Newsom

The mayor’s race begins

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By Tim Redmond

So now it’s official: Just when San Francisco political junkies needed something other than the generally dull November election to talk about, Bevan Dufty has done us all a favor and fired the opening gun in the 2011 mayor’s race.

It’s no surprise, really — everyone knew that Dufty was running. Just as everyone knows that City Attorney Dennis Herrera and state Senator Leland Yee will be in the race, and that Assessor Phil Ting is looking at it, and that Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and Public Defender Jeff Adachi are mulling their prospects.

With public financing in place, and ranked-choice voting, the race will be fascinating. Dufty has never run citywide, but he’s a nice guy who can be funny and charming and he’s built a reputation as a nuts-and-bolts supervisor who takes government seriously. “Ross Magowan [of KTVU] asked me what my biggest single issue was, and I said Muni,” Dufty told me today. “He said that Muni was getting better, but hey — crime is down 30 percent citywide and still up on Muni.”

Fixing Muni is a Dufty kind of thing — not a grand civic vision, but a basic public service that people use that has problems. (A classic Dufty story: When the city got rid of the crossing guard at the school my kids go to a couple of years ago, which is in Dufty’s district, the principal called Dufty, and the guard was back the next day. He loves that sort of thing.)

“What I try to be is a collaborator,” he said. “I’ve never had the luxury of knowing I had six votes on the board, so I’ve had to reach out to people.”

He also promised that Mayor Dufty would always show up for question time at the board. He joked that “it’s easy for me to promise that because Chris Daly will be off the board by them” but in the next breath told me how much he likes and respects Daly, who he called “incredibly talented.” (Again, classic Dufty.)

It’s going to be a challenge for him to stand out in this race. He’s not going to get a lot of progressive support; he simply hasn’t been there on a lot of progressive votes and issues. It’s rare to see him defy Mayor Newsom and he’s been on the wrong side of many of the key battles of the past ten years.

He has a lot of support in his district, and among the more centrist parts of the gay community. But he’s not a big downtown guy, not a prodigious fundraiser and won’t be the next Newsom, who ran the first time with the unwavering support of the big-business community and all the money he could ever need.

And Herrera and Yee — both with a proven track record of raising money, both with citywide name recognition — will also be sitting in that political center. Neither of them can claim the support of the majority of the progressive supervisors (although Herrera will no doubt have former Board President Aaron Peskin on his team).

If Mirkarimi or Adachi runs, they’ll take the left flank. Yee will be the more conservative candidate, especially when he’s working the west side of town. I don’t see how Dufty finds his niche.

He doesn’t either, right now — except to say that “I’m not running for anything else. I have no desire to go to Sacramento or Washington. I’m humble and I’m going to run a grassroots campaign.”

What he has, clearly, done is given a kind of shit-or-get-off-the-pot push to the other candidates. The race is a long way away, but with Dufty out there, raising money and seeking endorsements, Mirkarimi is going to have to decide if he’s serious, and if not, the progressives are going to have to decide if Adachi is their man, and the race is going to start firming up. There won’t be a Matt Gonzalez late entry this time around. What you see is what you get, and the late-comers will be at a disadvantage.

Remaking Market Street

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steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Market Street is a mess that doesn’t work well for any of its users. In famously fractious San Francisco, that’s something politicians and citizens of all political stripes can agree on — and it’s now something that a wide variety of city agencies and interest groups have finally started to work on improving, experiment by experiment.

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Sept. 10 announcement of a series of pilot projects on Market Street — including a plan to divert many automobiles from Market Street that begins Sept. 29, followed by creation of more sidewalk seating areas and art projects in the coming months — drew from work started a year ago by his arch-rival, Sup. Chris Daly, who in turn was furthering plans for an eventually carfree Market Street initiated by former Mayor Willie Brown.

"I’m glad that it’s going to get done and we’re going to take cars off of Market Street," Daly told the Guardian after Newsom’s announcement. Newsom presented the changes in grander terms, saying in a prepared statement, "The new and improved Market Street will rival main streets around the world."

Among the streets Newsom cited as an example is Broadway in New York City, "for piloting ways to use streets as open space," according to the Mayor’s Office statement. But while many San Franciscans like Broadway’s new separated bike lanes and street-level open space, others covet Broadway’s flashy electronic signs and billboards, which this November’s Proposition D would bring to the mid-Market area.

"The next thing is going to happen whether Prop. D passes or not," said David Addington, the Warfield Theater owner who proposed the measure to allow more commercial signage on Market between Fifth and Seventh streets as a source of revenue to improve mid-Market. "This area could be fantastic."

Indeed, it appears that Market Street is bound for some big changes. And unlike efforts in the past, which involved long studies of ideas that were never implemented, there’s a sense of experimentation and immediacy that marks the latest push.

"I’m very excited about the Market Street changes and I think it’s good for San Francisco to be in a mode where we give ourselves permission to experiment with our streets," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, which is supporting Prop. D and Newsom’s Market plans.

"I really appreciative that the city is willing to start things in Market Street in trial phases so we can wade in," said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. "Reducing the number of cars on Market Street will definitely be a benefit for those walking and biking, as well as speeding up transit."

Plans call for signs encouraging eastbound motorists on Market to turn right at 10th Street before requiring them to do so at Eighth Street and again at Sixth Street.

The San Francisco Transportation Authority (governed by the Board of Supervisors), which prepared the study on diverting cars from Market Street, was also poised to approve (on Sept. 22, after Guardian press time) some complementary measures to "calm the safety zone" on Market Street.

That plan is to create better markings on the street to delineate the spaces used by motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists, including colored pavement and moving back the points where cars stop at intersections to create safer access to transit stops.

Once the court injunction against bike projects is lifted — for which a hearing is set Nov. 2 — the plan would also create colored "bike boxes" at Market intersections and a buffer zone between the bike lanes and cars between Eighth Street and Van Ness. "It would be the city’s first separated bike lane, with very little work," Shahum said.

The Mayor’s Office says various city agencies will monitor and evaluate the Market Street pilot projects being implemented over the next year, with full implementation of a designed Market Street coming in 2013 after taking community input.

"We’re excited about it. There’s a long history of ideas about what to do about Market," said Judson True, spokesperson for the Municipal Transportation Agency, which is guiding the improvements. "This is the start of the next phase on Market Street."

Crunch time

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sarah@sfbg.com

The proposal by city officials and Lennar Corp. to build more than 10,000 new housing units at Hunters Point Shipyard/Candlestick Point is entering a critical phase, particularly for Bayview-Hunters Point residents who want greater oversight and scrutiny of the project.

Candidates are lining up to replace termed-out District 10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell next year; the project’s draft environmental impact report will be released, considered for approval and potentially challenged; and Lennar officials will seek to get the final development agreement with the city signed before Mayor Gavin Newsom leaves office in 2011, or earlier.

The 770-acre redevelopment plan, which the Mayor’s Office is touting as a shining example of a public-private partnership, has come under repeated attack from community advocates after Lennar’s failures to monitor and control toxic asbestos dust at the shipyard. The crash of the housing market and plunge in the company’s stock price also triggered concerns about the project.

And in light of the U.S. Navy’s recent decision to dissolve the Hunters Point Shipyard Restoration Advisory Board (RAB), the community is concerned that decisions about radiologically-affected dumps and the shipyard’s early transfer from the Navy to the city could occur without important public oversight.

Another aspect of the project — a proposal to build condos on 42 acres of Candlestick Point State Recreation Area — was criticized by the Sierra Club, Arc Ecology, and Friends of Candlestick Park. Lennar argued it was necessary for the project to pencil out and this sale of state land was to be authorized by Senate Bill 792, sponsored by Sen. Mark Leno.

In August, Leno secured the neutrality of the environmental groups and the support of the California Assembly (but not Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, the lone dissenting vote) for an amended version of his bill, arguing that selling 23 acres for $50 million would spare the rest of Candlestick Point SRA from being closed by budget cuts. The legislation now awaits Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s signature.

