Newsom

Dead heat

-
0

a&eletters@sfbg.com

TREND Summer’s not over, but it might not be too soon to identify Michael Jackson’s passing as the touchstone cultural event of season. Icons and paradigms have been crumbling at a remarkable clip: California narrowly avoided a financial abyss, stalwart businesses folded, major pop and art figures died. New Langton Arts, a venerable San Francisco alternative gallery, may not survive the season.

Art museums are inherently rigid institutions. As much as they’ve been loosening up with livelier programs, they exist to present, collect, and protect the ever-fracturing canon. It’s difficult not to survey San Francisco’s big-ticket summer shows without considering recessionary measures. As endowments shrank, it was widely reported that museums would be tightening their belts by concentrating on their collections rather than on creating expensive new shows, and by presenting exhibitions for longer stretches of time. These shifts seem more like retrenchment than exciting revisions.

The de Young Museum’s current "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" exhibition is perhaps more interesting as a barometer than as a well-designed (albeit to resemble a deluxe burial chamber) state-of-the-art showcase of ancient artifacts. It is, first and foremost, a return to proven formulas. Tut was the subject of the first museum blockbuster, and it worked like gangbusters for the de Young in 1979. Back then the boy king seemed to compete with a vibrant Farrah Fawcett for poster space on teen walls, but currently, evidence of him outside of banners on SF light poles seems scant. The pharaoh’s not the media darling he once was, but apparently the Fine Arts Museums, of which the de Young is a part, is banking on him. (Ironically, Tut is organized by a subsidiary of AEG Live, which also produced the ill-fated Michael Jackson tour.)

Tut is firmly placed as a multiseason blockbuster, a cash cow to be milked into spring. He’ll be followed by an Impressionism show, another safe bet the de Young has made before. The Legion of Honor’s print retrospective devoted to John Baldessari — an uncharacteristically contemporary artist for the space — will be followed in December by a Cartier jewelry show.

The Tut exhibition’s press preview was bolstered by official optimism and ample refreshments. There was a spread of Middle Eastern nibbles and pyramid-shaped servings of custard, and media reps left with gift bags containing a catalog and chocolates. It seemed like the old days, before endowments took their Madoff hits. There was a panel of speakers in the theater. Fundraiser socialite Dede Wilsey said she wished her sons were as successful as the king. Zahi Hawass, secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, spoke of Tut discoveries with entertaining bluster. Gavin Newsom worked the civic booster angle, touting a power trio of summer museum shows: "Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities" at SFMOMA ("Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004" had yet to open), "Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949" at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, and Tut at the de Young. Although each of these exhibitions puts forth a specific viewpoint on its subject — the Chagall show is driven by the fascinating sweep of political and theatrical history while "Natural Affinities" probes an artistic dialog — the list of names sounded emphatically conservative, even for summer blockbuster season. There’s not a living artist in the bunch.

This isn’t so strange — after all, big institutions follow Hollywood models by packing the houses with mainstream fare and saving the more thoughtful offerings for fall. Both SFMOMA and the de Young exceeded audience expectations last summer with their Frida Kahlo and Dale Chihuly shows, respectively. The de Young take was reportedly bumped up by brisk sales of pricey pint-size Chihuly sculptures. And due to the practice of sometimes booking shows years in advance, these offerings were in place before the downturn. How are they faring?

The de Young won’t release attendance figures until a show has closed — in the case of Tut, that means after March 28, 2010. A museum publicist could offer a cagey comment that "response from visitors has been phenomenal." (This despite the steep nonmember ticket price of $27.50.) SFMOMA is more forthcoming. It unofficially stated that Adams/O’Keefe held steady but admissions spiked when Avedon opened, almost recalling Kahlo crowds. (These exhibitions have a $5 surcharge.)

