proliferated in the district, he said he’d solve the problem in two years. How? He couldn’t say.) We like Dudum’s small-business sentiments and his independence, but until he’s willing to take some stands and offer some solutions, we can’t support him.

Which leaves Dave Ferguson.

Ferguson is a public school teacher with little political experience. He’s a landlord, and not terribly good on tenant issues (he said he supported rent control when he was a renter, but now that he owns a four-unit building, he’s changed his mind). But he supports Prop. H, supports Prop. B, supports the revenue measures, and has a neighborhood sensibility. Ferguson is a long shot, but he’s the only candidate who made anything approaching a case for our endorsement.

District 5

ROSS MIRKARIMI


Mirkarimi won this seat four years ago after a heated race in a crowded field, and he’s quickly emerged as one of the city’s most promising progressive leaders. He understands that a district supervisor needs to take on tough citywide issues (he’s the lead author of the Clean Energy Act and won a surprisingly tough battle to ban plastic bags in big supermarkets) as well as dealing with neighborhood concerns. Mirkarimi helped soften a terrible plan for developing the old UC Extension site and fought hard to save John Swett School from closure.

But the area in which he’s most distinguished himself is preventing violent crime — something progressives have traditionally had trouble with. Four years ago, District 5 was plagued with terrible violence: murders took place with impunity, the police seemed unable to respond, and the African American community was both furious and terrified. Mirkarimi took the problem on with energy and creativity, demanding (and winning, despite mayoral vetoes) police foot patrols and community policing. Thanks to his leadership, violent crime is down significantly in the district — and the left in San Francisco has started to develop a progressive agenda for the crime problem.

He has no serious opposition, and richly deserves reelection.

District 7

SEAN ELSBERND


We rarely see eye to eye with the District 7 incumbent. He’s on the wrong side of most of the key votes on the board. He’s opposing the affordable housing measure, Prop. B. He’s opposed to the Clean Energy Act, Prop. H. It’s annoying to see someone who presents himself as a neighborhood supervisor siding with PG&E and downtown over and over again.

But Elsbernd is smart and consistent. He’s a fiscal conservative with enough integrity that he isn’t always a call-up vote for the mayor. He’s accessible to his constituents and willing to engage with people who disagree with him. The progressives on the board don’t like the way he votes — but they respect his intelligence and credibility.

Unlike many of the candidates this year, Elsbernd seems to understand the basic structural problem with the city budget, and he realizes that the deficit can’t be reduced just with spending cuts. He’s never going to be a progressive vote, but this conservative district could do worse.

District 9

1. DAVID CAMPOS


2. ERIC QUEZADA


3. MARK SANCHEZ


The race to succeed Tom Ammiano, who served this district with distinction and is now headed for the State Legislature, is a case study in the advantages of district elections and ranked-choice voting. Three strong progressive candidates are running, and the Mission–Bernal Heights area would be well served by any of them. So far, the candidates have behaved well, mostly talking about their own strengths and not trashing their opponents.

The choice was tough for us — we like David Campos, Eric Quezada, and Mark Sanchez, and we’d be pleased to see any of them in City Hall. It’s the kind of problem we wish other districts faced: District 9 will almost certainly wind up with one of these three stellar candidates. All three are Latinos with a strong commitment to immigrant rights. All three have strong ties to the neighborhoods. Two are openly gay, and one is a parent. All three have endorsements from strong progressive political leaders and groups. All three have significant political and policy experience and have proven themselves accessible and accountable.

And since it’s almost inconceivable that any of the three will collect more than half of the first-place votes, the second-place and third-place tallies will be critical.

Campos, a member of the Police Commission and former school district general counsel, arrived in the United States as an undocumented immigrant at 14. He made it to Stanford University and Harvard Law School and has worked as a deputy city attorney (who helped the city sue PG&E) and as a school district lawyer. He’s been a progressive on the Police Commission, pushing for better citizen oversight and professional police practices. To his credit, he’s stood up to (and often infuriated) the Police Officers’ Association, which is often a foe of reform.

Campos doesn’t have extensive background in land-use issues, but he has good instincts. He told us he’s convinced that developers can be forced to provide as much as 50 percent affordable housing, and he thinks the Eastern Neighborhoods Plan lacks adequate low-cost units. He supports the revenue measures on the ballot and wants to see big business paying a fair share of the tax burden. He argues persuasively that crime has to become a progressive issue, and focuses on root causes rather than punitive programs. Campos has shown political courage in key votes — he supported Theresa Sparks for Police Commission president, a move that caused Louise Renne, the other contender, to storm out of the room in a fit of cursing. He backed Aaron Peskin for Democratic Party chair despite immense pressure to go with his personal friend Scott Weiner. Ammiano argues that Campos has the right qualities to serve on the board — particularly the ability to get six votes for legislation — and we agree.

Eric Quezada has spent his entire adult life fighting gentrification and displacement in the Mission. He’s worked at nonprofit affordable-housing providers, currently runs a homeless program, and was a cofounder of the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition. Although he’s never held public office, he has far more experience with the pivotal issues of housing and land use than the other two progressive candidates.

Quezada has the support of Sup. Chris Daly (although he doesn’t have Daly’s temper; he’s a soft-spoken person more prone to civil discussion than fiery rhetoric). If elected, he would carry on Daly’s tradition of using his office not just for legislation but also as an organizing center for progressive movements. He’s not as experienced in budget issues and was a little vague about how to solve the city’s structural deficit, but he would also make an excellent supervisor.

Mark Sanchez, the only Green Party member of the three, is a grade-school teacher who has done a tremendous job as president of the San Francisco school board. He’s helped turn that panel from a fractious and often paralyzed political mess into a strong, functioning operation that just hired a top-notch new superintendent. He vows to continue as an education advocate on the Board of Supervisors.

He told us he thinks he can be effective by building coalitions; he already has a good working relationship with Newsom. He’s managed a $500 million budget and has good ideas on both the revenue and the spending side — he thinks too much money goes to programs like golf courses, the symphony, and the opera, whose clients can afford to cover more of the cost themselves. He wants a downtown congestion fee and would turn Market Street into a pedestrian mall. Like Campos, he would need some education on land-use issues (and we’re distressed that he supports Newsom’s Community Justice Center), but he has all the right political instincts. He has the strong support of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi. We would be pleased to see him on the Board of Supervisors.

We’ve ranked our choices in the order we think best reflects the needs of the district and the city. But we also recognize that the progressive community is split here (SEIU Local 1021 endorsed all three, with no ranking), and we have nothing bad to say about any of these three contenders. The important thing is that one of them win; vote for Campos, Quezada, and Sanchez — in that order, or in whatever order makes sense for you. Just vote for all three.

District 11

1. JOHN AVALOS


2. RANDY KNOX


3. JULIO RAMOS


This is one of those swing districts where either a progressive or a moderate could win. The incumbent, Gerardo Sandoval, who had good moments and not-so-good moments but was generally in the progressive camp, is termed out and running for judge.

The strongest and best candidate to succeed him is John Avalos. There are two other credible contenders, Randy Knox and Julio Ramos — and one serious disaster, Ahsha Safai.

Avalos has a long history of public-interest work. He’s worked for Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, for the Justice for Janitors campaign, and as an aide to Sup. Chris Daly. Since Daly has served on the Budget Committee, and at one point chaired it, Avalos has far more familiarity with the city budget than any of the other candidates. He understands that the city needs major structural reforms in how revenue is collected, and he’s full of new revenue ideas. Among other things, he suggests that the city work with San Mateo County to create a regional park district that could get state funds (and could turn McLaren Park into a destination spot).

He has a good perspective on crime (he supports community policing along with more police accountability) and wants to put resources into outreach for kids who are at risk for gang activity. He was the staff person who wrote Daly’s 2006 violence prevention plan. He wants to see more affordable housing and fewer luxury condos in the eastern neighborhoods and supports a congestion fee for downtown. With his experience both at City Hall and in community-based organizations, Avalos is the clear choice for this seat.

Randy Knox, a criminal defense lawyer and former member of the Board of Appeals, describes himself as "the other progressive candidate." He supports Prop. H and the affordable-housing fund. He links the crime problem to the fact that the police don’t have strong ties to the community, and wants to look for financial incentives to encourage cops to live in the city. He wants to roll back parking meter rates and reduce the cost of parking tickets in the neighborhoods, which is a populist stand — but that money goes to Muni, and he’s not sure how to replace it. He does support a downtown congestion fee.

Knox wasn’t exactly an anti-developer stalwart on the Board of Appeals, but we’ll endorse him in the second slot.

Julio Ramos has been one of the better members of a terrible community college board. He’s occasionally spoken up against corruption and has been mostly allied with the board’s progressive minority. He wants to build teacher and student housing on the reservoir adjacent to City College. He suggests that the city create mortgage assistance programs and help people who are facing foreclosure. He suggests raising the hotel tax to bring in more money. He supports public power and worked at the California Public Utilities Commission’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, where he tangled with PG&E.

We’re backing three candidates in this district in part because it’s critical that Safai, the candidate of Mayor Newsom, downtown, and the landlords, doesn’t get elected. Safai (who refused to meet with our editorial board) is cynically using JROTC as a wedge against the progressives, even though the Board of Supervisors does not have, and will never have, a role in deciding the future of that program. He needs to be defeated, and the best way to do that is to vote for Avalos, Knox, and Ramos.

Board of Education

SANDRA FEWER


NORMAN YEE


BARBARA LOPEZ


KIMBERLY WICOFF


Two of the stalwart progressive leaders on the San Francisco School Board — Mark Sanchez and Eric Mar — are stepping down to run for supervisor. That’s a huge loss, since Mar and Sanchez were instrumental in getting rid of the autocratic Arlene Ackerman, replacing her with a strong new leader and ending years of acrimony on the board. The schools are improving dramatically — this year, for the first time in ages, enrollment in kindergarten actually went up. It’s important that the progressive policies Mar and Sanchez promoted continue.

Sandra Fewer is almost everyone’s first choice for the board. A parent who sent three kids to the San Francisco public schools, she’s done an almost unbelievable amount of volunteer work, serving as a PTA president for 12 terms. She currently works as education policy director at Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth. She knows the district, she knows the community, she’s full of energy and ideas, and she has the support of seven members of the Board of Supervisors and five of the seven current school board members.

Fewer supports the new superintendent and agrees that the public schools are getting better, but she’s not afraid to point out the problems and failures: She notes that other districts with less money are doing better. She wants to make the enrollment process more accessible to working parents and told us that race ought to be used as a factor in enrollment if that will help desegregate the schools and address the achievement gap. She’s against JROTC in the schools.

We’re a little concerned that Fewer talks about using district real estate as a revenue source — selling public property is always a bad idea. But she’s a great candidate and we’re happy to endorse her.

Norman Yee, the only incumbent we’re endorsing, has been something of a mediator and a calming influence on an often-contentious board. He helped push for the 2006 facilities bond and the parcel tax to improve teacher pay. He’s helped raise $1 million from foundations for prekindergarten programs. He suggests that the district take the radical (and probably necessary) step of suing the state to demand adequate funding for education. Although he was under considerable pressure to support JROTC, he stood with the progressives to end the military program. He deserves another term.

Barbara "Bobbi" Lopez got into the race late and has been playing catch-up. She’s missed some key endorsements and has problems with accessibility. But she impressed us with her energy and her work with low-income parents. A former legal support worker at La Raza Centro Legal, she’s now an organizer at the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, working with immigrant parents. She’s fought to get subsidized Muni fares for SFUSD students. Her focus is on parent involvement — and while everyone talks about bringing parents, particularly low-income and immigrant parents, more directly into the education process, Lopez has direct experience in the area.

Kimberly Wicoff has a Stanford MBA, and you can tell — she talks in a sort of business-speak with lots of reference to "outcomes." She has no kids. But she’s currently working with a nonprofit that helps low-income families in Visitacion Valley and Hunters Point, and we liked her clearheaded approach to the achievement gap. Wicoff is a fan of what she calls community schools; she thinks a "great school in every neighborhood" can go a long way to solving the lingering issues around the enrollment process. That’s a bit of an ambitious goal, and we’re concerned about any move toward neighborhood schools that leads to resegregation. But Wicoff, who has the support of both Mark Sanchez and Mayor Newsom, brings a fresh problem-solving approach that we found appealing. And unlike Newsom, she’s against JROTC.

Jill Wynns, who has been on the board since 1992, has had a distinguished career, and we will never forget her leadership in the battle against privatizing public schools. But she was a supporter of former superintendent Ackerman even when Ackerman was trampling on open-government laws and intimidating students, parents, and staff critics, and she supports JROTC. It’s time for some new blood.

Rachel Norton, a parent and an advocate for special-education kids, has run an appealing campaign, but her support for the save-JROTC ballot measure disqualified her for our endorsement.

As a footnote: H. Brown, a blogger who can be a bit politically unhinged, has no business on the school board and we’re not really sure why he’s running. But he offered an interesting idea that has some merit: he suggests that the city offer free Muni passes and free parking to anyone who will volunteer to mentor an at-risk SFUSD student. Why not?

Community College Board

MILTON MARKS


CHRIS JACKSON


BRUCE WOLFE


There are four seats up for the seven-member panel that oversees the San Francisco Community College District, and we could only find three who merit endorsement. That’s a sad statement: City College is a local treasure, and it’s been badly run for years. The last chancellor, Phil Day, left under a cloud of corruption; under his administration, money was diverted from public coffers into a political campaign. The current board took bond money that the voters had earmarked for a performing arts center and shifted it to a gym — then found out that there wasn’t enough money in the operating budget to maintain the lavish facility. It’s a mess out there, and it needs to be cleaned up.