Now, with the project’s EIR due to be released Sept. 28, people have the chance to register concerns about plans for such a massive development project, which includes condos on the Bayview’s only major park and a controversial bridge over Yosemite Slough.

On Sept. 15, community members packed the Board of Supervisors’ meeting to demand an investigation into their concerns, which also include the apparent inability of Newsom’s African American Out Migration task force to issue its overdue final report about the ongoing exodus of the city’s black population, which this project could exacerbate.

Sup. John Avalos told us he is now gathering information on the issue and hopes to schedule Land Use Committee hearings on the shipyard cleanup and Lennar’s economic health. "The documentation gives real strength and power to the community’s contentions," Avalos said.

He also noted that Maxwell is scheduling a hearing into the dissolution of the RAB, while Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is resurrecting legislation that seeks to put the San Francisco Redevelopment Authority under the control of the Board of Supervisors.

Arc Ecology director Saul Bloom said his group will study the project’s EIR to see if it accurately assesses the effects of Lennar’s development.

"We are concerned about the impact of truck traffic, the bridge over Yosemite Slough, and whether the transportation plan is going to effectively put the Bayview between three freeways," Bloom said. "But we’re going to be even-handed. If the EIR does a good job, we plan to say so."

Jaron Browne of the Bayview advocacy group POWER (People Organized to Win Employment Rights) told the Guardian that her group wants the shipyard cleaned up and the community respected.

"This is not just a Bayview issue," Browne said. "The whole city will be affected by the decisions that take place in terms of the future of affordable housing and environmental protection."

Stopping PG&E’s fraudulent initiative

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EDITORIAL A ballot measure that could spell the end of public power in California is headed for either the spring or fall 2010 ballot — and so far, the opposition is missing in action. This is a profoundly important issue, and every elected official, city council, board of supervisors, and utility agency in the Bay Area needs to immediately come out in opposition and start organizing to defeat it.

The source of the proposition, of course, is Pacific Gas and Electric Co. PG&E is facing political wildfires all over the state as communities rebel against bad service and high rates. In Marin County, a community choice aggregation (CCA) plan is moving along, full speed. In San Francisco, CCA is a little slower, but still on track. These efforts could turn two of PG&E’s most profitable territories into public power beachheads. Meanwhile, in San Joaquin County, a public power movement is trying to take over part of PG&E’s service area, and PG&E just spent millions of dollars fighting a similar effort in Davis.

So the utility has decided to fight back — not just in the local communities where activists can beat PG&E back, or in the state Legislature, where the giant company has fewer and fewer friends, but with a ballot initiative that has a misleading name, a misleading political message — and tens of millions of dollars to back it up.

Signature-gatherers are out in force already, collecting names for a measure called "New two-thirds requirement for local public electricity providers." The paid petition crews are describing it as a "right to vote" measure, giving the public a chance to weigh in on government action.

What the measure would really do is require a two-thirds affirmative vote before any public power agency could add new customers, or any local agency could get into the power business. It would force the existing CCA movements to get two-thirds of the local voters to approve their efforts.

That’s an almost impossible standard — particularly when PG&E spends millions to block public power efforts everywhere they appear.

The two-thirds voting requirement is increasingly being assailed as undemocratic. The state Legislature has been paralyzed by its own two-thirds requirement for passing a budget, and there are multiple moves to reduce that threshold. The two-thirds mandate for passing local taxes has been widely blamed for driving cities and counties to the brink of fiscal ruin.

And yet PG&E is trying to add a new, crushing mandate — aimed entirely at snuffing out public power advances. The impact on the state will be enormous. As Megan Rawlins reports on page 8, high PG&E rates and the lack of public power cost the San Francisco economy alone as much as $2.8 billion a year. Multiply that by a factor of 10 or 20, and you see what a devastating financial blow this PG&E move would be to California’s crumbling economy.

So where, exactly, is the opposition?

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi called a meeting last week at the offices of the Utility Reform Network (TURN) to try to get other public power communities involved in a statewide campaign. But it’s been slow going.

That’s not going to work. Every elected agency in the Bay Area needs to get this on the agenda — now. Every city official (starting with Mayor Gavin Newsom, who wants to be governor) and every state official (starting with Attorney General Jerry Brown, who also wants to be governor) needs to loudly and publicly denounce this move, help establish a high-level coalition to beat it back, and start raising money for the campaign.

There may be a legal strategy, too. The law that authorized cities and counties to set up CCAs bars PG&E and other private utilities from interfering with local CCA efforts — and it’s pretty clear that this initiative is designed to do exactly that. City Attorney Dennis Herrera needs to immediately investigate the possibility of suing to get this disastrous initiative off the ballot. *

How Newsom chooses commissioners

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By Tim Redmond

The Small Business Commission isn’t one of the highest-profile public bodies in San Francisco, but to the tens of thousands of small entrepreneurs in the city, it’s important. So the recent appointment of Luke O’Brien to a vacancy on the panel left a lot of small business activists scratching their heads.

“Nobody knew this individual,” Scott Hauge, one of the city’s best-connected and active small business leaders, told me. “As far as we know, he’s never been active in small business issues.”

When the seat opened up, the commission’s director, Regina Dick-Endrizzi, let the small business community know there was on opening, and advised interested people to send in recommendations, and Hauge and others had plenty to offer. But in the end, the way the new commissioner was chosen says a lot about how Newsom makes decisions — and how little he cares about real community input.

O’Brien, according to a resume the mayor’s office sent over, has a background in sales, engineering and technical support and has worked for several technology companies, including Lucent, where he was a corporate sales engineering manager, and two start-ups, one in Mountain View and one in Reno. In 2003, he joined Pattani Construction, a San Francisco outfit run by Mel Murphy, a developer and Residential Builders Association guy who holds the RBA seat on the Department of Building Inspection Commission. When Murphy set up a real-estate investment company the next year, O’Brien joined him as vice president and partner.

According to the mayor’s press secretary, Nathan Ballard,

Commissioner O’Brien will work to ensure that small local construction companies get their fair share of construction dollars. He will work with Small Business Commission Director Regina Dick-Endrizzi and Supervisor David Chiu on their ongoing efforts to reduce redundant and unnecessary businesses fees, and will bring needed expertise into those business fees flowing out of the DBI and Planning Department that are most onerous for small businesses.

In other words, he’s an RBA guy who wants to make life easier for developers. He’s given money to Newsom allies, including Doug Chan for Supervisor and Joe Alioto for supervisor. (I haven’t been able to reach O’Brien, but I left him a message and I’ll let you know if I hear back.)

Since he has no visible background in the small business community, none of the activists had ever heard of him, and none of the names that Hauge and his allies submitted had made the cut, I asked Ballard who the mayor had met with, reached out to or discussed this appointment with. His response:

“O’Brien was recommended to us by his business partner, Mel Murphy.”

Business as usual at City Hall this fall?

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Tuesday marked a return to business, as the Board of Supervisors reconvened after a month-long recess.
It also seemed to mark a return to business as usual on the part of those elected officials who occupy City Hall, including Mayor Gavin Newsom, and, of course, the folks who love to hate them.
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Outside, former D8 supervisorial candidate, Libertarian Party member and sex worker Starchild, tanned and stripped down to the waist, was demanding an audit of the federal reserve as outlined in H.R. 1207, and as part of the “Campaign for Liberty.”

MisterMayor? Is anybody home?

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By Rebecca Bowe


Video by Sarah Phelan

SEIU Local 1021 paid a visit to Mayor Gavin Newsom at his City Hall office yesterday, but his doors remained closed and locked. It won’t be the last time Newsom will hear from them, however. The union is launching an aggressive campaign to “dog the mayor,” organizer Robert Halaand told the Guardian, to pressure him to uphold the city’s commitment to comparable worth.

In 1986, San Franciscans approved Proposition H to enshrine the principal of comparable worth — ensuring pay equity for jobs that are held predominantly by women and people of color in an effort to combat institutional sexism and racial discrimination. Since certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and unit clerks employed in San Francisco’s public hospitals fit that description, their pay was gradually increased in the years following the passage of Prop. H.