The Avedon show is handsome, with images of the famous in crisp black and white. So many of the subjects, though, are emphatically of another era — iconic celebrities and political figures who have passed. Janis Joplin, Marilyn Monroe, César Chávez, and various Kennedys, among others, are figures that continue to embody their cultural power in Avedon’s pictures. And Tut more than maintains his royal allure — gold holds its value. But finance gurus also tout making more unusual investments in times like these, and one hopes that our institutions will use this moment to engage in some portfolio diversification. *

CHAGALL AND THE ARTISTS OF THE RUSSIAN JEWISH THEATER, 1919-1949

Through Sept. 7

Contemporary jewish Museum

www.thecjm.org

GEORGIA O’KEEFE AND ANSEL ADAMS: NATURAL AFFINITIES

Through Sept. 7

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

www.sfmoma.org

TUTANKHAMUN AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE PHAROAHS

Through March 28, 2010

De Young Museum

www.famsf.org

Editor’s Notes

-
0

tredmond@sfbg.com

Nobody really thinks the state budget deal is going to hold, and nobody really thinks San Francisco’s budget deficit is actually closed. So while the Legislature is in recess and the supervisors are moving on to other things, it’s worth thinking about what the next few months will bring. It won’t be pretty.

Paul Hogarth, writing for the online publication BeyondChron, pointed out Aug. 6 that San Francisco will lose more money due to state budget cuts than the city will gain from federal stimulus spending. The numbers are complicated and fluid (San Francisco will lose $100 million that the state will "borrow," but the city can immediately go to the bond market and borrow against the state debt — with any luck at the same interest rate the state will pay the city, so that should be a wash. Should — unless the lenders don’t want to gamble on the state’s debt.) But no matter how you slice it, San Francisco will be out something on the order of $18 million in state cuts alone.

There’s also the fact that nobody knows what the economy will do over the next six months. If employment doesn’t pick up, and consumer sales don’t pick up, and enough businesses get away with demanding property tax reductions, the revenue numbers projected by the Newsom administration will be wrong and things will be even worse. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who’s on the Budget Committee, told me he’s expecting at least $100 million in red ink for next year’s budget, and some of that will start to show up this fall.

I can’t even imagine what the 2010-11 budget will look like. By the time budget hearings begin next June, Gavin Newsom will either have won the Democratic primary for governor, and will have entirely checked out of City Hall, or he will have lost and will be angry, bitter, and vengeful.

We were mildly critical of Budget Committee Chair John Avalos this summer; he cut a deal with Newsom that requires the supervisors to believe that the mayor will work with them on any midyear cuts. The problem is that Newsom can’t be trusted. He’s already broken parts of this budget deal. So when, as is almost certain, he breaks his promise to work with the board on midyear cuts, the supervisors will have to take a much more aggressive stance than they did this summer.

Newsom will be in the middle of a heated race for governor — he won’t want to cut cops or firefighters, and he won’t even talk about taxes. (Although a recent Gallup Poll shows that only 46 percent of Americans think their taxes are too high, the lowest number to hold that view since 1961.)

It’s going to be war, and the progressives on the board need to be ready for it — or they’re going to get rolled, again. *

The big prison duck

-
0

EDITORIAL A panel of federal judges has ordered the release of 44,000 California prisoners, sending politicians of both parties scrambling for cover and throwing a crucial issue into the heart of the Democratic campaign for governor.

And so far, both major candidates are ducking, badly.

The state prison system is a mess; any sane person knows that. California incarcerates 170,000 people in facilities designed for less than half that number. Sick inmates don’t get to see doctors; mentally ill or drug-addicted inmates often get no treatment at all. It’s so bad that a federal monitor appointed by the courts has demanded that the state spend $8 billion building new medical facilities for prisoners.

Meanwhile, inmates are crowded into makeshift bunks in gymnasiums and dayrooms. The few modest rehabilitative programs California offers are stretched so thin that many inmates get no job training or violence-prevention skills at all. The parole system is overburdened and focuses far too heavily on people with minor, nonviolent offenses.

And politicians wonder why the state has a recidivism rate of 70 percent.

The solutions aren’t rocket science, either. There’s a clear reason why incarceration rates have jumped so high: harsh sentencing laws, passed by the Legislature and the voters with no concern for the costs of implementation. The state’s three-strikes law is so draconian that thousands of people are serving 25 years to life for nonviolent felonies that typically would carry a sentence of a few years. So the first thing the Legislature and the governor need to do is change the sentencing laws (and give back discretion to judges).