Fortunately, there are three strong candidates, and if they all win, the reformers will have a majority on the board.

Milton Marks is the only incumbent we’re supporting. He’s been one of the few board members willing to criticize the administration. He supports a sunshine policy for the district and believes the board needs to hold the chancellor accountable (that ought to be a basic principle of district governance, but at City College, it isn’t). He wants to push closer relations with the school board. He actually pays attention to the college budget and tries to make sure the money is spent the right way. He is pushing to reform the budget process to allow more openness and accountability.

Chris Jackson, a policy analyst at the San Francisco Labor Council, is full of energy and ideas. He wants to create an outreach center for City College at the public high schools. He also understands that the college district has done a terrible job working with neighborhoods and is calling for a comprehensive planning process. He understands the problems with the gym and the way the board shuffles money around, and he is committed to a more transparent budget process.

Jackson is also pushing to better use City College for workforce development, particularly in the biotech field, where a lot of the city’s new jobs will be created.

Jackson was president of the Associated Students at San Francisco State University, has been a member of the Youth Commission, and worked with Young Workers United on the city’s minimum-wage law. His experience, energy, and ideas make him an ideal candidate.

Bruce Wolfe attended City College after a workplace injury and served on the Associate Students Council. He knows both the good (City College has one of the best disability service programs in the state) and the bad (the school keeps issuing bonds to build facilities but doesn’t have the staff to keep them running). As a former member of the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, Wolfe is a strong advocate for open government, something desperately needed at the college district. He told us he thinks the college should agree to abide by the San Francisco Planning Code and is calling for a permanent inspector general to monitor administration practices and spending. He wants City College to start building housing for students. He has direct experience with the district and great ideas for improving it, and we’re happy to endorse him.

Incumbents Rodel Rodis and Natalie Berg are running for reelection; both have been a key part of the problem at City College, and we can’t endorse either of them. Steve Ngo, a civil rights lawyer, has the support of the Democratic Party, but we weren’t impressed by his candidacy. And he told us he opposes the Clean Energy Act.

Vote for Marks, Jackson, and Wolfe.

BART Board of Directors

With rising gasoline prices, congested roadways, and global warming, it’s now more important than ever to have an engaged and knowledgeable BART board that is willing to reform a system that effectively has San Francisco users subsidizing everyone else. That means developing a fare structure in which short trips within San Francisco or the East Bay urban centers are cheaper and longer trips are a bit more expensive. BART should also do away with free parking, which favors suburban drivers (who tend to be wealthier) over urban cyclists and pedestrians. San Francisco’s aging stations should then get the accessibility and amenity improvements they need—and at some point the board can even fund the late-night service that is long overdue. There are two candidates most capable of meeting these challenges:

District 7

LYNETTE SWEET


This district straddles San Francisco and the East Bay, and it’s crucial that San Francisco—which controls just three of the nine seats—retain its representative here. We would like to see Lynette Sweet more forcefully represent the interests of riders from San Francisco and support needed reforms such as civilian oversight of BART police. But she has a strong history of public service in San Francisco (having served on San Francisco’s taxi and redevelopment commissions before joining the BART board in 2003), and we’ll endorse her.

District 9

TOM RADULOVICH


Tom Radulovich is someone we’d love to clone and have run for every seat on the BART board, and perhaps every other transportation agency in the Bay Area. He’s smart and progressive, and he works hard to understand the complex problems facing our regional transportation system and then to develop and advocate for creative solutions. As executive director of the nonprofit Livable City, Radulovich is a leader of San Francisco’s alternative transportation brain trust, widely respected for walking the walk (and biking the bike—he doesn’t own a car) and setting an example for how to live and grow in the sustainable way this city and country needs.

>>More Guardian Endorsements 2008

P is for power grab

-
0

› sarah@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom wants voters to believe that Proposition P, which seeks to change the size and composition of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (TA) board, will lead to more efficiency and accountability.

But Prop. P’s many opponents — who include all 11 supervisors, all four state legislators from San Francisco, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the San Francisco Democratic Party, and the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club — say that the measure would hand over billions of taxpayer dollars to a group of political appointees, thereby removing critical and independent oversight of local transportation projects.

Currently, the Board of Supervisors serves as the governing body of the TA, a small but powerful voter-created authority that acts as a watchdog for the $80 million in local sales tax revenues annually earmarked for transportation projects and administers state and federal transportation funding for new projects.

As such, the TA holds considerable sway over the capital projects of the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA), which operates Muni and has a board composed entirely of mayoral appointees. Prop. P would give the mayor more control over all transportation funding, which critics say could be manipulated for political reasons.

As Assemblymember Mark Leno told the Guardian, "This is a system of checks and balances that seems to be working well." And, as Sen. Carole Migden put it, "if it ain’t broke, don’t mess with it."

But if Newsom gets his way and Prop. P passes, the TA’s board will shrink to five elected officials in February — and Newsom will be one of them.

TA executive director José Luis Moscovich told us it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have the mayor on the agency’s governing board. "But that’s different from taking the board from 11 to five members," Moscovich said. "And how would the districts be represented equally?"

Since the TA has only 30 staff members, compared with the MTA’s 6,000 employees, Moscovich finds it hard to see how overhauling his agency would result in greater efficiency.

"Our overhead is 50 percent less than the MTA’s," Moscovich said. "We are subject to all kinds of oversight. This is a sledgehammer to a problem that doesn’t require it."

Tom Radulovich, an elected BART board member and the director of the nonprofit Livable City, believes that personality and policy questions lie at the heart of Newsom’s unilateral decision to place Prop. P on the ballot.

"The mayor doesn’t get along with the Board of Supervisors," Radulovich told us. "The way things stand, the mayor effectively controls the MTA, and the board effectively controls the TA. The mayor would like not to have to deal with the board."

This isn’t the first time a merger has been suggested, and this isn’t even the first time it’s come up this year.

In February, MTA chief Nathaniel Ford suggested the merger, with the MTA in charge. At the time, Newsom was under intense scrutiny for dipping into a million dollars’ worth of MTA funds to pay his staffers’ salaries. He told the San Francisco Chronicle that taking over the TA was not his idea and not something his office planned to pursue.

But shortly after that, Sup. Jake McGoldrick tried and failed to qualify a measure that would have divided the power to nominate members of the MTA’s board between the mayor, the president of the Board of Supervisors, and the city controller.

Newsom retaliated with Prop. P, which would replace the TA board with the mayor, an elected official chosen by the mayor, the president of the Board of Supervisors, an elected official chosen by the board president, and the city treasurer.

While Newsom was honeymooning in Africa, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard turned up the heat by criticizing the supervisors for spending TA funds on routine travel expenses and office supplies.

"I don’t understand why money that is supposed to go to roads is going to couches and cell phones for members of the Board of Supervisors," Ballard told the San Francisco Examiner. But according to public records, Newsom himself charged $14,555 in expenses to the TA while he was a supervisor and a TA board member, from 1997 through 2003.

Jim Sutton, an attorney who served as treasurer in both of Newsom’s mayoral campaigns, has formed a committee to support Prop. P, ironically called Follow the Money.

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition executive director Leah Shahum, whom Newsom appointed to, then fired from, the MTA board last year, said that the TA has a strong record, not only of tracking dollars and winning matching funds at the state and federal levels, but also of making sure that the needs of bicyclists and pedestrians are represented.

"The system we have now is also the most protective of our dollars," Shahum said, noting that the TA is stringent about recipient agencies’ meeting deadlines and keeping costs in check.

Moscovich warned that it’s important that the city quickly move on from the battle over Prop. P, in light of the ongoing financial meltdown on Wall Street and the federal government’s bailout plan.

"This financial tsunami that hasn’t hit us yet will make it harder to borrow money to complete engineering projects," Moscovich predicted. "So it’s important that we get beyond this and show a unified front, so that our credibility as a city is not in danger."

Changing buses

-
0

› news@sfbg.com

It seems as though whatever changes to the Muni system the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency adopts, some people on the buses are bound to be upset. That decision could come as soon as next month, when the agency will consider acting on recommendations from its Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) studies.

The proposed changes were presented to the SFMTA board of directors Sept. 16, when many riders weighed in with criticisms that their routes were being cut or changed as part of the first major overhaul of Muni since its inception more than 25 years ago.

Depending on whether the recommendations are approved in October or the decision is delayed, the changes to a system that has about 700,000 daily riders won’t happen until summer or fall of next year. At the end of the Sept. 16 hearing, board chair James McCray Jr. requested that a subcommittee be formed to integrate the concerns of the 107 people who made public comments into the final plan.

The stated goal of the TEP is to revamp Muni into a "faster, more reliable, and more efficient public transit system for San Francisco." But with a finite pool of money, improving some lines means taking resources from others, and that means controversy.

"If only 1 percent of our ridership shows up to make a comment, that’s 7,000 people," Julie Kirschbaum, TEP program manager, told us.

One was Evelyn Landahl, a 90-year-old resident of Laguna Honda who was upset about changes to the 36 line. "I know there are students who use this bus to get to City College and San Francisco State as well," Landahl said. "As we older people leave this world, those kids will run out of gas some day. They’ll need buses and services."

Mark Christensen, vice president of the Merced Extension Triangle Neighborhood Association, told the agency that "residents have not had a true voice in determining what is best for our community." He criticized the TEP’s public outreach efforts, saying that the agency didn’t do enough in certain areas, particularly his Merced Heights neighborhood, which would see disrupted service with changes to the M and J lines.

Jim Kirk, who lives in Noe Valley and travels by a combination of car and Muni, decided to attend the Sept. 16 hearing to express support for changes to the 48 line that would eliminate sections of the route. "There are too many buses, at least in my neighborhood," he said. "To me that’s overkill." As a taxpayer, he said, he is concerned about reducing Muni costs.

The proposed modifications to the 36 line have triggered major debate. Some hearing attendees said there is no reason why a bus with such a low ridership should travel an already congested street. They claimed that there are as few as six and no more than nine riders on the 36 at any given time.

Additional route adjustments that have generated concern among riders, residents, and other stakeholders involve the 66 Quintara, the 38 Geary, the 3 Jackson, the 48 Quintara, the 17 Park Merced, the 18 46th Ave., the 26 Valencia, the 27 Bryant, and the 39 Coit.

Kirschbaum said that Proposition A, which voters passed last November, will be the main source of funding for improvements to the Muni system.

Public power foes bash the city

-
12

One of the most annoying parts of the No on H campaign — and campaigns against public power before it — is the consistent drumroll of attacks on city employees. This year’s flyers, some quoting elected city officials, dredge up the old crap about the city not even being able to run Muni.

When the Labor Council meets Monday to decide on its endorsements, I hope the members keep this in mind: PG&E is saying that unionized city employees are incompetent. Typically, unions don’t stand for that kind of nonsense, and indeed, the city employee unions will support Prop. H.

But PG&E”s house union, the IBEW, is against the measure, and PG&E’s allies are trying to convince other unions to oppose it, or at least to take a neutral stand — in the spirit of labor solidarity.

How about standing up in solidarity with the city workers, who are being directly attacked by PG&E’s minions?

Fact is, San Francisco already runs a water system and a power system. It also runs a major hospital with the region’s only Level One trauma unit, one of the busiest airports in the country, and a lot of other things that involve employees with high levels of skill. Running a retail power business isn’t all that difficult (and unlike Muni, it’s profitable). To say that city employees can’t run a power system is a huge insult.

I was reminded of all this when Amanda Witherell forwarded me a link from a story about Dianne Feinstein the last time public power was on the ballot. Back then, the Chron was actually covering the issue — and Chuck FInnie and Susan Sward caught Feinstein trashing her own city and making a fool of herself, all in her desperate efforts to help PG&E.

Check it out.

The new Muni plan

-
0

OPINION Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to take a look at our public utilities and see if they are still managed and operated in a way that serves the goals we have for them. So it’s a good thing that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is assessing the effectiveness of Muni, 30 years since the last serious review.

The SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) has identified the root causes of Muni’s chronic reliability problems; gathered more data about ridership, system speed, and contemporary travel patterns than we have ever had; and, finally, proposed sweeping changes to make Muni faster and more reliable.

Muni’s routes have evolved from the extensive street- and cable-car system of the turn of the century. Back then, car use was minimal and transit service was profitable, so competing operators vied for the franchise to operate on city streets. Winning companies got their preferred streets, and runners-up laid tracks on adjacent streets.

We don’t need buses on adjacent streets anymore. We need core "trunk" lines that run service every few minutes. People need to know where to walk so that they can count on a bus always being there.

That’s one of the main ideas behind the TEP’s route proposals. It would also help deal with the problem of Muni buses being stuck in car traffic. Muni averages just 8 mph system-wide, a very slow speed that equates to higher-than-ever expenses. Speeding up buses by 25 percent is the same as providing 25 percent more service at almost no additional cost. Put another way, if a run that takes 60 minutes can be cut to 45 minutes, over three hours a single bus can cover that run four times instead of just three. The beauty of concentrating service on core lines is that Muni will be able to build "transit-priority" street designs to protect buses from traffic delays — something that is realistic to do on the core rapid transit network, but not on every street that currently has a bus line.

Not coincidentally, these main routes also serve the city’s most transit-dependent populations. The TEP proposes to almost double the service on Mission Street, including expanding the 14-Limited service to all hours of the day. The 9-X from the city’s southeast side will come every four minutes instead of every 10 minutes.