However, budget cuts made in recent months resulted in those hospital employees getting cut and simultaneously reclassified into lower-paying positions. From SEIU’s perspective, the downgrades signify a form of discrimination and the reversal of a hard-won gain for women and people of color in San Francisco.

City Planning’s latest mess

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EDITORIAL The San Francisco city planning director, John Rahaim, has kept a fairly low profile since taking over the troubled department in 2008. But some serious problems are starting to fester on his watch — and if he and the planning commissioners don’t clean up the mess, the supervisors need to step in.

Rahaim remains somewhat in the shadow of the former director, Dean Macris, who is responsible for some of the worst San Francisco development problems of the past three decades. And the Macris influence is still very heavy in the department. But Rahaim needs to step out and show that things are going to change. For starters, he should:

•Scrap the plan to privatize environmental review. As Rebecca Bowe reports on page 15, the department is looking at bringing in outside consultants to help clear up the backlog in the Major Environmental Analysis division of the Planning Department. It’s a horrible idea — the environmental consulting firms that do this work make most of their money from developers, and that’s where their loyalties will always lie. The city planning staff is by no means perfect, but at least the unionized MEA staffers have some ability to demand that builders follow the rules and that environmental impact reports are relatively honest. The whole idea comes (not surprisingly) from the big developers, particularly Lennar Corp. at Hunters Point and the consortium looking to redevelop Treasure Island; they’re worried about the short-staffed Planning Department’s slow pace of project review. But we don’t see those developers helping raise new revenue for the city — money that could allow planning to hire more staff.

•Back away from allowing developers to block sunlight in city parks. San Francisco voters approved a measure back in 1984 that essentially halted the construction of any tall buildings that would cast shadows on city parkland. Proposition K has worked remarkably well over the years. But now, with such behemoths as the 100-plus-story tower planned for the Transbay Terminal area and the high-rise condo complex near the Transamerica Building threatening to block out the sun in public open space, the developers are looking for ways to "update" — that is, gut — Prop. K protections. On Aug. 23, a who’s who list of big local developers, architects, and lawyers met with city planning officials to discuss the issue (the attendance list, and more background, is posted at sfbg.com). The Planning Commission will get a briefing on the topic Sept. 17.

We don’t see the problem with Prop. K — protecting parks from high-rise shadows is pretty basic planning and has been public policy for 25 years. Rahaim should drop this developer-driven plan, now.

•Get Macris the hell out of the Planning Department. Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Planning Commission hired Rahaim a year and a half ago. So why does Macris, the former director, still have an office in the department? Why is he routinely consulted on major issues? When, oh when, will he finally go away?

According to the mayor’s press secretary, Nathan Ballard, Macris isn’t costing the city any money — a handful of developers are chipping in to cover the cost of his paycheck. That alone is a problem — since when do developers get to have their own paid planner sitting in on office in the Planning Department?

And frankly, Macris has been a shill for big developers all his career. He oversaw much of the massive over-construction that took place in the 1980s, and resisted all attempts at slowing down runaway growth. He’s a bad influence on the department, and Rahaim needs to send him packing, now.

Rahaim has gotten a fairly free ride so far, but things are starting to spiral out of control in his department. It’s a disturbing pattern, and the supervisors should be prepared to hold hearings and start taking action. *

Newsom can’t rewrite history, but he can sell his soul

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By Steven T. Jones
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On the day that former President Bill Clinton endorsed Gavin Newsom’s campaign for governor, it’s hard to believe the local blog post that Newsom is about to call it quits, and sources I consulted dispute key tenets of the anonymously sourced article. Yet there’s still plenty of reason to believe that Newsom’s quest is doomed.

While Newsom’s sleazy affair with Ruby Rippey-Tourk was already bound to hurt his candidacy, it is how he handled it afterward that really makes Newsom look untrustworthy and immoral. I attended the 2007 press conference where Newsom blithely admitted “everything you may have heard or read is true” regarding the affair, only to recently tell the New York Times Magazine and Fast Company just the opposite, that there was “a story that has yet to come out” in which Newsom looks good.

This is seriously delusional stuff, the product of a deeply megalomaniacal mind, as if he actually sees himself as a victim for banging his top aide’s wife. It’s reminiscent of his wife Jennifer Siebel’s disturbing quote in the Chronicle that was followed by her crazy extended comment to SFist blaming Ruby for the affair and excusing Newsom’s behavior on the grounds that she supposedly showed up drunk at his door, an odd “date rape as defense” strategy.

I and other journalists have long hounded Newsom to address issues raised by the affair, and he’s always refused to discuss it. Yet now, as he worries about the impact of this affair on his ambitions, suddenly there’s an “untold story.” Newsom is already held in very low esteem even by his former supporters, but if he and his top political henchman, Garry South, continue to try to rewrite this sordid history by dragging the Tourks through the mud again, our mayor might find himself a top candidate for San Francisco’s All-Time Hall of Shame.

Gavin, if you still have a soul, now’s probably a good time to search it and decide if you really want to trade it in for your longshot pursuit of power.

The weird attacks on Van Jones

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By Tim Redmond

It’s no surprise that the right-wing nuts are going after Van Jones, the Bay Area activist who is now Obama’s green-jobs advisor. The loonies have picked up on the fact that Jones was one of 100 people (along with Daniel Ellsberg and Paul Hawken) who signed a letter raising questions about the government response to the 9/11 attacks. It’s actually not that radical a letter; Indybay has posted it here.

But what amazes me is how quickly people who aren’t typically considered wackos have bought into this — take, for example, the former wife of the mayor of San Francisco, who appeared on Sean Hannity’s show to denounce Jones with some bizarre claims:

GUILFOYLE: Well, that’ s a problem. When you say, is there a problem with the vetting process? Clearly he wasn’t vetted. All they had to do was go and ask a couple of questions in San Francisco about this individual. You know there’s a problem when he’s not even wanted in the city of San Francisco where I come from. OK?

HANNITY: That’s a good point.

GUILFOYLE: That’s a huge red flag right there. What is this man’s qualification besides his anti-American theory? He’s far left, radical.

HANNITY: No, he’s a communist. I mean avowed.

GUILFOYLE: Yes.

CUPP: Self-avowed. Yes.

GUILFOYLE: Self-avowed communist. Why is he even in the White House? Is that the reward?

He’s “not even wanted in San Francisco?” What? Van Jones is an icon in this town. Some people think he gets too much fawning press; nobody I know thinks he’s unwanted.

And, um, self-avowed communist? Kimberly, that’s so 50s. I know Van Jones, and I know some communists, and I can tell you that Van Jones — for better or for worse — is not a communist. Guilfoyle must know that, too — in fact, there really aren’t a whole lot of communists left, even in the Bay Area. In the 1980s, I used to see the Revolutionary Communist Party types at political events, but you hardly ever hear from them any more. Calling someone a communist these days doesn’t even qualify as red-baiting; it’s just nutty-mouth.

More:

HANNITY: All right. This is back in March of 2008. We examined this. He called on participants to take a pledge of resistance and — “Not in our name will we invade countries, bomb civilians, kill children, letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless.”

Now, I mean, we can keep going, look at the comment that he made about white polluters steering poison into black communities.

CUPP: Right.

GUILFOYLE: Well, this is an individual that doesn’t have the qualifications to be in the bizarre job that he’s in. And it just raises the issue here about these czars gone wild. This is someone who actually just doesn’t even like the United States of America, wants to reshape it, remake it into something that we would not even recognize, and what’s so wrong with this country that we have an individual like this coming in, meddling in our affairs that has no idea what he is doing, who really is traitorous in his comments against this country.

Actually, I spent several years of my life researching a book on the American environmental movement, which is now available in the remainder bins of finer used books stores here and there, and I can tell you that the question of environmental racism — in this case, of white-owned companies dumping toxic waste in black communities — is well settled. In fact, I was surprised to learn that chemical pollution wasn’t entirely a class issue — poor white communities got less poison than middle-class black communities. That’s 20-year-old news.