Then there’s a drug problem. California prisons are packed with people serving sentences for drug possession — and most of these people, and society in general, would be better served, at less than half the cost, with treatment programs.

And frankly it wouldn’t be hard to release 44,000 inmates without any new threats to public safety. The vast majority of the inmates in California prisons are going to be released at some point anyway; in fact, the state now releases about 10,000 people a month. The early releases envisioned by the federal courts could simply mean allowing people who have served, say, three years of a four-year sentence to leave prison and shift to the custody of the parole system a few months earlier than scheduled. Many of those people are nonviolent offenders, particularly drug offenders.

With the state in a catastrophic fiscal condition, the cost of corrections ought to be a huge issue for the candidates for governor, particularly the Democrats. Mayor Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Jerry Brown ought to be promoting a plan that would end the insanity of "three strikes," offer alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and drug addicts, and allow early releases to bring down the current unsustainable incarcerated population.

So what are these candidates, supposedly alternatives to the Republican agenda, saying?

Here’s Brown, quoted in the Los Angeles Times: "Government is established to protect the safety and security of its citizens, and these wholesale releases are totally incompatible with that." Where’s Newsom? We called his campaign press office for comment, and haven’t heard back.

This is unacceptable.

It’s typical for Republicans to use scare tactics and talk about crime as a cheap way to win votes. But Newsom and Brown ought to know better. This is no time for demagoguery — the prison crisis is serious, festering, and a major factor in the state’s financial mess. If the two leading Democrats can’t come up with honest answers, it’s time for someone else to enter the race. *

Sup. Mirkarimi pushes for transparency in mayor’s security detail costs

-
3

By Rebecca Bowe

secret_agent3.jpg
Image courtesy James Ratcliffe

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi has introduced legislation that would require elected officials to reimburse the city for security-detail costs while traveling the campaign trail, the Chronicle has reported. Mirkarimi has been trying unsuccessfully for more than a month to get the Mayor’s Office to disclose how much is being spent on security for Mayor Gavin Newsom as he campaigns for governor outside San Francisco. In response, he’s been told that revealing that dollar amount would be a security risk.

The legislation also seeks to shine some light another longstanding transparency problem: Newsom’s public calendar. Mirkarimi’s proposed rule would require the mayor to submit a detailed schedule, describing how much time was spent on each activity listed.

The Guardian has noted the mayor’s tendency to reveal only a bare minimum of information in the official schedule he publicizes, telling journalists and concerned citizens virtually nothing about how the people’s business is being conducted.

Sunshine advocate Kimo Crossman, who has been publicly calling for a meatier mayoral calendar for years, pointed out that there are already open-government rules in place that have been ignored. “When the Guardian found out the Mayor Willie Brown was shredding his calendars, part of the Prop G enhancement to [the city’s Sunshine Ordinance] required keeping a very detailed calendar and preserving all correspondence in the Mayor’s office,” Crossman told us via email. “The [Sunshine Ordinance Task Force] has found that [mayor’s office spokesman] Nathan Ballard and Mayor Newsom have willfully violated these provisions and therefore committed official misconduct.”

“Subsequently,” he added, “no behavior has changed.”

Run, Sanchez, run

-
4

By Steven T. Jones
sanchez.jpg
Loretta Sanchez

The Guardian may not have been a big fan of Willie Brown when he was mayor, but I certainly appreciate his political insights now, as expressed in some of his Sunday Chronicle column items. He knows the players and their motivations better than anyone, making him one of the top sources in town for political buzz.

So his observation yesterday that others are likely to jump into the Democratic Party gubernatorial primary is good news for anyone loathe to watch Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown beat the crap out of each other – including trying to out-tough-on-crime each other, a specialty of Newsom’s Neanderthal campaign chief Garry South — before one of them limps into a tough race against the Republican nominee.

Brown leads with the likelihood that Steve Westly will jump in, which isn’t very exciting to progressive voters. And he teases out how Dianne Feinstein is still a possibility – again, not too exciting for progressives, but at least she’d likely move the governorship into the D column.

Yet it’s the last name he mentions – Rep. Loretta Sanchez from Orange County – who would instantly become a progressive favorite if she gets in. And she’s also someone who’s proven palatable to OC conservatives and has a real independent streak that would appeal to voters who are sick of both major parties (and for good reason).