These improvements are only possible because resources are being reallocated from other routes — ones used by fewer riders but, of course, equally cherished. SFMTA’s planners are doing the right thing: putting service where it’s most needed today, not decades ago. And they preserved the philosophy of providing service to within a quarter-mile of every residence.

Some of us will lose a bus line. But we need to stay focused on the bigger picture: for the vast majority of people in the city, this new route plan will provide better, faster service. The kinds of changes recommended in the TEP are truly the only way Muni is actually going to be able to grow ridership significantly.

All of us who believe in public transit should support the proposals.

Dave Snyder

Dave Snyder is the transportation policy director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR).

Ammiano enters the Olympics

-
0

Today’s Ammianoliner:

Muni enters the Olympics with the cable car luge. (ooooooo)

(From the home telephone answering machine of Sup. Tom Ammiano on Friday, Aug. 8, 2008.)

What the candidates need to tell us

-
0

EDITORIAL The traditional kick-off date for fall campaigns is Labor Day, but in San Francisco, the candidates for supervisor have been in full campaign mode for months now, and some of the races are beginning to take shape. As political groups start making endorsements, it’s worth looking at what’s at stake here — and what the candidates ought to be talking about.

For starters, it’s going to be a crowded fall ballot, and there’s the potential for a broad progressive coalition to come together around a clear agenda for the future. Among the proposals headed for the ballot are an affordable housing plan, a green energy and public power measure, two new tax plans that focus on bringing in revenue from the wealthy, and a huge bond act to rebuild San Francisco General Hospital. All of the progressive candidates should be backing those measures and working together for their passage.

But the candidates also need to offer long-term solutions to the serious problems facing San Francisco. This is a city under enormous pressure, and unless some dramatic policy changes take place, San Francisco will continue its rapid slide toward becoming a city of and for the very rich.

A few items that ought to be on every progressive candidate’s platform:

•<\!s>The city’s energy future. The fall ballot measure, the Clean Energy Act, will lay the groundwork for a sustainable local energy policy, although the supervisors will have to aggressively push the key element: creating a city-run electric utility. As long as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. controls the local grid, San Francisco will never meet its environmental goals. Rates will remain high, conservation will be an afterthought, and PG&E will resist any type of renewable program it doesn’t control. The candidates need to make clear that they’re committed to a full-scale public power system and tell us how they will move the goals of the Clean Energy Act forward.

•<\!s>The housing crisis. San Francisco’s housing policy today is utter insanity. If it continues, the city in 10 years will look nothing like it does now. The middle class will be gone. Families with kids will be a vanishing species. Tens of thousands of people who work in this city — and keep its economy going — will be forced to live far away. Fancy new towers filled with millionaires will destroy entire neighborhoods and displace the city’s remaining blue-collar jobs.

The affordable housing ballot measure is a good first step, but much more is needed. Solutions aren’t easy, but they start with one premise: the city doesn’t need any more housing for the rich. Affordable-housing programs that set aside, say, 20 percent of new units for non-millionaires are a losing game because they accept as reality the prospect of a city where 80 percent of the residents are millionaires.

San Francisco needs a comprehensive policy that forces the city to meet its General Plan goals, which call for 64 percent of all new housing to be available at below-market rates. We need to hear how the candidates would make that happen.

**The structural budget deficit. San Francisco is a wealthy city, but there’s never enough money in the budget for the level of services residents want and need. With the exception of the rare boom years, the city has always had a revenue shortfall. Sup. Aaron Peskin’s two tax measures could bring in another $50 million per year — no chump change by any means. But the city needs about $200 million more per year to make the numbers balance. The candidates need to talk about where that will come from.

**The Muni meltdown. You can’t have a transit-first policy without effective transit, and Muni’s in trouble. Budget cuts are a big part of the problem, but the city needs a modern transit program — and that’s barely even on the drawing board. How are the candidates going to fix one of the city’s most important services? Will the candidates support the long-overdue completion of the city’s bicycle network and other bold efforts to decrease reliance on the automobile?

**The war on fun. As the city gets richer, it gets more uptight. Street fairs are under attack. Clubs are facing police crackdowns. Permit fees and red tape are making it almost impossible to hold events in Golden Gate Park. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has a ballot measure to make some of the permitting easier, but what are the candidates going to do to end the Gavin Newsom–era attack on arts and entertainment?

There’s much more: The police aren’t solving homicides. Small businesses feel utterly ignored by City Hall. The Planning Department is run by developers. The list goes on. And the next Board of Supervisors will need to address all those issues. Over the next few months, the candidates that want the progressive vote need to give us some clear explanations of where they stand.

I’m for PG&E, at 50 bucks a head

-
0

If public power can work in Rock Rapids, Iowa, why can’t it work in San Francisco?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

When I came into yesterday’s public hearing at City hall on the emerging clean energy act initiative, I wasn’t surprised to see the room stacked with people obviously rounded up by PG&E for the occasion. After 42 years of covering PG&E, I know how private utility operates.

I asked the man sitting next to me, obviously not a
City Hall regular, why he was attending the hearing. His answer was vague but he was obviously agitated about the clean energy act initiative. Was he going to testify against the initiative? Yes, he said. Was he paid to attend the hearing?
He mumbled a bit and then said, yes, $50 bucks. But, he pointed out, he hadn’t been paid yet.

The word got around the hearing room that PG&E’s going rate for this hearing was $50. Julian Davis, the chair of the clean energy campaign, was first up to testify and promptly mentioned the going rate.
He then said that he considered it “cynical and tragic” for a corporation like PG&E to take advantage of communities of color into advocating on behalf of an agenda that ultimately does not serve their interests. (Many of the members of the audience were persons of color. Davis is black.)

Many of them testified, arguing that the initiative, which calls for setting renewable energy goals and making San Francisco the nation’s greenest clean energy city, would be too expensive and burdensome and ought to be killed forthwith. They testified that they couldn’t afford higher electric rates, higher taxes, higher anything in the city’s tight economy. Several said they were living on fixed incomes and simply could not afford another penny on anything.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, sponsor of the bill, and Sup. Chris Daly, chair of the rules committee meeting, Sup. Bevin Dufty, and many pro-clean energy speakers pointed out the many advantages of clean energy and public power. Cities with public power across the state and country had lower electric rates, better service, and extra money for their general funds. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is a national leader in renewable energy and conservation efforts, while still keeping its rates far below PG&E rates in adjoining communities.

After hearing the clean energy speakers, several people came up to Davis after the hearing and said they were confused and annoyed that they had been misled by PG&E. They were interested in the arguments for clean energy and the initiative and wanted to know more.

Davis said he told them, among other things, that “one of the essential components of the clean energy act is a mandate to offer the kind of jobs and job training in the clean energy industry that PG&E is not currently offering to the very communities they are willing to exploit to promote their status quo agenda.” The jobs idea was of particular interest, he said.

And, yes, I testified at the hearing. I sometimes do this to counter the time worn PG&E line that, gosh, golly, gee, electricity is so complicated, city workers are so lazy, dumb, and incompetent, how in the world can they run an electrical company if they can’t make the muni run on time. Wheeze, wheeze, and wheeze again.

And so I pointed out that in my hometown of Rock Rapids, Iowa, population 2,800, a bedrock conservative Republican farming community way out in the northwestern part of the state,
the town has successfully operated a public utility since l896, and it’s doing just fine. It provides good, reliable, hometown electricity, has good low rates and excellent service, makes money for the general fund and subsidizes projects such as the local swimming pool, and doesn’t gratuitously cut off service with no way to appeal or complain, as is PG&E policy. And the public utility is locally accountable to a local board of directors composed of local townsfolk, such as my old friends Dave Foltz, a local real estate man, and Eugene Metzger, a local banker.

To this day, I told the supervisors, II always carry in my pocket a little blue coin purse that eloquently makes the local point. And I pulled the purse out of my pocket and read the inscription to the supervisors: “Call before you dig, Rock Rapids Municipal Utilities, (7l2) 472-2513.)”

And so my central argument is unbeatable: If public power works in Rock Rapids, Iowa, why can’t it work in San Francisco, California? PG&E has yet to get back to me on this one. Meanwhile, I’ll keep you posted throughout the campaign on public power in Rock Rapids. On guard, stay plugged in for the duration, the fun has just started, B3

Dye, dye, darlings

-
0

Feel like dyeing? If yes, there are many products available to help you do so, but it’s unlikely that any color you choose will be anywhere near as exciting as the fearsome fun that Bleachy Bleachy Bleach conjures up. By the time they’ve set a dance beat behind their computer-scrambled screams and guitars, second-guessing is out of the question: these two shred hard without having to bring any ordinary instruments on stage.

Band members Kadienne Eslami and Jessie Abbey met in high school in Pleasanton and often went to shows in Oakland, Berkeley, and friends’ houses before deciding to start a band. According to Eslami, who spoke about the project by phone from her Pleasanton home, it was the frequent re-dyeing of their formerly purple and pink heads of hair that brought about the Bleachy Bleachy Bleach name — a moniker that also suggests the purging, triply frown-obliterating force of their music. Smiles are what got them started in the first place. "We started out playing through a PlayStation on a DDR mat, then started putting more emotion into it," said Eslami, who spells out her first name on one of the group’s earliest tracks, "Boobopera," before the bass beat kicks in and a splintered "easy lemon squeezy" rap unravels into screeches and buzzing chatter in French.

They employ noise in a variety of ways, alternately emotional and playful: the manic skitter of their new song "Toys" closes out its beat with a small dog’s bark. The duo also make use of a toy guitar, saxophone, and other assorted odd instruments in their convention-melting assemblages.

"Mostly what we do is record with instruments and collaborate with friends to make beats," Eslami says, "particularly Dylan Reznick from [the now-defunct band] Robin Williams on Fire, and most recently with Vice Cooler of XBXRX." When gigging on the John Benson–built Bus venue and elsewhere, they sing on microphones alongside their programmed laptop, adding that human presence that makes their songs so affecting. "Tennies," a song off their 12-inch coming out later this year, is about a guy Eslami met on Muni who had holes drilled in his head: "he explained how when people talk to him, he interprets their sentences backwards and has to translate them back to himself." Backwards translation won’t be necessary to keep beat with the Bleach, but scratching a chalkboard could make for fun accompaniment.

BLEACHY BLEACHY BLEACH

With Rubber O Cement, Take Up Serpents, Ettrick, Amir Coyle, Mikey Yeda, and Hora Flora

July 17, 8 p.m. doors, $5

Balazo 18

2183 Mission, SF

www.balazogallery.com

The carfree challenge

-
0

>>For our complete Towards Carfree Cities conference coverage, including video, interviews, and pics, click here.

› steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY A large group of San Francisco’s top alternative transportation advocates traveled to Portland, Ore., for the Towards Carfree Cities international conference June 16-20, marveling at a transportation system widely considered to be the most progressive in the United States.

"Portland is light-years ahead of everyone else in this country," said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who attended the conference along with representatives from the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, San Francisco State University, prominent urban design firms including Arup (which is designing the new Transbay Terminal project), architect David Baker, and other institutions.

Public transit in Portland is extensive, cheap, frequent, and easy to use, with the Max line — unlike Muni — allowing bicycles on the trains. Walking is encouraged by new design standards and public information campaigns. A riverside freeway was replaced by open space years ago. And the large network of bicycle paths and other improvements to promote cycling have made Portland the only large city to earn the putf8um designation from the League of American Bicyclists (San Francisco is one tier down at gold).

"But the reality is Portland is far from being great," was the sobering assessment from keynote speaker Gil Peñalosa, the former parks director of Bogotá, Colombia, who pioneered carfree policies there before pushing the issues internationally through the nonprofit Walk and Bike for Life.

Cities are facing multiple crises connected to over-reliance on the automobile — declining public health, environmental degradation, resource depletion, loss of community, and not enough space in US cities to handle the 100 million people they’ll need to accommodate in the next 35 years. And Peñalosa said most are responding with baby steps that deny the scope of the challenge.

"We’re not doing enough," he said, noting that even the best US cities are way too dependent on automobiles compared to cities that have made the biggest advances in reducing automobile use, such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, and Vancouver.

"That’s where Portland belongs, and that’s the challenge," Peñalosa said. "Under existing conditions, we have to make major leaps instead of baby steps."

It was the first time that this eighth annual conference has been held in the United States, and organizers said they hoped its message will resonate in a country that needs to change profoundly if it is to efficiently manage its growth while playing a positive role in dealing with global climate change.

Many of the ideas raised at the conference and pursued in Portland are beginning to spread. The conference opened with Depaving Day, a pavement-removal effort that has many adherents in the Bay Area, and closed with Sunday Parkways, during which a six-mile loop in North Portland was closed to cars. Such "Ciclovias," which Peñalosa started in Colombia, are planned this August in New York City and San Francisco.

"There are people from all over the world doing amazing work," said local conference coordinator Elly Blue of the Portland group Shift, which organized the conference to coincide with Portland’s annual Pedalpalooza, two weeks of fun bike events and other festivities.

Many attendees noted that global warming, high gasoline prices (and the specter of Peak Oil), worsening public health, and persistent traffic congestion have made many big city leaders more open to carfree concepts than they’re ever been.

"The climate is changing," League of American Bicyclists director Andy Clarke said. "This is our time. It’s our moment to seize the opportunity and change our communities."