I know these guys need ways to attack Obama, but come on, Kimberly: You know better.

At least, I guess, Newsom can always distance himself; isn’t that what ex-wives are for?

Mayor’s Office releases memo, two weeks later

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

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How can someone this pretty play so dirty?

Two weeks have passed since Mayor Gavin Newsom told me in person that he had every right to waive the attorney-client privilege in giving a confidential memo to the Chronicle.

And today—two weeks and many requests later– the Mayor’s Office finally sent a copy of this memo, which outlines llegal issues in connection with Sup. David Campos’ proposed legislation to extend due process to undocumented youth.
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Sup. David Campos at the Aug.18 rally in support of his legislation. That same day, Newsom, whose office sits directly above the rally, leaked the memo to the Chronicle. Two days later, Newsom claimed he waived attorney-client privilege, but he kept the rest of the media waiting two weeks before sharing the memo with anyone else.

I guess someone in the Mayor’s Office finally got the other memo from the City Attorney’s Office–the one in which the City Attorney explains how the attorney client privilege cannot be reasserted once it’s been waived.

“You cannot un-ring the bell” is how it was explained to me two weeks ago. And no one in the City Attorney’s Office has told me anything different since.

But in the last two weeks, it has became painfully clear that Mayor Gavin Newsom and members of his staff feel entitled to play favorites in their treatment of the media. That’s unjust and totally sucks, and here’s why:

Up until this moment, the only people who have seen the memo have been the Mayor, members of the Board of Supervisors—and reporters at the Chronicle.

As a result, the only interpretation of what this memo says has been the Chronicle’s. And their interpretation was an extremely negative assessment that included damning quotes from Newsom and seemed to amount to sending a free road map of how to sue San Francisco to any anti-immigrant rightwing nuts who have it in for our city and its progressive policies.

Newsom and the Chronicle are entitled to their opinions. But what Newsom is not entitled to do, once he claims he has waivered the attorney-client privilege, is make sure that no other media outlet has the opportunity to read the memo and then report on what it does and doesn’t say.

But now that I have the memo in hand, I can really see just how dirty Newsom is playing around immigration reform.

As Angela Chan, staff attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, puts it, “The gist of the City Attorney’s memo is that the City could get sued more by anti-immigrant groups. It doesn’t say the City would lose. San Francisco is at the forefront of the civil and human rights movement, which is why it rightly takes on these kinds of issues.”

And as Chan further points out, the City Attorney’s memo does not point out the legal risks that the City is taking by allowing undocumented youth to be deported without due process.

Maybe that’s because the City Attorney’s office, understandably, has little or no experience of immigration law.

But those concerns have been outlined in a 20-page brief by the Asian Law Caucus and four other civil rights’ groups that have tons of experience dealing with these issues.

Sadly, the Chronicle has only dedicated one sentence to what this civil rights brief says, even though it outlines legal issues that are just as important to the City’s fiscal and legal well being.

Reached by phone, Sup. David Campos told me today that the Aug. 18 memo about his legislation identifies the challenges that the City could face under federal law.

“But those are challenges that apply to the whole concept of sanctuary, period,” Campos said. “There’s nothing new here.”

“If anything,” Campos added, “my legislation is arguably more legally defensible, because it’s predicated on state law and its unique treatment of juveniles. So, I don’t think that the way the Chronicle characterizes [the Campos proposal] is accurate. They are making it sound like my legislation makes the sanctuary ordinance politically less defensible.”

As Campos notes, his proposal doesn’t protect undocumented youth , if the court decide to charge them as adults.
“If a youth is charged of something so heinous that court decides to charge them as an adult, then they will be reported to ICE right away,” Campos said. “We decided to have a very modest and conservative approach to address a lot of the public safety concerns that law enforcement would have.”

Campos is also bummed that the Chronicle has never bothered to point out that a lot of legal memos are written, particularly when the city is doing something new and edgy.

As for why Newsom’s decided to release the memo about Campos’ proposal, Campos opined “People are terrified of this issue, and I can see why. I get a lot of hate mail, and this is not a way to promote your political career.”

One last point for now: when I asked SFPD Chief Goerge Gascón’s press officer Sgt. Lyn Tomioka to verify quotes he reportedly made in the Chronicle’s Aug. 19 article, expressing concern that under the Campos legislation, “drug or even violent offenders could be released by judges on reduced charges in lieu of reporting them for possible deportation,” Sgt. Tomoika replied that she has “suggested and Chief Gascón has agreed to read the entire Supervisor Campos legislation, and then give a statement.”

I don’t know about you, but my reaction in reading this reply was to think that it was unfair of Newsom to ask the Chief to comment on a memo about a piece of legislation that Gascón had not yet read.

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Newsom and Gascón during the Chief’s Aug. 21 swearing-in ceremony.

Restoring the sanctuary

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MORE AT SFBG
>>San Francisco groups launch campaign for federal immigration reform

sarah@sfbg.com

The week started off in celebratory mood for members of the local immigrant rights community who attended an Aug. 18 rally outside City Hall to support legislation by Sup. David Campos that would extend due process rights to immigrant youth. And it ended, as this issue has a way of triggering, in controversy and division.

"Si se puede," chanted the crowd, hoping that "yes, we can" reform city policies on deporting undocumented young people accused of crimes before their trials. Dozens of immigrant and civil rights leaders representing 70 community groups made powerful speeches, buoyed by the knowledge that seven other supervisors — John Avalos, Chris Daly, Bevan Dufty, Eric Mar, Sophie Maxwell, Ross Mirkarimi, and Board President David Chiu — support the proposal, giving Campos the eight votes needed to override a mayoral veto of his proposed legislation.

Campos, an attorney who came to the United States as an undocumented teenager from Guatemala, told the crowd that he hopes to ensure that undocumented juveniles can only be referred to federal authorities for deportation after a court finds that they have committed a felony.

The Campos proposal, which was introduced during a week-long effort to revive immigration reform efforts at the federal level, seeks to amend a policy shift that the Mayor’s Office rammed through last summer after somebody leaked confidential juvenile criminal records to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Those leaks revealed that city officials had been harboring adolescent crack dealers instead of referring them to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation. Within days, Mayor Gavin Newsom — who had just announced his gubernatorial bid — ordered a change in policy.

In the year since that shift took place, city officials have reported an estimated 180 to 190 youths to ICE. But immigrant rights advocates say Newsom has refused to meet with more than 70 local community organizations to hear their concerns about how the change in policy violates due process rights.

"I hope Newsom will look at this proposal and see it for what it is: a balanced and measured process grounded in the values of San Francisco," Campos told his supporters, noting that his proposal does not seek to revert to the city’s original policy, under which no youths were referred to ICE, even when there was misconduct.

Instead, Campos’ proposal seeks to reform the policy that Newsom ordered and the city’s Juvenile Probation Department implemented last July without public debate. As Avalos observed at the Aug. 18 rally, "The policy that was introduced last year only produced a semblance of public safety. It caved in to the politics of intolerance. It was not in line with the city of St. Francis. A veto-proof majority has made sure this legislation passes. Young people deserve better."

But the next day, the mood in the immigrant community soured as they learned that the Mayor’s Office had leaked to the Chronicle a confidential memo from the City Attorney’s Office about the legal vulnerabilities of Campos’ proposed legislation. The paper ran a long, high-profile story on the memo along with critical quotes from Newsom, Police Chief George Gascón, and U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello.

As of press time, the Guardian had not been furnished a copy of the leaked memo. But it reportedly warns that passage of Campos’ legislation could jeopardize the city’s defense against the Bologna family, who claim that the city’s policy allegedly allowed Edwin Ramos, now 22, to kill Tony Bologna and his two sons last year. It also reportedly cautions that the Campos proposal could affect city officials who are being probed by a federal grand jury on whether the city’s previous policy violated federal law.

Missing from the Chronicle‘s coverage was any mention that the Ramos case is stalled, with Ramos claiming that he drove the car but did not fire the fatal rounds in the Bolognas triple slaying, and that the shooter has gone underground and is believed to have fled the country.