Mia Birk, Portland’s former bicycle-policy coordinator, added, "We’re not anti-car, but we’re trying to create a system where walking and biking are viable transportation options." Birk now runs Alta Planning and Design, which is working on carfree and car-light projects with hundreds of cities around the world, including some in the Bay Area.

"What we’re talking about is a true cultural revolution to encourage that kind of shift," Birk said, inviting the crowd to "be a part of that revolution."

MUD money

-
0

Originally published October 10, 2001 A San Francisco public power agency could buy out Pacific Gas and Electric Co., cut residential electricity rates by 20 percent, dramatically reduce the city’s reliance on fossil fuels – and still operate with a $18 million annual surplus, a Bay Guardian analysis shows. Our study’s figures directly contradict the argument that’s at the heart of PG&E’s campaign against public power: they show that a municipal electrical system can be bought and run at no cost to the taxpayers – with plenty of money left over. Our figures are all taken from public sources and are consistent with the financial reports of other major public power agencies in the state. In fact, if anything, our figures are conservative; the real benefits are almost certainly higher. The financial issues are essentially the same for a municipal utility district and for a city power agency, so our figures would apply to either the MUD, which would be created under Measure I, or the Water and Power Agency, which would be created under Proposition F. Calcuutf8g the financial feasibility of a municipal utility district or city power agency in detail is a complex process. Consultants typically charge upward of $1 million for detailed feasibility studies that use all sorts of models and assumptions to come up with the sorts of figures you can take to the bank (or to Wall Street to sell bonds). So our analysis isn’t anywhere near as detailed as what the MUD or the WPA will eventually have to produce. But we’ve covered all of the major revenues and costs; if we’re missing anything, it won’t radically change the bottom line. And it’s safe to say that we haven’t over<\h>estimated the financial viability of public power. The questions on the minds of most voters this fall are relatively simple: Can public power pay for itself? Will the MUD or the Water and Power Agency be a financial success? And our research shows that the answer is a resounding yes. We’ve run through two scenarios, a worst-case scenario and a best-case scenario. In each case, we’ve found, a San Francisco public power agency is more than financially viable. Our study is the rough equivalent of what a MUD’s or WPA’s annual energy report to the public would look like once the agency was up and running. In fact, we’ve pretty much followed the model of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), and we’ve relied on those two agencies’ figures to estimate some of what the city’s comparable costs would be. We’ve discussed our study with Ed Smeloff, the city’s top energy expert, and while he couldn’t verify our conclusions (since he hasn’t run the numbers himself), he said that there were no major costs that we had ignored. The results are summarized in the two accompanying charts. Where’s the money? Based on how other MUDs have been set up, the process in San Francisco would look something like this: The elected MUD (or WPA) directors would commission a detailed feasibility study outlining the financial future of the agency. Then they would begin negotiations with PG&E to buy the company’s local transmission and distribution system. If PG&E wouldn’t sell, the MUD or WPA would seize the system through the power of eminent domain. The agency would then issue revenue bonds to cover the cost of the acquisition and start-up, hire a staff, and go into the retail power business. Sales of electricity would bring in revenue that would cover operating costs and pay off the revenue bonds; any money left over at the end could be turned back to the city’s General Fund, used to reduce rates, or used for conservation and environmental projects. So the first step in analyzing the finances of a MUD is to figure out how much revenue would be available each year. That’s a relatively simple calculation. According to the California Energy Commission, PG&E currently sells about 5.4 billion kilowatt-<\h>hours of electricity to customers in San Francisco. (This figure doesn’t include energy used by the city government, since government agencies use power from the city’s Hetch Hetchy dam.) Residential, commercial, and industrial customers all pay different rates. If a MUD sold power at current PG&E rates (as provided to us by PG&E spokesperson Ron Low), it would bring in $562 million in revenue (enough to create a big annual surplus – roughly $36 million.) But a MUD or power agency almost certainly wouldn’t sell power at PG&E’s high rates – one major attraction of public power is that it offers cheaper electricity. So in both of our scenarios, we assumed that the rates would be at least 10 percent below PG&E’s rates. In fact, as our study shows, rates could drop as much as 20 percent without harming the MUD or WPA’s viability. What’s it cost? There are three basic categories of costs that the agency would have to cover. The first is payments on the bonds, the second is generating or buying power, and the third is basic operations and maintenance (paying the staff to keep the system up and running, to send out bills, to read meters, as well as operating the repair trucks, etc.). Electricity can’t just be delivered to the doorsteps of customers like canned ham in a UPS box. It has to be distributed through a network of transformers, substations, wires, and poles and measured with individual meters. And until the public power agency owns that distribution network, it can’t sell a single kilowatt. Unfortunately, the system that’s now in place in San Francisco is owned by PG&E – and almost everyone involved agrees that it would be cheaper, easier, and quicker for the city to take over that system than to build a new one from scratch. That’s what SMUD did and what most other public agencies that have gotten into the power business in the past half century have done. A MUD or a city power agency would have the right to seize PG&E’s property by eminent domain. But PG&E would be entitled under law to fair compensation for the taking of its property, and one of the most complex, bitter – and crucial – issues involved in establishing public power will be the price tag. “This is not an easy case at all,” Richard Epstein, a professor of law at the University of Chicago and a national expert on eminent domain, told us. “I can guarantee you that nobody, but nobody, has any idea right now what fair compensation would be.” The issue will almost certainly be settled in court. PG&E insists that its San Francisco property is worth a small fortune – as much as $1.4 billion. In a 1996 study the Economic and Technical Analysis Group suggested that the price could be anywhere from $315 million to $1.2 billion. The ETAG study, which was highly favorable to PG&E, suggested that the most likely figure was around $795 million. The reason those figures are so widely divergent is that there are numerous ways of evaluating what a utility’s property is worth. The simplest is to establish what PG&E originally paid for the property, then factor in depreciation. That’s how insurance companies decide what they have to pay you if your car is stolen. The process generally leads to a low figure favorable to the city. But courts have recently been somewhat more friendly to an analysis that recognizes that utility property is more valuable than, say, a private car, because the utility property produces income. One way to address that is by valuing the property at its replacement cost and factoring in the value of a “going concern” – which, of course, leads to a much higher price. Real market value But there’s another way to look at the issue, and that involves going to the state agency that appraises the actual market value of PG&E’s property for tax purposes: the Board of Equalization. Every year the board’s appraisers evaluate exactly what PG&E’s property is worth – and the agency’s record is pretty good. When California’s private utilities sold 22 power plants under deregulation, the board checked its appraisals against actual market prices, and while sale prices for some plants varied from estimates, the board was accurate to within 1 percent overall, chief appraiser Harold Hale told us. The Board of Equalization estimated that as of January 2001, all of PG&E’s property in San Francisco was worth $962,140,298. That includes property that isn’t at all relevant to running an electric utility. The value of the property actually used in the electricity business, the board says, is $753,978,471. But that figure includes PG&E’s huge 77 Beale St. headquarters office complex, which the city almost certainly wouldn’t want or need to buy in an eminent domain action. If you subtract 77 Beale St. (which one real estate expert we contacted said was worth about $225 million as of Jan. 1), then the value of the property the city might actually buy is about $528 million. It may be even less than that: the real estate market has fallen almost 15 percent since Jan. 1, according to our expert, a senior executive at one of the city’s biggest firms, who asked not to be identified by name. However, to be conservative, we’re sticking with the Jan. 1 figure. Epstein, who has worked as a consultant fighting municipalization efforts and thus isn’t inclined to be biased in favor of a public buyout, agreed that using the Board of Equalization figures is “certainly a good place to start.” There’s no guarantee that the courts will accept this approach (although, with PG&E in bankruptcy court right now, it’s also entirely possible, experts say, that PG&E might be forced to accept a much lower value for its property and sell it without a fight, in order to pay off some creditors with cash). So we also analyzed a worst-case scenario, essentially accepting the figures of ETAG’s much maligned report and assuming that, under a replacement cost-<\d>plus-<\d>”going concern” analysis, the city would have to spend $795 million to take over the system. (Even ETAG concluded that it’s unlikely the final price would be as high as PG&E’s estimate; nobody whose property is up for seizure starts off by quoting a realistic price.) No matter what the price, the bond sale will have to include some money for contingencies – the actual cost of the bond sale, start-up cash, etc. We’ve added $50 million for those costs. Paying the staff, buying power PG&E doesn’t publicly reveal its operating costs for San Francisco (or any other specific service area). And it’s difficult to use the company’s system-<\h>wide operating costs as a basis for estimating San Francisco costs, since the population of San Francisco is so much denser than in most of the company’s northern California territory. The denser the population, the cheaper it is to serve; the distance between customers is smaller, so you need less transmission line per customer. Reading meters is faster, since the employee doing that work doesn’t have to drive long distances between each house. Repairs and maintenance are cheaper for the same reason. And PG&E’s costs aren’t a fair comparison for a public power agency anyway: PG&E pays huge executive salaries (see “Public Power vs. PG&E,” page 24), which are included in the operations overhead. So we based our cost estimate on LADWP, which is about as close a comparison to San Francisco as we could find. Los Angeles is not quite as dense as San Francisco, so the L.A. figures are almost certainly higher than what San Francisco would pay, but they provide a reasonable, if conservative, estimate. LADWP’s cost per customer is $383; multiplied by the number of customers in San Francisco, that cost is $131 million a year. Then there’s the question of generating or buying the electricity. Here San Francisco has a huge advantage over other public power agencies: The city owns a large hydro<\h>electric dam that can generate enough to cover some of the local power needs – and it’s already paid for. Power from the Hetch Hetchy dam is cheap: the cost of operating the system is only about 2¢ a kilowatt-<\h>hour. Unfortunately, the city also has to pay PG&E to ship the power over its lines to the city borders, since the city has no complete transmission line to carry the power here; San Francisco pays PG&E $9.6 million a year in what’s known as “wheeling fees.” San Francisco currently sells most of the available Hetch Hetchy power to the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts. Our analysis assumes that those contracts will be broken and that much of the power – 425 million kilowatt-<\h>hours’ worth – will be available to the MUD or WPA. The city also has a very expensive contract with Calpine to provide backup energy when water is low at the dam. The wheeling fees and Calpine deal boost the actual cost of Hetch Hetchy power to about 4¢ a kilowatt-hour. But the Calpine deal ends in five years, at which point Hetch Hetchy power will be far less expensive – and the MUD’s costs will go down. Green power Our analysis is based on the assumption that San Francisco will move as rapidly as possible to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels (see “Green City,” 9/26/01). Not all of the alternative-<\h>energy sources that should ultimately be part of the city’s mix are likely to be online when the MUD starts operating, so we’ve again been conservative, assuming in our worst-case scenario only a modest amount of solar power to supplement Hetch Hetchy power. In our best-case scenario we assume that the city will be able to develop 200 megawatts of solar and wind power – five times as much as projected in the solar bond measure, Proposition B, and enough to power 200,000 homes. The cost of solar and wind is easy to determine: it’s the cost of the interest on the bonds needed to buy and install the windmills and panels. Once they’re up and running, they cost very little to operate – and the fuel, of course, is free. Based on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission staff’s analysis of Prop. B), 40 megawatts of solar, wind, and efficiency programs – the equivalent of 98 million annual kilowatt-<\h>hours – will cost about $7.5 million a year. Our ambitious plan – for five times that much solar and wind power- would cost $38 million a year. (Again, the actual costs will probably be lower; once a big agency orders a large amount of solar- or wind-<\h>generating facilities, the price goes down substantially.) The rest of the power the city needs will have to be bought on the open market. Because the market is so volatile, it’s hard to say exactly what that cost would be. But futures contracts for power are listed on the New York Mercantile Exchange Web site, and they’re currently running at less than 4¢ a kilowatt-hour. That price is expected to decline in the future. Again, we’ve stuck to conservative numbers, assuming the MUD or WPA would have to pay 6.9¢ a kilowatt-<\h>hour for power generated locally, by Mirant Corp.’s Potrero Hill power plant (one energy expert told us that Mirant is unlikely to accept less than the 6.9¢ the state is now paying for power), and 5.5¢ a kilowatt-<\h>hour for power bought from out-of-town sources. We assumed that the Potrero plant would operate at its capacity. The power the city would import can’t exceed the amount that can be carried along the one transmission line leading into San Francisco, and our projection meets that criterion. PG&E pays a substantial amount of taxes to the city, and almost all of the San Francisco-<\d>Brisbane MUD Board candidates have pledged to make sure that, at the very least, the city’s General Fund doesn’t lose any money if the private utility is replaced with a public agency. So part of the MUD’s expense would be the payment of a fee to replace what PG&E paid in taxes. The utility pays three major taxes: property taxes, a franchise fee, and business taxes. Based on the Board of Equalization’s assessed value for PG&E ($962 million) and the city’s property tax rate, PG&E’s property taxes are about $1 million. The franchise fee – 1.5 percent of sales – adds another $8.4 million. It’s impossible to say how much PG&E pays San Francisco in business taxes, since that figure is not public, but even at several million dollars a year, it wouldn’t significantly change our bottom line. Unanswered questions There are plenty of questions our analysis doesn’t – and can’t – answer, factors that are impossible at this point to predict with any accuracy. PG&E customers, for example, have to pay a substantial surcharge on their electric bills for what’s known as the CTC, or competitive transition charge. In essence, that’s the money ratepayers have been forced to cough up to cover the cost of PG&E’s bad investments in nuclear power. It’s possible that a San Francisco power agency would have to include some of those charges in its bills – but according to Mindy Spatt, media director at TURN, it’s unlikely. The CTC is expected to end next year and probably wouldn’t be a factor by the time the MUD or WPA was up and running. It’s also unclear whether the MUD or WPA would have to pay a share of the costs of the expensive long-term power contracts that the state Department of Water Resources has signed to buy power for the bankrupt PG&E. There would almost certainly be some substantial legal fees, possibly in the millions of dollars, that would reduce the surplus during the first few years (but not once the eminent domain issues were settled). Most of the MUD candidates have voted to shut down PG&E’s Hunters Point plant, and it’s unclear how much it will cost to decommission that facility. The MUD or WPA could also buy the Potrero plant (it recently sold for $330 million) and pay less for the power generated there. And, of course, it’s uncertain how much electricity will cost on the open market in the next few years. That’s why the MUD or WPA would probably want to move aggressively to increase its own generating capacity. But if power prices go up, one thing is clear: PG&E’s prices will go up higher, and faster, than the prices of a public power agency. Voters won’t have to take our word alone on the subject. The public will have more information on San Francisco’s energy plans in the coming weeks. The county’s Local Agency Formation Commission is planning to bring in experts on public power and energy for hearings, and Smeloff is hiring Amory Lovins’s Rocky Mountain Institute to assess the city’s energy alternatives. Both reports are expected before the Nov. 6 election. Our analysis isn’t that radical or unusual; it just confirms the experience of every other major public power agency in the state. We’ve found what just about everyone who’s gotten out from under the private utilities already knows: public power is cheaper. It’s that simple. Public power in San Francisco: Best-case scenario (Low rates, extensive renewable energy) Revenue1 Residential sales 1.481 billion kwh @ 11.5¢ per kwh $170 million Commercial/industrial sales 3.942 billion kwh @ 9.5¢ per kwh $374 million TOTAL $544 million Expenses Payment on revenue bonds $578.9 million @ 8 percent2 $50.9 million Cost of power * <\i>Hetch Hetchy 425 million kwh @ 4¢ per kwh3 $17 million * <\i>Solar, wind, efficiencies 500 million kwh4 $38 million * <\i>Potrero Hill plant 1.6 billion kwh @ 6.9¢ per kwh $110 million * <\i>Contract purchases 2.90 billion kwh @ 5.5¢ per kwh5 $160 million Operations and maintenance6 $131 million Replace PG&E’s city taxes7 $9.4 million Public benefits8 $10 million TOTAL $526 million Surplus $18 million This chart shows how a San Francisco public power agency could take over Pacific Gas and Electric Co., reduce the city’s reliance on fossil fuels, provide all of the electricity the city needs, and still have money left over. The analysis would apply to either a municipal utility district or a city water and power agency. Proposals for both are on the November ballot. (The MUD proposal would include both San Francisco and Brisbane, but since Brisbane is a very small area – only about 4,000 residents – and since it’s difficult to get accurate data on Brisbane’s current usage, our numbers include only San Francisco. The cost of providing service to Brisbane and the revenue from that jurisdiction would not significantly change the analysis.) The scenario presented here is an optimistic one – although, based on our research, the figures are quite realistic. All of the figures we’ve used are conservative – if anything, our analysis underestimates the financial viability of the MUD or a city WPA. The bottom line: Even with residential rates 20 percent below what PG&E currently charges, and with a huge investment in solar and wind power (five times the size of what the city is currently planning), the MUD or WPA would run a large surplus. This study reflects what a MUD or WPA would be facing several years into its existence. In the first few years, the agency would probably have to buy more power on the open market and would generate less from solar and wind (which take time to set up). But on balance that probably lowers the cost of power (solar is comparatively expensive). There are certain to be factors that we missed – although our cost and revenue projections are very similar to what we found in the annual reports of other large public power agencies such as the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). But we’ve accounted for every foreseeable big-ticket item, and the projected surplus is large enough to cover unexpected costs. 1Revenue is based on sales of 5.4 billion kilowatt-hours: the amount PG&E currently sells in San Francisco, according to the state Energy Commission. A MUD or WPA could set rates at any level it wanted; for this analysis, we set residential rates at 20 percent below PG&E’s current rate of 14¢ a kilowatt-hour rate (which is projected to rise sharply). We assumed that commercial and industrial rates would be at the low end of PG&E’s scale. 2This assumes the MUD or WPA can buy PG&E’s assets at current market value, as assessed by the state Board of Equalization as of Jan. 1, 2001 (see story for details). Ken Bruce of the Board of Supervisors’ Budget Analysts Office told the Bay Guardian that 8 percent would be a reasonable projection for the interest on revenue bonds. 3Hetch Hetchy currently generates about 1.7 billion kilowatt-hours a year, and half of that goes for city government needs – Muni, the lights at City Hall, etc. We assumed that the city would pay the MUD what it pays now – the actual cost of generating the power – so the power sold to the city would be a financial wash. Thus it’s not in our analysis as either a cost or a revenue item. The cost we project for Hetch Hetchy power is high – it includes unfavorable contracts that will expire in five years (see story). The actual future cost would be closer to 2¢ a kilowatt-hour. 4The cost of solar and wind is based on financial estimates for Prop. B. 5It’s impossible to determine exactly what it would cost the MUD or WPA to purchase power in the future, but future contracts currently listed on the New York Mercantile Exchange are going for less than 4¢ a kilowatt-hour, and that price is expected to drop. Again, we took a conservative estimate; actual costs might be lower. 6Based on the cost per customer of operations and maintenance at LADWP (see story). 7The MUD would have no obligation to pay city taxes, but almost all of the candidates for MUD director have pledged to make sure the city doesn’t lose money – in other words, the MUD would almost certainly pay fees equivalent to what PG&E was paying in taxes (see story). 8The state mandates that power companies or agencies spend 2 percent of revenues on “public benefits” – conservation, environmental programs, and the like. Public power in San Francisco: Worst-case scenario (Moderate rates, less renewable energy) Revenue Residential sales 1.481 billion kwh @ 12.6¢ per kwh1 $186 million Commercial/industrial sales 3.942 billion kwh @ 9.5¢ per kwh2 $374 million TOTAL $560 million Expenses Payment on revenue bonds $850 million @ 8 percent3 $74.4 million Cost of power * <\i>Hetch Hetchy 425 million kwh @ 4¢ per kwh $17 million (includes wheeling and backup)4 * <\i>Solar, wind, efficiencies 98 million kwh5 $7.5 million Purchased power6 * <\i>Potrero Hill plant 1.752 billion kwh @ 6.9¢ per kwh $120 million * <\i>Contract purchases 3.098 billion kwh @ 5.5¢ $170 million Operations and maintenance7 $131 million Replace PG&E’s city taxes8 $9.4 million Public benefits9 $10 million TOTAL $539 million Surplus $21 million This chart shows how a public power system in San Francisco would operate if some of the worst-case assumptions are true: if, for example, the municipal utility district or power agency had to spend $800 million to buy out PG&E’s system (the highest likely figure, even according to pro-PG&E studies) and if the MUD was unable to fund and site affordable renewable-energy systems and was thus forced to rely on buying a large amount of its power from the Potrero Hill plant (owned by Mirant Corporation) and from other generators through long-term contracts. Even under those circumstances, the chart shows, the MUD could cut residential rates by 10 percent, keep commercial and industrial rates at the low end of PG&E’s rates, and still end the year with a surplus. As in all of our calculations, the numbers are very conservative; expenses would probably be considerably lower. 1The MUD could set rates at any level it wanted; for this scenario, we’ve set residential rates at 10 percent below PG&E’s current rates. 2The commercial/industrial rate is at the low end of PG&E’s equivalent rate. 3See story for details on the $850 million figure. The bond rate of 8 percent is based on an estimate from Ken Bruce of the Board of Supervisors’ Budget Analyst’s Office. 4See story and “Public Power in San Francisco: Best-Case Scenario” for details. 5This is the amount of solar and wind power projected in the city’s report on the solar bond measure, Proposition B. 6See story and “Best-Case Scenario” for details. 7Based on comparable costs per customer at LADWP. 8See story. 9See story.