Nor did the Chronicle note that a committee vetting potential nominees for U.S. Attorney for Northern California has forwarded three names for Sen. Barbara Boxer to consider — Melinda Haag, Matthew Jacobs, and Kathryn Ruemmler. Russoniello, who launched this grand jury investigation and has been openly hostile to San Francisco’s sanctuary city policies, could soon be replaced.

And the Chronicle only dedicated one sentence to another legal memo — a 20-page brief prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Asian Law Center, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Legal Services for Children, and the San Francisco Immigrant Rights Defense Committee. Their memo was prepared to support Campos’ contention that Newsom’s new policy exposes the city to lawsuits, undermines confidence in the police, subverts core progressive values, ignores differences between adults and minors, and violates the city charter.

"In its haste to respond to media stories, the Mayor’s Office and JPD acted precipitously, usurping the role of the Juvenile Probation Commission under the City Charter and failed to abide by the measured approach embodied in the City of Refuge Ordinance," contends the civil rights memo.

The authors of this civil rights memo note that they repeatedly shared their concerns with the Mayor’ Office, JPD, and the City Attorney’s Office about the new policy — which, they observe, "was crafted behind closed doors and hastily adopted in 2008 without a public hearing."

"Yet the Mayor’s Office and JPD have rejected our invitation to work collaboratively with community partners to ensure that the youth are not referred for deportation based on a mere accusation or an unfounded suspicion, and to protect the city from exposure to liability for erroneously referring a youth who is actually documented for deportation," the civil rights memo states.

The civil rights memo recommends that youths not be referred to ICE until five conditions are met: the youth has been charged with a felony; the youth’s felony delinquency petition has been sustained; the youth has undergone immigration legal screening by an immigration attorney; JPD has comprehensive policies to minimize the risk that the youth will be erroneously referred to ICE because of language barriers; and the probation officer makes a recommendation to the court and the court agrees that ICE should be notified.

Reached shortly after the Mayor’s Office leaked the City Attorney’s confidential memo, Campos expressed shock at the manner in which it was released. "It’s an elected official’s obligation to protect the city, and elected officials also have a fiduciary duty," Campos said.

Confident that his legislation is legal, Campos observed that "legal challenges are a reality any time you try to do anything about immigration.

"But it’s interesting that we are talking about fear of being sued, when San Francisco has a long and proud history of facing legal challenges when we believe that we are correct," he added, pointing to the city’s willingness to fight for same-sex marriage, domestic partner benefits, and universal health care.

"The very same people who say that they are afraid of being sued here had no problem defending those issues," Campos said. "Perhaps it is not so popular to defend the right of an undocumented child as those other issues. But that does not negate the fact that we are right on this issue. We should stand up for what is right and we should not be afraid of litigation."

Avalos was equally appalled by this seemingly unethical leak by the Mayor’s Office. "I thought we just had something to celebrate, having a rally to support David Campos’ legislation and now we have memos being leaked," Avalos said. "It’s unfeeling at best. By leaking a confidential memo that contains privileged attorney-client information, you are undermining the city’s legal position on an issue. And obviously you are putting your personal career interests over the city. If the mayor’s political position is more important than the welfare of the city, that’s pretty worrying to the Board of Supervisors."

The City Attorney’s Office responded to the leak by issuing another memo, this time outlining the legal and fiscal perils of leaking attorney-client privileged materials. "Confidential legal advice is not intended to be fodder in political disputes," City Attorney Dennis Herrera stated, noting that he was "not aware of a city official or employee who has acknowledged responsibility for the disclosure."

And, initially, no one in the Mayor’s Office took responsibility for the leak.

"It is my understanding that the Chronicle got it from a confidential source," Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard told the Guardian, claiming that "the Campos bill paints a target on us and puts our entire sanctuary city policy at risk."

But by week’s end, pressure was building on Newsom to reveal whodunit.

"While I welcome the issuance of the City Attorney’s legal guidance reminding the Mayor’s Office and the Board of Supervisors of their obligation to keep attorney-client privileged information confidential, a thorough investigation is needed to hold those responsible accountable," Avalos stated, asking the City Attorney’s Office and the Ethics Commission to get involved.

Shortly after Avalos asked for an investigation, I covered the swearing-in ceremony for Gascón at City Hall, during which Gascón told the assembled that "safety without social justice is not safety."

Struck by the chief’s words, I asked the mayor if he was concerned about the apparent breach of security that occurred in his office when the memo was leaked. Newsom responded angrily, noting that clients, in an attorney-client privilege arrangement, can release memos if they so choose.

"So, you did leak the memo to the Chronicle?" I asked.

"I handed it," Newsom answered, pausing to look at Ballard, "to some of my people." Chronicle reporter Heather Knight was also there and wrote in a story published the next day that Newsom "authorized the leak."

When I asked if leaking the memo was a preemptive strike against the Campos legislation, the mayor went into a rant about how Campos’ proposal could open the city to the threat of lawsuits and the loss of the entire sanctuary ordinance.

But concerns about lawsuits didn’t stop Newsom from pushing for same-sex marriage in 2004. When I asked Newsom to explain this disparity, he dismissed my question and Ballard announced it was time to move along.

Angela Chan, staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, challenged Newsom’s claim that Campos’ legislation puts the city’s entire sanctuary ordinance at risk, telling the Guardian, "It’s a false ultimatum."

Newsom’s leak

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EDITORIAL At the heart of the conflict over Sup. David Campos’ recent sanctuary legislation is a basic issue of civil rights: Should a young San Francisco immigrant arrested by the local police be treated as innocent until proven guilty — or should that person face deportation, even if the arrest is bogus and no formal charges are ever filed?

All Campos wants to do is establish that an arrest is not a conviction — and, as anyone who works with youth or immigrants in the city knows, thousands of innocent people are picked up by the police every year, sometimes because of simple mistakes, more often because the local cops have a propensity to arrest young people of color in disproportionate numbers.

And under current city policy, anyone arrested on felony charges who lacks proper documentation can be turned over to federal immigration authorities. And even if the suspect turns out to be innocent, he or she can be deported. That’s not fair, not consistent with the city’s sanctuary policy — and, according to the ACLU, not legally defensible.

But Mayor Gavin Newsom, not content with arguing the merits of the legislation (a battle he would clearly lose), has taken the remarkable step of leaking to the San Francisco Chronicle a confidential opinion from City Attorney Dennis Herrera that warned of the potential legal downside of the Campos measure. The Chron quickly turned the memo into a front-page story, proclaiming that the legislation "would violate federal law and could doom [the city’s] entire sanctuary city policy." Newsom was quick to chime in: "The supervisors are putting at risk the entire Sanctuary City Ordinance, which we’ve worked hard to protect," the Chron quoted the mayor as saying.

For starters, that’s blowing the situation way, way out of proportion. Herrera’s office writes these memos all the time. Any piece of legislation that might have legal ramifications gets this sort of review — and in many, many cases, the supervisors and the mayor simply go ahead anyway. Two of Newsom’s biggest initiatives — same-sex marriage and the city’s health care law — involved serious legal issues, and it’s almost certain that Herrera formally warned the supervisors and the mayor that going ahead could lead to lawsuits. Newsom, properly, proceeded with the legally risky moves.

And while we haven’t seen Herrera’s memo, people familiar with it agree that it never said that the existing sanctuary law is at any real risk. Yes, some anti-immigrant group could sue the city over Campos’s bill. And yes, some court could conceivable invalidate not only this law but a lot of other city immigration policies. But nobody has ever successfully sued to overturn the current law, which has been in effect for almost 20 years.

Of course, there are, and will be, legal issues with the Campos bill. But now that the mayor has leaked the confidential memo laying out those concerns, any right-wing nut who does want to sue will have the ammunition prepared. And Newsom’s action makes the prospect of a suit — one that will cost the city a lot of money — far more likely.