Free glam lashings at Shu Uemura, all summer long

-
0

Palette_source_open sml.bmp
Color me impressed: the source (water) color palette from Shu Uemura‘s limited-edition summer collection, Hana-bi.

I had too much sake to steer last night – the Muni was just the ticket after the fab lil’ get-together at Shu Uemura‘s Fillmore Street boutique. Shopping Spy dug the Osaka sashimi and sushi and admired the diamond-lined lash jobs going down at the store’s Tokyo Lash Bar.

But even if you didn’t make the soiree last night, you can taste the pleasure of the (faux) lash as well. In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the first Shu Uemura boutique in Tokyo, the store is offering complimentary eyelashes and lash application every Thursday beginning today, June 19, and continuing through July 31. Make an appointment for a spot between 5 and 7 p.m. Will your life – or your gorgeous peepers – ever be the same?

Shu Uemura
1971 Fillmore at Pine, SF
For reservations, call (415) 395-0953

Towards Carfree Cities: Spreading the word

-
1

Steven T. Jones reports from the Toward Carfree Cities conference in Portland

My head and two notebooks are filled with alarming indicators of the need for more people to go carfree and with innovative ideas for making that happen. The solutions range from facilities like the floating bicycle/pedestrian path on the eastside of the Willamette River…
floating trail.jpg
…to technologies for making transit more accessible (such as online trip planners and the Nextbus system used by Muni, which San Francisco’s Michael Smith gave a presentation on yesterday) to key research (consultant Peter Jacobsen finds bikers and walkers are safer in large numbers: “There’s something going on with motorists behavior changing”) to sociopolitical movements, including the many freeway revolts around the U.S. (SF’s Jason Henderson moderated a session on that yesterday) and reclaim the streets pushes such as Critical Mass, depaving, and creative protests against expanded roadways.

Whew, that lightened my head a little bit, but there’s still just so much to say about carfree issues, which have only in recent years penetrated the mainstream consciousness. Bay Area residents Brian Smith and Jonathan Winston each maintain good blogs on the topic, and up here there’s the great BikePortland.org site and one from Canadian journalist Jude Isabella. But the standard these days is being set by the New York City Livable Streets Movement, which includes Streetsblog, Streetfilms, and the Open Planning Project.

And with stable funding from carfree-minded entrepreneur Mark Horton (who started the file-sharing service Limewire, among other things) and a desire to reach into more U.S. cities, Streetsblog is eyeing San Francisco and other California cities to expand its reach and impact.
leah chris aaron.jpg
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition director Leah Shahum, author/activist Chris Carlsson, and Streetsblog editor-in-chief Aaron Naparstek.

A fall revenue measure

-
0

EDITORIAL If you think the June ballot was busy, wait until November. San Francisco will be electing six district supervisors. The mayor and organized labor are going to be pushing the mother of all bond acts, roughly $1 billion to rebuild San Francisco General Hospital. There’s likely to be a public power charter amendment mandating that the city mount a real effort to take over the electric grid. There will probably be a major affordable-housing initiative that includes a set-aside for low-income housing and perhaps some affordable-housing bond money. It’s shaping up as an election that will change the city’s direction for years to come — but there’s still a crucial piece missing.

There’s no money.

Public power will, of course, generate vast amounts of new revenue, but not immediately: the process of setting up the system and fighting Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in court could drag out for several years. That, of course, is all the more reason to get started — if the city had done this years ago, we wouldn’t have a budget crisis today.

But in the meantime, right now, San Francisco needs cash — and there needs to be a November ballot measure that brings in new revenue to pay for more affordable housing and to save the services Mayor Gavin Newsom is cutting.

It’s tough to pass new taxes in California. Most of the time, state law mandates a two-thirds majority vote by the people to enact any new form of taxation. But it’s a bit easier when the supervisors are up for election; on those ballots, the threshold is only 50 percent. And with at least four tightly contested supervisorial races bringing out voters, labor bringing out the troops for the General Hospital bond, and the Democratic Party pushing to get voters out for Barack Obama, the turnout should be excellent.

So if there’s ever a good time to try to pass a tax measure, November 2008 ought to fit the bill.


All sorts of tax proposals have floated around City Hall in recent years and some of them — for example, a higher real-estate transfer tax — were defeated at the ballot. Some groups will oppose any tax proposal, and it’s hard to find constituencies that want to work hard for higher taxes.

So the key to crafting a revenue measure is to ensure that it’s as progressive as possible, and that it takes into account the concerns of those small businesses and homeowners who aren’t rich and can’t afford huge new levies. We see two good options:

1. A city income tax. This hasn’t been seriously discussed since the 1980s, but it ought to be. California law bars cities from collecting traditional income taxes — that is, San Francisco can’t tax the incomes of everyone who lives here. But in 1978 the state Supreme Court ruled that cities can tax income earned from employment in the city. The upside is that a San Francisco employment income tax would hit commuters, a huge group who use city services and don’t pay for them. The downside is that people who live here but work, say, in Silicon Valley would escape the tax.

But overall, income taxes are the fairest method of collecting revenue, and a city tax could be set to hit hardest on the wealthiest. The city could exempt, say, the first $50,000 of earned income, levy a modest (say, 1 percent) tax on the next $50,000, then increase the marginal percentage so that people with enormous salaries pay as much as 2 or 3 percent.

The beauty of this: most of the people who paid the top-end income tax would simply write it off their federal income taxes — meaning this would be a direct shift of cash from Washington DC to San Francisco. And it would come primarily from people who have already received a huge tax windfall from the Bush administration.

Yes, some people would cheat. Some businesses would try to claim their employees all really worked out of a satellite office in another city. But New York City has a municipal income tax. So does Philadelphia. They manage to deal with the cheaters. The supervisors at least ought to consider the idea.

2. A new business tax. Almost everyone agrees that San Francisco’s business taxes are unfair. The city places a flat tax on businesses — a small merchant pays the same percentage as a giant corporation — and some partnerships, like law firms, get away with paying no city taxes at all. The best way to fix that may be to create a single, progressive business tax (probably on gross receipts), with no loopholes, that exempts the first $100,000 or so and actually lowers the levy on small businesses while significantly raising it on big ones. Most small businesses would get an actual tax cut while the big guys would pick up the tab.

Together, a tax package like this could bring in the $250 million a year or so the city needs — and some of the money could go to cutting, say, Muni fares or reducing the sales tax so working-class San Franciscans would pay less.

Almost everyone at City Hall knows the current tax system is unfair, regressive, and inadequate. We’ve been calling for the supervisors to do something about it for years now. November 2008 seems like an excellent time.

Where in the world is Carmen Policy?

-
1

carmenpolicy.jpg
Where in the world is Carmen Policy?

That’s what Prop. F supporters are wondering amid the deafening silence that has followed their invite to Lennar consultant and former 49ers president Policy to debate POWER community organizer Alicia Schwartz on Saturday, May 31, in the Bayview.

Back in February 2008, Policy made headlines when he was hired by Lennar executive Kofi Bonner to head what has since become the $3 million Prop. G campaign. That measure primarily involves a land exchange that would allow Lennar to build a new 49ers stadium atop the toxic Hunters Point Shipyard site, while building luxury condos and retail buildings on the former Monster Park site.

Prop. F campaign manager Chris Cassidy says that the Prop. F campaign, which would require 50 percent of all Lennar’s housing units to be truly affordable to the folks who currently live in the Bayview, decided to invite Policy to debate Prop. F’s Schwartz, “because of the money Policy has received from Lennar and because of his connections to the community from when he was president of the 49ers.”

Prop. G’s most recent campaign financial disclosures show that $40,915 was paid to Carmen Policy, $343,138 for attorneys’ fees, $1.3 million on advertising, and $767,607 on “consulting services.”

As Power’s Schwartz notes in a Prop. F press release, “Politics can be a contact sport, but it should also be a contest of ideals.”

Prop. F organizers say the debate will take place, with or without Policy, at 5030 3rd Street and Quesada Avenue, ( near the MUNI T-Line – Palou Ave. Stop) on Saturday May 31 – 6:30-8:00

Hey, at least Schwartz is challenging Policy to a dance-off…(watch Schwartz, third from left, do the Cha Cha slide).

The Bike Issue: Behind the pack

-
0

Also in this issue:

>>10 things Bay Area cyclists should know

>>Don’t Stop: Bike lessons from Idaho

› steve@sfbg.com

There’s a strange dichotomy facing bicycling in San Francisco, and it’s spelled out in the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s "2007 Citywide Bicycle Counts Report," which features a cover photo of Mayor Gavin Newsom and me pedaling up Market Street together on Bike to Work Day two years ago.

That photo, its context, and the information contained in the report tell the story of a city that at one time set the pace for facilitating bicycling as a viable alternative to the automobile. But that city has been passed up since then by cities such as Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Seattle, and Portland, Ore.

San Francisco still has a higher per-capita rate of bicycle use than any major city in the United States, and that number has been steadily rising in recent years, even as construction of new bike facilities has stalled. The report’s survey found a 15 percent increase since the first official bicycle count was conducted in 2006.

"This increase is especially significant when viewed in light of the injunction against the City’s Bicycle Plan. This injunction has stopped the City from installing any new bicycle facilities since June 2006. Despite a lack of improvement or additions to the City’s bicycle route network, cycling use in San Francisco appears to be increasing," the report read.

It’ll take at least another year for city officials to wrap up the environmental studies on the 56 proposed bike projects and get Judge Peter Busch to lift the injunction (see "Stationary biking," 5/16/07). But it’s still an open question whether San Francisco’s three-year hiatus will be followed by the rapid installation of new bike lanes and other facilities.

City officials express confidence, and there are some hopeful signs. Newsom has been focused on environmental initiatives, the MTA has beefed up its bike staff from six full-time slots to nine, advocacy groups like San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are at the peak of their numbers and influence, and all involved say promoting bicycling is a cheap, effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and traffic congestion.

"I’d be very surprised if, within six months after the injunction being lifted, we don’t see a record number of bike lanes striped," said MTA spokesperson Judson True.

Yet there are still political barriers to overcome in a city where cars are the dominant transportation option — and the first barrier is Mayor Newsom. He has yet to show a willingness to back his green rhetoric with policies that actually take space from cars, which many of the bike lane projects will entail.

"I think we have seen this mayor talk big on some environmental problems, but I’ve been disappointed that on transportation, that thinking hasn’t been turned into action yet," said SFBC executive director Leah Shahum, whom Newsom appointed to the MTA board but then removed earlier this year before her term expired, a sign of the complex and largely adversarial relationship between the mayor and bicyclists.

Newsom has been able to avoid tough decisions on bikes and cars for the past two years because of the injunction and the wait for Muni and traffic congestion studies, which are being released throughout 2008. But that’s about to change with the court’s ban on new bike projects slated to end next year. So will Newsom, who may be running for governor at the time, be willing to make controversial decisions that back up all his green talk? It’s an open question.

The common denominator in all the cities that have pedaled past San Francisco in recent years is that they’ve had strong mayors who have embraced cycling and partnered with bike advocates to change the rules of the road, often contracting them to work directly on projects.

"We’re poised for it, but will we act on it?" Shahum said of the potential for a bike boom in San Francisco. "It’s going to be a real test next summer and I think the mayor’s role is crucial."

THE GREEN BUG


Like many big city mayors, Newsom has become enamored of all things green at the same time that he’s trying to manage an overtaxed transportation system. He is pushing for Muni improvements and has voiced support for congestion pricing initiatives that could make driving a car more expensive.

"This trend of big city mayors focused on transportation to deal with environmental problems is spreading, and I think Newsom has caught that bug," Shahum said.

SFBC and other groups have been meeting regularly with Wade Crowfoot, the mayor’s new director of climate change initiatives, to push the bike plan work forward, create an aggressive implementation strategy, and craft new initiatives like the recently unveiled "Healthways" proposal to close down the Embarcadero to cars on summer Sunday mornings, an idea borrowed from Bogotá, Colombia.

It’s a sea change from that ride I took with Newsom two years ago, three days after he vetoed Healthy Saturdays, which would have created another day of car-free roads in Golden Gate Park. He labeled the bike advocates as "divisive," and told me his veto decision was influenced by "people in the neighborhoods who just came out in force in ways that, frankly, I didn’t expect."

Those feelings, held by the half of San Franciscans who use a car as their primary mode of transportation, haven’t gone away. Newsom’s advisers and the MTA staffers working on the Bike Plan acknowledge the political challenges in completing the bike network, which advocates say is an important prerequisite for convincing more people that cycling is a safe, attractive option.

I asked Oliver Gajda, who is leading the MTA’s bike team, whether the 56 projects he’s now working on would be queued up and ready to build once the injunction is lifted. While the technical work will be done, he said that most projects still will require lots of community meetings and negotiations.

"Some of the projects will take a couple years of work with the community, and some will take less," Gajda said. "When you discuss the potential of removing lanes or parking spots, there are lots of different interests in San Francisco that have concerns."

That’s where the rubber meets the road. Yes, everyone wants to see more cycling in San Francisco — Newsom two years ago even set the goal of 10 percent of all vehicle trips being made by bicycle by 2010, a goal that nobody interviewed for this article thinks the city will meet — but is the city willing to take space from cars?

"The public priorities are already correct, but we need political leadership to implement those priorities even when there’s opposition," said Dave Snyder, transportation policy director with the San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association.

Crowfoot said Newsom is committed to creating better alternatives to the automobile.

"The mayor is fully supportive of expanding the bike network and that will involve tradeoffs," Crowfoot said, acknowledging that some projects involve losing lanes or parking spaces to close the bike network’s most dangerous gaps. "To the extent that the bike network continues to be a patchwork, people won’t get on bikes."

But the mayor also has been fully supportive of the Transit Effectiveness Project’s proposal to reform Muni, even though he recently suggested opposition to proposed parking fine increases might mean that some TEP proposals need to be scaled back.

Skeptics also note that Newsom removed Shahum from the MTA and has appointed no one else with connections to the bicycling community since then, even though that body has sweeping new authority under last year’s Proposition A to implement the bike plan and make decisions about which transportation modes get priority and funding.

"I’m pushing for that, and we’ll see what happens," Crowfoot said of his efforts to get a complete bike network going during the Newsom administration’s reign, acknowledging that, "the proof is in the pudding."

ZERO-SUM GAME


San Francisco’s strong bicycle advocacy culture, the creation of lots of new bike lanes between 2000 and 2004, and innovations like Critical Mass and the sharrow (a painted arrow on the road indicating where bikes should safely ride) made this city a leader in the bicycling movement.

Yet it is only in the last few years, when San Franciscans have been sidelined by the injunction, that the movement really gained mainstream political acceptance and begun to make inroads into the dominant car culture of the United States, slowly and belatedly following the lead of European cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

"Interest in bike-friendly policies is surging, along with the growing number of adults who are riding more. Moreover, the movers and shakers of the biking scene are often smart, always passionate, and they believe strongly in what they are doing. Even when such groups are in the minority, they often enjoy significant political success, and they should never be discounted," J. Harry Wray, a political science professor from DePaul University in Chicago, argues in his new book Pedal Power: The Quiet Rise of the Bicycle in American Public Life (Paradigm, 2008).

Jeffrey Miller, executive director of Thunderhead Alliance, a national umbrella organization supporting regional bicycle advocacy groups, told us he’s pleased with the movement’s progress in recent years.

"There’s been an awakening by the decision-makers in both government and businesses that bicycling and walking can solve a lot of the environmental problems we’re facing," Miller said.

He cited Portland, Ore., Chicago, Seattle, Washington DC, and New York as the cities leading the way in prioritizing bicycling and creating systems that encourage the use of bikes, and said he was sad to see the setbacks in San Francisco.

"But advocates in each of those cities will say there’s so much more work to be done," Miller said.

Most of that work centers on changing how drivers and planners think about cities, and especially with those who see the competition for space as a zero-sum game. Miller noted that it’s good for motorists when more people are encouraged to opt for alternate forms of transportation.

"If you just get 10 to 20 percent of the drivers to use those other modes, it frees the freeways up for cars as well," Miller said. "I don’t see why we go out of our way to favor cars over every other form of transportation."

Like many advocates, he said a strong and consistently supportive mayor is crucial to change the priorities in cities.

"We have an executive leader in Mayor Daley who believes strongly that the bicycle is a big part of the solution to our environmental problems," said Rob Sadowsky, director of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation.

"We have an incredible partnership with the city," he said, noting that the organization often works directly on city contracts to create more bicycle facilities, something that happens in other bike-friendly cities like Portland and New York. But it doesn’t happen much in San Francisco.

"There’s a real sense that we’ve turned a critical corner and things that we’re been fighting for, for years now, are in sight," said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives in New York. "In the last year, there have been some significant policy advances."

Like Mayor Daley in Chicago, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has become a vocal advocate of green transportation alternatives and has been willing to stand firm against displaced drivers.

"Anything you give to cyclists is basically taken away from automobiles," White said, adding that New York officials "have not shied away from taking parking away, or even a lane on Ninth Avenue. And that shows how serious they are."

The problem isn’t just San Francisco’s, but California’s as well. It is the state’s decades-old California Environmental Quality Act that was used to stall the Bike Plan and make bike projects so cumbersome. Sadowsky said bike projects in Chicago are relatively easy to implement, with little in the way of hearings or environmental studies needed.

Oregon laws also helped make Portland a national leader, with a requirement that all new road construction include bike lanes, paid for with state funds. Yet here in the small, 49-mile square that is San Francisco, with ideal weather and a deeply ingrained bike community, many say the city could be on the verge of regaining its leadership role in the bicycle policy.

A poll conducted in November 2007 by David Binder Research found that 5 percent of residents use a bicycle as their main mode of transportation, and that 16 percent of San Franciscans ride a bike at least once a week. Even more encouraging is the fact that most reasons cited for not biking — not enough bike lanes or parking, bad roads, feeling threatened by cars — are all things that can be addressed by smart bike policies.

"If it’s going to happen anywhere, it’s going to happen in San Francisco — as far as making more bicycling a reality," Gajda told us. "I really feel like we’re poised after the injunction to take it to the next level."

GET INVOLVED

The SFMTA has a series of upcoming workshops on the city’s Bike Plan and network:

Central Neighborhoods May 21, 6–7:30 p.m., SoMa Recreation Center Auditorium, 270 Sixth St.

Southeastern Neighborhoods May 22, 6–7:30 p.m., Bayview Anna E. Warden Branch Library, 5075 Third St.

Western Neighborhoods June 3, 6–7:30 p.m., Sunset Recreation Center Auditorium, 2201 Lawton.

Northern Neighborhoods June 4, 6–7:30 p.m., Golden Gate Valley Branch Library, 1801 Green.