In other words, the mayor has put his own city’s treasury at risk, possibly vioutf8g city law in the process, in order to undermine a piece of legislation that he doesn’t support. This has all the hallmarks of the mayor’s new gubernatorial campaign team, led by consultant Garry South, who is known for his vicious, scorched-earth battles. South, we suspect, advised Newsom that appearing soft on illegal immigrants would play poorly in the more conservative parts of the state — and that a tactic that puts his own city at risk was an appropriate way to respond.

And Newsom, to his immense discredit, went along.

This is a big deal, a sign that the mayor is putting his higher ambitions far ahead of his duty to San Francisco. "In my eight years in office, I saw hundreds of these memos," former Board President Aaron Peskin told us. "I saw plenty of material that I could have leaked that would have been useful to me politically. But all of us on the board, across the political spectrum, understood that you just don’t do that. Because if you do, it tears the government apart."

We’re journalists here, and we never support government secrecy. We have consistently defended reporters who publish leaked documents (and would do so here, too, despite our criticism of the way the Chron played this story). And there are times, many times, when it’s best for city attorneys and the officials who get their advice to let the public know what those memos say. We support whistleblowers and principled city employees and officials who defy the rules of secrecy and tell the public what’s really going on.

But Newsom was serving no grand public interest purpose here. He was simply using confidential legal advice to attempt to thwart a political opponent, for the purpose of promoting his own ambitions. That’s alarming. If Newsom wants to be taken seriously as a candidate for governor, he needs to demonstrate that he can stand up to his political advisors — and so far, he’s failing, miserably.

P.S.: Sup. John Avalos has asked the Ethics Commission and the city attorney to investigate the leak, which is fine — but this shouldn’t become an attack on the right of the press to publish confidential documents. None of the investigators should try to question the Chron reporters to seek the source of the leak — particularly since Newsom has as much as admitted, to the Guardian‘s Sarah Phelan, that he was the one who authorized his staff to hand out the memo. *

Editorial: Newsom’s leaked memo costs the city

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The mayor’s leaked memo puts the city treasury at risk, possibly violates the law, and promotes his gubernatorial ambitions at the expense of sound city policy

Click here to read Sarah Phelan’s story in this week’s Guardian titled, Restoring the sanctuary.

EDITORIAL At the heart of the conflict over Sup. David Campos’ recent sanctuary legislation is a basic issue of civil rights: Should a young San Francisco immigrant arrested by the local police be treated as innocent until proven guilty — or should that person face deportation, even if the arrest is bogus and no formal charges are ever filed?

All Campos wants to do is establish that an arrest is not a conviction — and, as anyone who works with youth or immigrants in the city knows, thousands of innocent people are picked up by the police every year, sometimes because of simple mistakes, more often because the local cops have a propensity to arrest young people of color in disproportionate numbers.

Esto es ridículo

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By Steven T. Jones

OK, this is sooooo irritating. As we’ve repeatedly pointed out, Mayor Gavin Newsom regularly refuses to comply with city law and release his detailed daily schedule, denying us the right to know who he’s meeting with and whether he’s doing any work for the city. Most days, the required public schedule simply says he “has no public events” or is “to conduct meetings in City Hall.”

But now that he’s off in Mexico on a PG&E-sponsored trip that has nothing to do with San Francisco, his taxpayer-paid Office of Communications issues the most detailed itinerary of Newsom’s day that I’ve ever seen. These people are shameless. No wonder nobody likes them.

Restaurants back SF employer health mandate

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By Steven T. Jones
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Zazie insures its workers, wants other restaurants to do the same, and has the best Crab Benedict in town.

While the City Attorney’s Office prepares for the final battle in its defense of the Healthy San Francisco universal health care program against the legal attacks by the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, a couple of SF restaurants have filed briefs supporting the city.

Medjool (whose owner, Gus Murad, was the subject of a planning code controversy earlier this year) and Zazie (everyone’s favorite Cole Valley brunch spot) filed friend of the court briefs supporting city arguments that the US Supreme Court should reject the GGRA’s appeal of a Ninth Circuit ruling that the city is legally requiring SF businesses to provide their employees health insurance or pay a fee to support Healthy San Francisco.

“The Health Care Ordinance serves the interests of amici curiae, Zazie and Medjool, medium-sized restaurants in San Francisco, because it enables these restaurants to act responsibly by providing health insurance coverage for employees while maintaining their ability to compete economically. The ordinance further serves the interests of Zazie and Medjool by enabling the restaurants to protect the health of both employees and customers, by ensuring that employees have access to affordable health care services, and by helping to prevent episodes of food contamination by ill employees. Amici believe that not only is the ordinance in their own interest but it is in the interest of all restaurants and San Francisco residents, because it allows businesses to compete in a fair and level context while also ensuring that all San Francisco workers have access to affordable health care,” the brief reads.

BTW, I find it supremely ironic that Mayor Gavin Newsom is using the cost of potential litigation as the main reason for opposing due process for undocumented youth, while Newsom runs for governor citing his two principal achievements – Healthy San Francisco and legalizing same-sex marriages – defense of which have been the most expensive legal fights the city has engaged in since he took office.

Did you get the (leaked Campos) memo?

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

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After today’s swearing-in ceremony for SFPD Chief George Gascón , (which former chief Heather Fong attended in pants and a pink cardigan,) I asked Mayor Gavin Newsom if he was concerned that someone in his office had leaked a confidential memo about Sup. David Campos’ proposal to extend due process to immigrant youth.

(The City Attorney’s office prepared the attorney-client privileged memo at Newsom’s request. Newsom’s office then leaked the memo to the Chronicle, which cited the memo in an article that was critical of Campos’s legislation.)

The Mayor responded tersely to my question, noting that clients, in an attorney-client privileged arrangement, can release memos, if they so choose.

“So, you did leak the memo to the Chronicle?” I said.

“I handed it,” Newsom said, pausing to look directly at his spokesperson Nathan Ballard,” to some of my people.”

Newsom’s revelation confirmed what everyone already suspected, but it also appeared to be a defensive move.

Yesterday, the City Attorney noted that it was”not aware of a City official or employee who has acknowledged responsibility for the disclosure.,” and stated that this disclosure therefore “may have been unauthorized.

“The integrity of the attorney-client relationship is essential to my ability to do my job effectively, and, by extension, to the ability of all City officials to be fully apprised of legal issues that may accompany their proposals,” City Attorney Dennis Herrera wrote. “Confidential legal advice is not intended to be fodder in political disputes.”

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And just minutes before Gascón was sworn in, Sup. John Avalos called on Herrera and the Ethics Commission to conduct a formal investigation of the leaked confidential attorney-client privileged memo

Is Newsom helping rightwing nuts to sue the City?

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Text and photos by Sarah Phelan

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Sup. David Campos talks to the media about his proposed legislation to extend due process to undocumented kids.

“Did Mayor Gavin Newsom leak a confidential memo to the Chronicle about Sup. David Campos’ legislation to extend due process to undocumented kids?”

I asked mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard this question today. And here’s what he said:

“It’s my understanding that the Chronicle got it from a confidential source,” Ballard replied by email. “You should ask them how they got it.”

As it happens, the Chronicle points to the source of the memo, noting that it was “prepared by the city attorney’s office at the request of Mayor Gavin Newsom.”

In other words, it’s pretty clear that the Mayor’s Office leaked the memo.
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Embattled Ethics Commission heroes

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By Steven T. Jones

Two of the best, most public-spirited individuals ever to serve the San Francisco Ethics Commission – former staffer and commissioner Joe Lynn and current staffer Oliver Luby – are each fighting serious battles.

Luby — a Lynn protégé who has fought persistent corruption and dysfunction within the department — has been hounded by Director John St. Croix and his lieutenant, Mabel Ng, and now faces a ridiculous investigation for daring to comment from his work computer on flaws in new state ethics rules.

His many progressive supporters and his union, SEIU Local 1021, have each formally protested what they see as illegal retaliation against a whistle-blower and the matter has been shopped out to Oakland’s Ethics chief Dan Purnell (who also did the 2004 investigation of Ng improperly ordering Luby to destroy a document showing a money laundering scheme by the Gavin Newsom for Mayor campaign, the very thing that Ethics is supposed to regulate).