BIKE TO WORK DAY, MAY 15

Biking is easier and more fun than many people realize, so Bike to Work Day is the perfect excuse to try it on for size. There will be energizer stations all over town for goodies and encouragement, and lots of fellow cyclists on the road for moral support, including group rides leaving 11 different neighborhoods at 7:30 a.m. After work, swing by the SFBC’s Bike Away from Work party from 6–10 p.m. at the Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell St. For more details, visit http://www.sfbike.org/

We stand with Carole Migden

-
0

OPINION As longtime fans of the Guardian and as allies in almost every fight, including the struggles for public power, affordable housing, people-focused land use policy, and clean and open government, we do not like finding ourselves on the opposite side of an issue as important as this year’s state Senate race. Respectfully, we must say that we believe the Guardian‘s failure to endorse Carole Migden in that race was a colossal mistake — not unlike the decision to endorse Angela Alioto over Tom Ammiano and Matt Gonzalez for mayor in 2003.

Both Leno and Migden are good votes in Sacramento. But the simple reality is that Carole Migden has been there for the local left in ways that make her the only choice for progressives willing to take on the establishment. Certainly Migden has made herself vulnerable to political attacks. Her failure to retain a professional treasurer for her campaign finance filings was clearly an error of judgment. But for us, none of this outweighs her incredible record of achievement in Sacramento or her far more reliable support of progressive candidates and causes in San Francisco.

Guardian readers should by now be familiar with Migden’s long record in Sacramento: the California Clean Water Act, saving the Headwaters Forest, community choice aggregation (CCA), a series of domestic partnership laws that have established a viable alternative to marriage in California while setting the stage for extending marriage rights to same-sex couples, a remarkable package of foster care reforms, and cosmetics safety legislation.

But it is Migden’s role locally that makes her so important to San Francisco progressives. Migden is the only candidate in the race who has been there for progressives in difficult political battles. As candidates for the Democratic County Central Committee, we are grateful that the Guardian endorsed our entire slate. But we wonder if the Guardian considered the fact that the vast majority (indeed, almost unanimous) of Hope Slate candidates are Migden supporters, because they are the leading progressive candidates to retain a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors in November. It is not coincidental.

Few politicians who have risen as high in the establishment food chain as Carole Migden have done so retaining a willingness to fight for the underdog. Guardian readers should be familiar with the litany: she supported Aaron Peskin and Jake McGoldrick in 2000; reached out to Chris Daly soon thereafter and stood strongly with him against subsequent challenges; never, ever supported Gavin Newsom; attended the Progressive Convention; and financed progressive campaigns from the Affordable Housing Bond to Muni reform.

Migden is a scrappy street fighter who helps other scrappy street fighters. As one of the very first queers and one of the first women to take political power at these levels, she had to be. Someday progressive politics may not need scrappy street fighters (and someday maybe women will be better represented in public office) — but not yet.

We are proud to stand with Carole Migden, as she has stood with us. She is the candidate in this race who we can count on to fight when it really counts.

Bill Barnes, Chris Daly, Michael Goldstein, Robert Haaland, Joe Julian, Eric Mar, Rafael Mandelman, Eric Quezada, and Debra Walker

The writers are Hope Slate candidates for the DCCC.

Spinning our wheels

-
0

newsom bike.jpg
Newsom and me at a past Bike to Work Day.
While other U.S. cities pedal forward with smart policies to encouraging bicycling — the cheapest, easiest and greenest of the transportation options besides walking — San Francisco continues to lag as we move toward annual Bike to Work Day on May 15. Part of that is the court injunction against new bike projects, but even more of it is a simple failure of political will by Mayor Gavin Newsom and other civic leaders.
We saw another example of that cowardice in this morning’s Chron when Newsom and some supervisors promised to fight new parking fine increases even if it meant scaling back needed improvements to Muni. Meanwhile, Newsom years ago announced plans to offer easy bicycle rentals at many bus stops, yet it is Washington DC that actually went ahead and did it, following the lead of Paris and other world-class cities. Newsom has a bunch of high-paid environmental advisers, and his web page announcements are always chock full of green promises, so why does San Francisco have such a hard time with such a basic goal of encouraging more bicycling in this 7×7 city?

Editor’s Notes

-
0

› tredmond@sfbg.com

I like Muni. I always have. I know that makes me strange and sick, but I’ve always enjoyed riding the buses and trains, and my kids love riding the buses and trains, and in the end, despite all the problems, it’s one of the great things about San Francisco.

Then there are days like April 20.

It wasn’t an unusual Sunday; sunny, a bit chilly. There was, of course, the grand stoner holiday, and people were flocking toward a 4:20 convergence in Golden Gate Park, but one would think the folks at Muni would realize such a cosmic event was in the offing and plan for it.

One would be wrong.

We joined a small group waiting for a westbound bus at Haight and Divisadero. The sign told us the next bus was coming in five minutes; Michael and Vivian sat on the horribly uncomfortable seats designed to keep homeless people from sleeping on them, and in about 10 minutes along came a 6 Parnassus. It slowed down enough for us to see that it was standing room only (but nowhere near as bad as the 14 Mission is every day), then pulled away without taking on passengers.

Okay: bus too crowded. Driver decides no more passengers can fit safely aboard. It’s called "passing up" a stop, and it happens. Typically there’s another, emptier bus just behind. And sure enough, the sign said a 71 Haight/Noriega would be along in three minutes.

Well, seven minutes, actually — and then the same thing happened again: full bus, no stop. At this point there were maybe 30 people at the bus stop, and some had been waiting quite a while and were getting pissed. After a while, along came another 71 … and passed us up. The corner was getting crowded; people were yelling at the bus, chasing it, running into the street, and trying to climb in the back door when it stopped in traffic. Not exactly safety first.

Eventually we walked, which was fine, except that Vivian, who at six is already a slave to fashion, was wearing shoes that looked lovely but weren’t exactly designed for a hike so she wound up with blisters, and I had to stop and get her some Band-Aids and beg for new socks at a shoe store. Such is life in the big city; I can’t really complain that much.

But there’s an issue here that intrigues me: What is Muni supposed to do in this situation? It doesn’t seem as if this should be an impossible management problem. A Muni controller could, for example, radio the next five buses on the Haight Street line and tell them each to pass up alternate intersections so everyone gets a chance to ride eventually.

I called Judson True, a nice guy who has the unfortunate job of handling press calls for Muni this week, and he told me Muni does the best it can at line management — that in theory, someone watching the Haight Street line should have radioed in the problem (I think the drivers ought to do that too) and a controller should have been able to shift more buses to that line. I suspect this may have been a screw-up. But one thing that happens when you keep cutting the Muni budget is that the ranks of controllers and line managers — those middle-management "bureaucrats" Matier and Ross and the like always whine about — start to thin out. And this shit happens.

You wonder: how often do these people who complain about government spending actually ride the bus?

8 spots for outdoor dining

-
0

San Francisco and dining al fresco aren’t necessarily allies. But they’re not exactly enemies. We do have those gorgeous sunny spring days and plenty of places to enjoy them while we drink and dine. If you’ve been heartbroken over the closed kitchen at Zeitgeist, or if the rooftop deck at Medjool feels more like a frat party gone wrong than an afternoon social gathering, you can rest assured there are even places outside of the Mission that serve food and cocktails outside. So hop on your Yamaha, Bianchi, or Muni and check out some of these fabulous places to catch some sun with your buzz. Keep in mind these spots are best for brunch and lunch. And bring a hoodie in case the sun subsides — San Francisco fog is about as forgiving as a hangover.

PIER 23 CAFE


Check out views of the Bay Bridge and Coit Tower from this waterfront café with surfboard decor. Rain or shine, this dive gets packed with beer guzzlers and sunbathers. Enjoy buckets of Pacificos and top-shelf margaritas alongside pub grub like burgers, nachos, and the best fish tacos in town, until your vision’s blurred and skin is blistered. Then enjoy the live music on warmer nights and heat lamps on cooler ones.

The Embarcadero, SF. (415) 362-5125, www.pier23cafe.com

CAFÉ FLORE


The faint of heart need not attempt Café Flore — sharking a table here takes more nerve than buying booze underage. But there’s a reason to steel one’s resolve: this Castro hotspot, voted Best Café in our 2004 Readers’ Poll, is ideal for any occasion, be it brunch, coffee, or an afternoon brew. With breakfast served daily until 3 p.m. and a full bar, there’s no better spot for sun-drenched boozing and cruising.

2298 Market, SF. (415) 621-8579, www.caféflore.com

LA NOTE


The garden patio at La Note is worth the wait — and wait you will, because they don’t take reservations for weekend brunch. Grab a java beforehand to stave off caffeine withdrawal as you watch other patrons enjoy their succulent crème fraîche pancakes. And don’t worry, you’ll get your turn. Complete with blue-and-white checkered tablecloths, this is the perfect spot for brunch bliss or an afternoon assiette de charcuterie.

2377 Shattuck, Berk. (510) 843-1535, www.lanoterestaurant.com

PARK CHALET


If bike rides through Golden Gate Park leave you craving a wet one to quench your thirst, this spot — located behind the oceanfront Beach Chalet and just steps from Queen Wilhelmina’s Windmill — offers the perfect spot to rest on your laurels and soak up some sun. Choose from an extensive list of beers from the onsite brewery, and when the fog rolls in, head inside to cozy up to the stone fireplace in the glass-ceilinged dining room. On weekends you can nurse a hangover and get a head start on your day’s drinking with crab benedict and a Bloody Mary.

1000 Great Highway, SF. (415) 386-8439, www.beachchalet.com

CAFÉ CLAUDE


Located in a secluded alley between Union Square and the Financial District, Café Claude is a scrumptious substitute to the crowded Belden Lane. This quaint sidewalk café is reminiscent of Parisian bistros, and is therefore the perfect spot to nosh on a Niçoise salad and sip Sancerre. Plus there’s jazz on weekends.

7 Claude, SF. (415) 392-3505, www.cafeclaude.com

EL RIO


For those days in deep summer when everywhere but the Mission District is covered in heavy fog, there’s no reason to look farther than El Rio for a bit of sunny respite. Its multilevel back deck, barbeques, margaritas, and live salsa bands draw a mostly gay male crowd on Sundays, but you can get down with the ladies every fourth Saturday of the month, when the line to get in snakes down the block.

3158 Mission, SF. (415) 282-3325, www.elriosf.com

SAM’S ANCHOR CAFE


If the summer fog has taken even the Mission captive, escape to Sam’s via the Tiburon ferry. From here, you can sip margaritas on the waterfront deck while viewing the cloud-engulfed city. Snack on fried calamari or head inside post-sunset for fine dining and seafood.

27 Main, Tiburon. (415) 435-4527, www.samscafe.com

PILSNER INN


The Pilsner doesn’t serve food, but its state-of-the-art cooling system, which keeps draft beers chilled to 31 degrees, makes this Park Chow neighbor a Castro gem for gay and straight clientele. Expect to throw back a few on the garden patio with cleated patrons just back from the fields, because Pilsner Inn supports a handful of sports teams, including softball, soccer, bowling, and pool.

225 Church, SF. (415) 621-7058, www.pilsnerinn.com *

Dark days

-
0

› amanda@sfbg.com

› sarah@sfbg.com

Like a lot of San Franciscans, John Murphy wants to put solar panels on his roof. He’s worried about the environment, but it’s also about money: “I want it to pay for all my electricity,” he said one recent evening as we chatted in front of his house.

Murphy pays top dollar for power from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., every month hitting the highest tier of energy use and getting spanked 34 cents a kilowatt hour for it. He’s tried to cut costs by switching to energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs with motion sensors — with little incentive from PG&E’s billing department.

Murphy thought installing solar panels would be worth the up-front cost, especially if federal and state rebates made it more feasible. His roof — sturdy and pitched toward the south, unshaded by trees or other buildings, and located in the fogless hollow of the Mission District — seemed perfectly suited for solar energy.

So last fall he invited a representative from a local solar installation company to the house for a free consultation. He was told his roof could only fit a 2.8 kilowatt system, which would cover about 60 percent of his energy needs — and cost about $25,000.

Murphy is apoplectic about the results. “What’s 60 percent? That’s like going out with her for three-quarters of the night. I want to take her home,” he said.

While the federal incentive shaves $2,000 off the cost, the state rebate program — in place since January 2007 — is a set allocation that declines over time: the later you apply, the less you get. Today Murphy can get about $1.90 per watt back from the state, whereas at the start of the program it was $2.50 per watt. To him, the upfront costs are still too steep and the results won’t cover his monthly PG&E bill.

“The snake oil salesmen of yesterday are the solar panel installers of today,” Murphy said.

But Murphy still wants to install panels — and he’s not alone. The desire for clean, green energy runs deeply through San Francisco and the state as a whole. After the launch of the California Solar Initiative, the number of solar megawatts, represented by applications to the state, doubled what they’d been over the last 26 years. Almost 90 percent of the installations were on homes, indicating that citizens are jumping at the chance to decrease their carbon output.

Yet in San Francisco, where environmental sentiment and high energy costs ought to be driving a major solar boom, there’s very little action.

Back in 2000, then-mayor Willie Brown announced a citywide goal of 10,000 solar roofs by 2010. That would add up to a lowly 5 percent of the 200,000 property lots within the city of San Francisco.

But even that weak goal seems beyond reach: it’s now 2008, and the number of solar roofs in San Francisco stands at a grand total of 618 installations by the end of 2007. In terms of kilowatts per capita, the city ranks last in the Bay Area. The city’s total electricity demand runs about 950 megawatts; only 5 megawatts is currently supplied by solar.