Meanwhile, Lynn faces a far more consequential battle: he’s fighting for his life against leukemia and about to undergo another round of chemotherapy. Friends and supporters of Lynn – a true Ethics pioneer – plan to gather tomorrow at 1 p.m. at Tacqueria Reina at 1550 Howard to show their love and support. All are welcome.

Campos invites Newsom to support due process for all youth

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Text and images by Sarah Phelan

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Sup. David Campos addresses the crowd before introducing legislation to restore due process to undocumented youth.

Yesterday’s rally at City Hall in support of Sup. David Campos’ resolution to restore due process to immigrant youth was a who’s who of all the movers and shakers within the local immigrant reform community.

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Members of Mujeres Unidas y Activas led the crowd in chants of “Si se puede!”

Dozens of community groups, half a dozen supervisors, a representative for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Mission High school teacher Derrylyn Tom,, Kate Kendall of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Patti Lee of the Public Defender’s office, Ana Perez of the Central American Resource Center, Lateefah Simon of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, Tim Paulson of the San Francisco Labor Council and Rev. Charles Kullmann of the SF Interfaith Coalition were in attendance, to name a few of the hundreds who showed up.

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Board President David Chiu told the crowd that the city needs to “strike the right balance” and ensure public safety and the rights of immigrants.

Noticeably absent were Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sups. Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd and Michela Alioto-Pier, none of whom have signed on in support of Campos’ resolution to date. And it seemed like a missed opportunity for Newsom, who needs all the support he can get if he is going to have a chance of winning the governor’s race.

Ana Perez of the Central American Resource Center told the crowd that soon after Newsom’s revised sanctuary policy was implemented last summer, 50 prominent Latino leaders sent Newsom a letter asking him to amend the policy so that immigrant youth would be guaranteed due process.

“California has always been a leader on social issues,” Perez said, as she thanked Campos and the seven other supervisors who are co-sponsoring his resolution to restore due process. ” We have been dismayed by San Francisco’s decision and its current policy which destroys families.”

Team Newsom readies the mudballs

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By Steven T. Jones
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Gavin Newsom has been openly and repeatedly signaling his intention to run a negative primary campaign for governor against Jerry Brown ever since he hired political hitman Garry South, who encouraged his client Steve Westly to beat the crap out of Phil Angelides last time, thus ensuring Arnold Schwarzenegger would keep the governor’s office. Newsom’s determination to take the low road was also reinforced by the recent departure of Eric Jaye, who opposed South’s penchant for scorched earth campaigning.

The Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee was justifiably concerned and recently unanimously passed a resolution calling for the gubernatorial candidates to sign a clean campaign pledge. The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee followed suit this week, overwhelmingly passing an identical resolution, with only a few staunch Newsom allies in dissent.

“Democrats cannot afford a negative, bruising primary that leaves our nominee weakened and damaged going into the general election and according to recent published press reports, negative attacks are likely to be forthcoming in the coming weeks,” reads of the resolution’s whereases.

Hotel workers strife returns to SF

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By Steven T. Jones
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Image from SF Chronicle

San Francisco hotel workers plan to demonstrate in the streets tomorrow afternoon, the day that UNITE-HERE Local 2’s contracts with the major San Francisco hotels expire, launching what could well be another pitched labor battle with larger political implications.

In 2004, shortly after Gavin Newsom became mayor, a standoff between the union and the coalition of corporations that own the city’s biggest hotels resulted in strikes and lockouts that were San Francisco’s most significant labor fights of the new century. Newsom tried to mediate the conflict and when the hotels (which had back him for mayor) defied his demand to end the lockout, he walked the picket line with workers.

That moment and Newsom’s decision to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples that same year were arguably the high water marks for his standing with progressives. After that, he checked out, moved to the right, and began to pursue celebrity and the governor’s office.

Now, with hotels apparently using the economic downturn as an excuse to cut their workers’ numbers and benefits, the union gearing up for the fight of its life, and Newsom more focused on running for office than city business, this one might just get ugly. The fun begins at 4 p.m., near the Four Seasons Hotel, Market between 3rd and 4th streets.

Moving backward

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

San Francisco’s city budget was signed into law Aug. 4, but a group of city workers is pushing the Board of Supervisors to reverse a cut that they say reflects a giant step backward for progressive San Francisco values.

Service Employees International Union Local 1021, about 18,000 strong in San Francisco, has launched a campaign to restore pay cuts to certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and unit clerks who staff the city’s medical facilities, arguing that the demotions reverse a decades-old commitment pay equity between men and women.

Proposition H, approved by voters in November 1986, enshrined the principle of comparable worth in San Francisco. It required the city to ensure that municipal jobs dominated primarily by women provided wages on par with male-dominated jobs that have similar qualifications.

Jobs held by mostly female employees also tend be staffed by people of color, so the move to create equity in pay was meant to address systemic sexism and racial discrimination. Unit clerks and CNAs seem to fit the bill, and their salaries were gradually increased after 1986.

As part of the midyear budget cuts, 88 CNAs who work at SF General Hospital were laid off and simultaneously rehired as patient care assistants, a job with similar responsibilities but only 79 percent of the salary (from an average annual salary of $56,589 down to $45,032). Another group of CNAs is scheduled for similar demotions in November. Cuts to clerical workers’ wages are also pending and most will be reclassified with 15 percent less pay (from $52,845 to $45,266).

"It wipes out the advantage that they had," says Local 1021 health care industry chair Ed Kinchley. "Group by group, they’re wiping out the pay differential."

"This is the first wave of an overall effort to undermine comparable worth," union organizer Robert Haaland charged in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. "We ask you to join with progressives to defend the principle of equal pay for women and minorities."

SEIU held an Aug. 7 forum to discuss the cuts at SF General, with Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi in attendance. CNAs and unit clerks packed the audience — a crowd that was indeed made up of many women of color.

One was Theresa Rutherford, a CNA at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center. "We’re the first ones to note when a patient is not doing well," Rutherford explained to the supervisors. "It’s a job that requires a lot of commitment." She described the long hours and the bonds that develop with patients, saying CNAs are counted on by "the person who has no family members left — so you become the family member."

"Best-quality care costs," Rutherford added. "It’s not cheap."

Avalos, who chairs the Budget and Finance Committee, said he was infuriated by the pay cuts. He spoke about a possible supplemental appropriation to address the issue. "We have to find the revenue for that to happen," he said. "Push as hard as you can on City Hall, and I’ll fight as well."

Tom Jackson, there representing Sup. Chris Daly, also urged the workers to apply pressure. "As far as labor practices go, this is a test," he said. "You’ve been fighting for decades [for pay equity] … and they’re ready to wipe it away because we have a bad economy."

Department of Public Health Chief Financial Officer Gregg Sass responded to SEIU’s charges by telling the Guardian: "We disagree with the SEIU comparable worth argument. Further, SEIU was not able to get member approval of a tentative agreement that might have prevented layoffs and position conversions during last fiscal year."

Supervisors added $500,000 back into the final budget to stave off some conversions. SEIU members contend that the add-back was supposed to retroactively restore cuts to the 88 CNAs, but Sass told us, "I am not aware of any action at the [Board of Supervisors] to that effect."

A memo that DPH Director Mitch Katz sent to Board President David Chiu noted that "difficult decisions had to be made to reach the financial target," and said the CNA conversions were made "following discussions with the city’s Department of Human Resources and SEIU."

At the forum, Halaand pointed to a report from the Controller’s Office revealing a 20 percent growth in management positions under Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration. "There’s a lot of padding of their wallets at the top. At the bottom, they’re devaluing," he told the workers. "There seems to be money out there, but it’s just not for us."

Campos told us he plans to request a hearing to examine managerial promotions as well as the ethnic and gender makeup of the city’s highest-ranking positions. As for whether some of these cuts might be restored, he told us, "I think that’s a real possibility. I am hopeful it will happen."