 

WHAT’S WRONG?

Well, it’s not the weather. While heavy cloud cover can hinder panels, fog permits enough ambient light to keep panels productive. San Francisco’s thermostat isn’t much of a factor either — panels prefer cooler temperate zones, not blazing desert heat.

It’s also not for a lack of political ideas — Mayor Gavin Newsom is pushing a major solar proposal and several others are floating around, too.

But Newsom is clashing with the supervisors over the philosophy and direction of his plan. It’s complicated, but in essence, the mayor and Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting put together a task force that included representatives of solar installers and PG&E — but nobody from the environmental community and no public-power supporters.

The plan they hatched gives cash incentives to private property owners, takes money away from city-owned solar installments, and does nothing to help the city’s move to public power.

While all this plays out, the solar panels so many San Franciscans want aren’t getting installed.

 

SUN AND SUBSIDY

What makes solar work, according to local solar activists, is a combination of sun and subsidies. “Almost every area in the United States has better sun exposure than Germany, and Germany is leading the solar market worldwide today,” said Lyndon Rive, CEO of Solar City, a Foster City-based solar installer.

The price per kilowatt hour, with current state and federal subsides, is about 13 cents for solar, just two cents more than PG&E’s base rate for energy produced mostly by nuclear power and natural gas.

Still, the average installation for the average home hovers between $20,000 and $30,000. For many, that kind of cash isn’t available.

“The biggest reason for lack of adoption [of solar energy] is that the cost to install in San Francisco is higher than neighboring cities,” Rive said. It’s about 10 percent more than the rest of the Bay Area, according to a December 2007 report of the San Francisco Solar Task Force.

Why? According to Rive, system sizes are smaller. Solar City’s average Bay Area customer buys a 4.4 kilowatt system, but the average San Franciscan — with a smaller house and smaller roof — usually gets a 3.1 kilowatt installation. The smaller the system, the more the markup for retailers amortizing certain fixed costs such as material and labor. On top of that, San Francisco’s old Victorians can have issues — weak rafters need reinforcement; steep roofs require more scaffolding; wires and conduits have to cover longer distances. It adds up.

“There’s an extra cost to doing business in San Francisco,” said Barry Cinnamon, CEO of Akeena Solar and a member of the SF Solar Task Force. “I can expect $100 in parking tickets for every job I do.”

That was the motivation for Ting to establish the Solar Task Force in 2007, with the goal of creating financial incentives, including loans and rebates, to bring down the costs of San Francisco solar. The 11-member task force came up with an ambitious program that involved a one-stop shop for permits, a plan to give property owners as much as $5,000 in cash subsidies, and a system to lend money to homeowners who can’t afford the up-front costs.

The task force said installing 55 megawatts of solar would combat global warming, improve air quality by reducing pollution caused by electricity generation, and add 1,800 green collar jobs to the local economy.

The streamlined permit program is in place. None of the rest has happened.

 

THE MAYOR’S MONEY

The first obstacle was the loan fund. Newsom and Ting wanted to take $50 million currently sitting unspent in a bond fund for seismic upgrades on local buildings. Sup. Jake McGoldrick wanted to know why the money wasn’t being used to upgrade low-income housing; the city attorney wasn’t sure seismic safety money could be redirected to solar loans.

Then Newsom decided to take $3 million from the Mayor’s Energy Conservation Fund to pay for the first round of rebates. Over the next 10 years, that could add up to $50 million. McGoldrick balked again. That money, he said, was supposed to be used on public facilities (like solar panels at Moscone Center and Muni facilities and new refrigerators for public housing projects). Why should it be diverted to private property owners?

There’s a larger issue behind all this: should the city be using scarce resources to help the private sector — or devoting its money to city-owned electricity generation? “In 10 years, there could be $50 million in the fund,” McGoldrick said. “That’s a lot of money, and it’s power the city could own.”

Sup. Chris Daly agrees. “I would support this program if we were running out of municipal [solar] projects,” he said. “But we’re not.”

In addition, the progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, who have all advocated a citywide sustainable energy policy known as community choice aggregation, or CCA, weren’t represented on the Solar Task Force.

The fund Newsom wanted to tap for his project is also the source of funding for the community choice aggregation program, which the progressive supervisors see as the city’s energy plan, which in turn constitutes a far more comprehensive response to climate change, with a goal of relying on 51 percent renewable energy by 2017.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval is working on a loan program that would allow residents to borrow money from the city for renewable energy and efficiency upgrades for their homes and pay it back at a relatively low interest rate folded into their monthly tax bills. (See “Solar Solutions,” 11/14/07.) Sandoval’s plan would enable loans of $20,000 to $40,000 at 3 percent interest to people who voluntarily put solar on their homes.

The city of Berkeley is pursuing a similar plan. But the task force never consulted Sandoval — in fact, he told us that he had no idea Ting’s task force was meeting until a few months ago.

The supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee is slated to review Newsom’s plan April 16.

Solar installers aren’t happy about the delays: “I’m on the disappointed receiving end of that start and stop,” Cinnamon said.

While city officials duke out where the money should come from and who gets it, San Franciscans interested in purchasing panels are left in limbo. Jennifer Jachym, a sales rep from Solar City who used to handle residential contracts in San Francisco, said, “I have worked all over the Bay Area and I’d have to say it seems that the delta between interest and actual purchase is highest here.

“It was hard to get people to pull the trigger,” she continued. “What the San Francisco incentive program basically did was bring the cost incentives here to where they are everywhere else.”

The holdup has dispirited customers and solar companies. Cinnamon said he wasted 10,000 advertising door hangers because of the delay. Solar City also put on hold a handshake deal with the Port of San Francisco to rent a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in the Bayview District for a solar training academy that could turn out 20 new workers a month.

“As a San Francisco resident, I really want to see it happen there, but as a business, I have to think about it differently,” said Peter Rive, chief operating officer of the company. “Almost every city in the Bay Area is aggressively trying to get us to build a training academy in their city.”

 

TENANTS AND LANDLORDS

Another reason we don’t see more panels on San Francisco roofs is that most San Franciscans are renting and have no control over their roofs. “The landlord doesn’t care. They don’t pay the electric bill,” Cinnamon said. When asked if there were any inroads to be made there, he said, “Nope. That’s not a market I see at all.”

In spite of that, solar companies still are eager to do business here, which means there’s either enough of a market — or enough of a markup.

Rive wouldn’t tell us their exact markup for panels, but said, “The average solar company adds 15 to 25 percent gross margin to the installation. Our gross margin is in line with that.”

Rive’s company has another option for cash-poor San Franciscans, a new “solar lease.” In this scenario, Solar City owns the panels and leases them to homeowners for 15 years. The property owner pays a low up-front cost of a couple of thousand dollars and a monthly lease fee that increases 3.5 percent per year.

For Murphy, the price would be $2,754 down and $88 a month. The panels would still cover only 64 percent of his energy needs, so he would owe PG&E about $70 a month. Because he would be using less energy, PG&E would charge a lower rate, which is something Solar City typically tries to achieve with a solar system.

However, people can’t make money off their solar systems. “People ask about it all the time,” Jachym said. “Especially people in San Francisco. They say ‘I have a house in Sonoma with tons of space. Can I put panels there and offset my energy here?'”

The answer, unfortunately, is no, which means San Franciscans have no incentive to put up more panels than they need and recoup their costs by selling the energy to the grid. Unlike Germany, for example, where people are paid for the excess solar energy they make, California’s net metering laws favor utility companies. If you make more power than you use, you’re donating it to the grid. PG&E sells it to someone else.

If the law was changed — which could be a feature of CCA — citizens could help the city generate more solar energy to sell to customers who don’t have panels, helping the city to meet its overall goal of 51 percent renewable by 2017.

Under Solar City’s lease program, the company gets the federal and state rebates. If Murphy leased for 15 years he’d have an option to buy the used panels, upgrade to new ones, and end or continue the lease. If San Francisco launches the incentive program, the $3,000 from the city could cover the up-front cost and he could get the whole thing rolling for almost no cash. It sounds like a sweet deal.

Except it’s not going to work. Solar City only leases systems of 3.2 kilowatts or more, and only 2.8 could be squeezed onto Murphy’s roof. “I think it’s Murphy’s Law,” Jachym says wryly. “If you have a house that wants solar, a whole row of houses on the street nearby are better suited for it.”

She says the 3.2 cutoff has to do with the company’s bottom line. “If it’s any less than 3.2 the company is losing money.” Ironically, she tells me, “the average system size in San Francisco is even smaller” — usually less than 3.1. Solar City has set the bar high in a place where many people like Murphy are prevented from leasing.

He tells us he isn’t interested in a lease anyway: “I don’t own that.” He’s now more interested in a do-it-yourself situation and wishes the city would put some energy toward that. “If they were serious they would have a city solar store,” he said, imagining a kind of Home Depot for solar, where one could buy panels and wiring, talk with advisors, contract with installers, or just fill out the necessary paperwork for the rebates.

Some people are going ahead anyway, without city support. Nan Foster, a San Francisco homeowner now installing photovoltaic panels and solar water heating, says her middle-class family borrowed money to do these projects, “because we want to do the right thing about the environment and reduce our carbon footprint. It would be a great help to get these rebates from the city.

“The public money for the project would increase the spending of individuals to install solar — so the public funds would leverage much more investment in solar on the part of individuals and businesses,” Foster argued.

There’s another approach that isn’t on the table yet. Eric Brooks, cofounder of the Community Choice Energy Alliance, told us that the city, through CCA, could buy its own panels to place on private homes and businesses, giving those homes and businesses a way to go solar — free.

“Clearly there would be a much higher demand for free solar panels over discounted ones that are still very expensive,” he said. “And because the panels would be owned by the city, all of the savings and revenue could be put right back into building more renewables and efficiency projects, instead of going into the pockets of private property owners.”

Proponents of the mayor’s plan argue that the city can build more solar panels — faster — by diverting public funds to the private sector. “While on its face this is technically true, it is actually a dead-end path,” Brooks said. “Yes, a little more solar would be built a little more quickly. However, once those private panels are built the city will get nothing from them.”

Full disclosure: Murphy is Amanda Witherell’s landlord.

 

SPORTS: Bring back Barry

-
0

BY A.J. Hayes

barry.jpg
Less blah.

Enough already, we get it. Go ahead, put the cap back on the Sharpie, and step away from the bus.

That’s right, you, the graffitist/frustrated Giants fan who’s been going around town doctoring the Giants advertisements on the back of Muni coaches- making the ad copy that initially read: “All Out. All Season,” say instead: “All Outs. All Season.”

Very funny. Ha, ha. ha. Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum. Actually we’ll need a bottle of rum to numb the pain if the Giants get pinned with one more ugly 7-0 shutout.

It’s been only a week, but we’ve seen enough. The Giants lineup is not working. What makes it scarier is that the 1985 Giants, the club that posted the worst record in San Francisco history – 62-100 – had a lineup (featuring Chili Davis, Jeffery Leonard, Bob Brenly) that was considerably better than the current team.

This year, Giants ads have promised a grittier club that hangs together win or lose.

And while, yes, the Giants have two potential pitching aces in Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum and a couple of exciting position players, including the daring and eminently watchable Eugenio Velez, will that be enough to keep an easily distracted fan base from hanging in there?

It won’t do the Giants any good to work out any mid-season trades – who would they deal?

But it might not be a bad idea for the Giants to plant a scout in Hollywood.

That’s where they might catch a glimpse of the banished Barry Bonds eating breakfast with Larry King or taking in a Tyler Perry movie premiere. Despite batting .276, with 28 homers and 66 RBI last season, no team wanted Bonds this spring.

Bonds is ready, willing and certainly able to play another season – and it should be with San Francisco. What better way for the club to celebrate its 50th Anniversary in San Francisco than by having one of the club’s all-time greatest players knocking balls into the bay?

We say bring back San Francisco’s favorite surly slugger.

Newsom’s Sunshineless Solar

-
0

Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to be known as the Green Mayor. But he could go down in history as the mayor who secretly diverted public money from large municipally owned solar installations to subsidize privately owned solar panels.

Since January, Newsom has tried to kick start two questionably financed solar programs.

The first plan involved raiding $50 million from a seismic safety loan fund. That idea got shelved in the New Year, when the Board of Supervisors asked why these funds couldn’t be used to seismically retrofit affordable housing units, rather than subsidize private solar installations?

The second plan is involved diverting $3 million from the Mayor’s Energy Conservation Account, which was set up in 2001 to increase energy efficiency and reduce cost of energy use.

Since then, $39 million has been allocated to MECA with $10 million allocated in the current fiscal year, 2007-2008.
These monies come from the General Fund and are under the purview of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Deputy Controller Monique Zmuda says so far all projects funded by MECA have benefited city facilities and PUC facilities.

“These funds have not been used to my knowledge to subsidize or loan funds to privately owned energy conservation projects,” Zmuda told the Guardian.

MECA funded projects include solar panels at Moscone, the replacement of refrigerators at the San Francisco Housing Authority, solar projects at MUNI, a new heating system at the central plant of San Francisco General Hospital, Solar projects at San Francisco Airport, a Solar project at North Point, and Port Energy Efficiency.

But under the Mayor’s Solar Energy Incentive Program, these public monies would be used to help subsidize the installation of solar panels on privately owned buildings and homes.The program places a $10,000 cap on the subsidizing of solar on private property.

1...252627...32Page 26 of 32

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org