A study released this year by San Francisco’s Department on the Status of Women compares women’s median salaries to average men’s earnings. According to the report, the median annual wage for Latina women is 52 percent of men’s earnings; African American women earn 58 percent; Asian women 63 percent; and white women 88 percent.

Another round of pink slips go out Sept. 16, so SEIU is planning a rally at City Hall that day to demand that the city uphold comparable worth.

‘Can I buy your park?’

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sarah@sfbg.com

Saul Bloom, executive director of Arc Ecology, recently donned his best suit and a sandwich-board saying "Can I buy your park?" then headed to some of the city’s most popular open spaces: Dolores Park, Golden Gate Park, Crissy Field, and Ocean Beach.

Bloom’s quest? Pose as a developer and videotape reactions to a fictitious proposal to sell 25 percent of the parks for housing, a ruse designed to illuminate how the city and its master developer, Lennar Corp., have never been nearly that honest about their plan to get the state to sell 25 percent of Candlestick Point State Recreation Area so Lennar can build luxury condos on prime waterfront parklands.

Predictably, responses to Bloom’s poll were mainly negative, occasionally violent. "A couple of people tried to clock me over the head," Bloom recalled. "They got aggressive. They said ‘You’re an asshole, man.’ But the predominant reaction was ‘I love my park.’ People asked, ‘Why do you want to sell them?’ They feel there’s not enough open space."

Perhaps the most chilling response came when Bloom told folks about the city’s actual plan to build condos at Candlestick Point SRA in the Bayview District. "Their response was, ‘Oh, it’s in the Bayview? Who cares?’" said Bloom, who fears that apparent indifference to the plight of the Bayview may explain why the city and Lennar see Candlestick Point SRA as a development opportunity.

Arc isn’t the only group accusing Lennar and the city of not properly informing the public that a vote for Proposition G, which was billed as the "clean-up the shipyard initiative" during the June 2008 election, was also a vote to push Senate Bill 792, state tidelands legislation that authorizes the Candlestick Point sell-off.

Introduced by State Sen. Mark Leno in February, SB 792 has since been amended and approved by the full Senate and is currently scheduled for a hearing by the Assembly Appropriations Committee Aug. 19. Passage by the committee is virtually certain, given that it only delays legislation based on fiscal impacts.

But even some Prop. G supporters, including Bloom, are now raising questions about the deal.

San Francisco’s Park, Recreation, and Open Space Advisory Committee (PROSAC) unanimously approved a resolution recommending that the city’s Recreation and Park Commission and the sponsor of SB 792 require both the city and Lennar to "provide detailed accounting of the park and open space acreage in the Candlestick Project." The committee asks that no net open space in the region be lost in the transfer.

PROSAC claims it was in the dark about the deal and asked those who pushed Prop. G to "provide documentation of when PROSAC and any other relevant advisory committees were informed of the intention to purchase state parkland for the Candlestick Project." So far Lennar and the city have pointed to conceptual maps and a couple of notices of public meetings as evidence that the public was adequately informed before voting.

But according to Bloom, who studies the maps and attends the meetings, "There really is not anything other than two graphics, neither of which call out the alteration to the park boundary. You’d really have to know what you were looking for. And why would the city’s own advisory committee be asking Lennar and the city for information if they were in fact told of this plan?"

Adding fuel to the fire is a July 21 resolution by Sups. Chris Daly and John Avalos, which argues that it should be official policy of San Francisco to oppose SB 792 in its current form and remind city lobbyist Lynn Suter "to accurately represent the City and County of San Francisco policy in Sacramento."

The resolution has been assigned to the board’s Land Use Committee and likely won’t be heard until September. It contends that SB 792 is "premature and preempts the process for public input and environmental assessment since the environmental impact reports for the proposed development on Candlestick Point and the Hunters Point Shipyard will not be released until the fall of 2009."

Noting that the state "purchased this beautiful waterfront parkland for $10 million in 1977," Daly and Avalos assert that "this land represents a valuable and irreplaceable asset to the state of California that should not be disposed of for private development."

The resolution notes that many people oppose the transfer "because of the impact of environmental racism caused by selling a clean park to a private developer for condominium construction denying Bayview Hunters Point residents equal access to healthy open space as is enjoyed by other neighborhoods in San Francisco."

As Daly told the Guardian, "Everyone wants the shipyard site cleaned up, development that works for the community, and real open space opportunities on the shoreline. And Prop. G was billed as doing this, which led to a division of people who believed Lennar and those who didn’t."

As a result, Daly said, people like Saul Bloom, who supported Prop. G, are coming out against SB 792. "So now, it seems, the skeptics are right," Daly said. "A lot of promises have been made. But unless you get them in writing, and have an insurance policy, Lennar is not delivering."

But Lennar Communities of California, the developer’s major political action committee, seems to be delivering when it comes to advocating for the park sell-off. In the second quarter of this year, Lennar more than doubled its spending on lobbying, including on SB 792. And Aug. 3, it alerted its Prop. G supporters that help is needed "passing SB 792 through the California State Legislature."

The e-mail blast claims that SB 792 is "straightforward and necessary legislation that reconfigures the state park boundaries at Candlestick Point and exchanges under-utilized land (most of it dirt, rubble, and a parking lot) for tens of millions of dollars of needed new improvements to the state park and a steady stream of dedicated funding to operate and maintain the improved park and open space."

But recently, there has been talk of an SB 792 compromise. According to insiders, the city and Lennar are willing to concede 20 acres of the contested 42-acres of park, although the developer insists it needs to build hundreds of condos (of which only 15 percent will be below market rate) on the 22 remaining acres of state park land if its entire 700-acre development is to pencil out.

Privately, environmental advocates say they may be unable to stop the land grab. And they worry that seven of the 20 acres Lennar is prepared to concede could be inundated by rising seas caused by global warming, as shown in a 2007 study by engineering firm Moffat & Nichol. It would be an ironic fate given Mayor Gavin Newsom’s July 30 announcement of a proposed United Nations center focused on climate change and green technology as part of Lennar’s project.

The Sierra Club opposes selling state parklands, building a bridge over Yosemite Slough, and capping a radiologically-affected dump on the shipyard’s Parcel E2. But the club does not oppose Lennar’s entire redevelopment plan. Arthur Feinstein, the group’s local representative, said, "We’re interested in saving as much land as possible. We are pushing to save the park’s grasslands. It’s existing habitat."

Noting that some amendments to SB 792 have been made, including removing proposed exchanges of parklands for shipyard land, Feinstein said that "there’s now a map that defines the project and no longer carries shipyard land."

Michael Cohen, Newsom’s chief economic adviser, said, "At Leno’s request, we’ve made amendments to address concerns, including taking steps to ensure there is no adverse impact on wildlife habitat."

Cohen called Newsom’s United Nations Climate Center "the perfect institution" for the entire redevelopment project, since it provides the shipyard with a green technology anchor. Cohen said he was unaware of the study showing the area could be flooded by global warming.

"But no one disagrees," Cohen continued, "that the state park will benefit from infrastructure and much needed capital for operations and maintenance."

Leno told the Guardian that his goal is to arrive at the best possible bill. "At the request of the opposition, we did amend the bill so that land at Hunters Point Shipyard won’t be part of any exchange," Leno said. "But it is conceivable that once the cleanup is completed, there could be a gift from the city to the State Parks Commission."

Leno said he hadn’t seen the flood map and joked, "If someone thinks they know exactly where the water is going to stop, they can place some bets now."

Assuming a more serious tone, Leno added that "the entire park system is under threat." He recalled how Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed to eliminate all General Fund money for parks and said, "We fought back and were able to restore most of the money."

But with the state’s ongoing fiscal woes and political stalemate, "Anyone who believes CPRSA is going to be open and funded indefinitely is not thinking clearly … so this deal has the potential for being an opportunity for our taking responsibility for the future of our state park system."

As currently drafted, SB 792 provides millions for improvements and $700,000 annually for operations and maintenance, Leno explained. "So I’m trying to make a bad situation better in a way that brings along this bill’s opponents so that they see that they are being taken seriously."

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