So, Rep. Sanchez, if this link finds its way to you, let me just say on behalf of San Franciscans who fear the prospect of a Governor Newsom: please run!

New SFPD chief sworn in

-
1

By Steven T. Jones
gascon.jpg
Newly sworn-in San Francisco Police Chief George Gascón addressed the media today, flanked by Mayor Gavin Newsom, mayoral crime adviser Kevin Ryan, and Police Commission President Theresa Sparks.

The Newsom Administration may still be exhibiting signs of brainlessness (today’s hastily arranged and poorly announced press conference with new Police Chief George Gascón was inexplicably moved up by 15 minutes just a half-hour before it was scheduled to start), but the new chief is already showing signs of being a better communicator than either his boss or his predecessor, shrinking violet Heather Fong.

While I missed the first half of the 20-minute press conference, Gascón seemed to offer direct, nuanced answers to the media questions, including fielding one in fluent Spanish, an important symbolic attribute for the head of a department that has often been at odds with the city’s Latino community.

“My goal is to take what is already a good organization and make it an excellent organization,” said Gascón, who hung around to answer more questions long after Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard ended the official press conference, a cue that Newsom usually takes to bolt for the door.

Gascón also told me that he will soon come to meet with the Guardian’s editorial board to discuss a wide range of issues – such as abusive conduct by officers, harassment of the homeless and immigrants, inflexible and heavy-handed policies regarding protests and special events, and unnecessary secrecy and deception – that have long strained relations between the two entities.

Will Newsom get solar money back?

-
9

By Tim Redmond

According to a somewhat confusing story in the Examiner, SolarCity, a private company that installs solar panels, collected the lion’s share of $9.5 million in city subsidies under a Newsom program to encourage private homeowners to put up the panels. To make the public subsidy palatable, SolarCity promised to build an academy in Bayview to train unemployed San Franciscans to move into this growing field.

But if the Ex is accurate, SolarCity has just backed out of that promise, and won’t be building the academy at all.

So I’m wondering: Will Newsom ask for the city money back?

Not so far. We checked with his always acerbic press secretary, Nathan Ballard, who gave us a typically terse reply: “I’m not sure what the facts are.”

Hope he takes a few minutes to check it out.

Newsom still hiding his schedule

-
3

By Steven T. Jones

In yet another example of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s basic hostility toward transparency in government – exhibited daily by his refusal to release his official schedule – the mayor is officially “to conduct meetings in City Hall” today. With who? Who knows? But it’s all he’s being doing everyday recently as he runs for governor.

Actually, as the Chron reported this morning, Newsom will be swearing in new Police Chief George Gascón this afternoon. Where? When? Who knew? We couldn’t get the highly paid Mayor’s Office of Communications to answer the phone or respond to e-mails with that answer. Some elected supervisors didn’t even know.

Luckily, the Police Department just sent out a release saying Gascón will be available to the media in an hour – in the mayor’s office. Shouldn’t that be the kind of thing that ends up on his daily schedule? This is the same taxpayer-supported political operation that told the Chron last week (buried toward the end of this story) that they removed from the schedule Newsom’s appearance at an event honoring outgoing Chief Heather Fong because they were worried reporters would ask the mayor questions about the resignation of campaign manager Eric Jaye.

Apparently, the Mayor’s Office doesn’t see transparency and accountability as public duties, but simply one more reality to be manipulated as they please.

Mar takes on cronyism

-
5

By Tim Redmond

I’m glad to see the entire progressive bloc on the Board of Supervisors stepping up to crack down on Newsom administration cronyism. The measure, of course, is a response to Newsom’s move to appoint Police Commission President Theresa Sparks to a juicy city job as the head of the Human Rights Commission.

I’m not here to say anything bad about Sparks; The HRC deals with discrimination, and Lord knows Sparks has experienced her share. She’s also been a business executive and is a smart and talented person.

But she played a key role with Newsom in choosing the new police chief — and suddenly, she’s rewarded with a city job. It certainly looks funky. And it hurts everyone’s reputation — Newsom looks as if he’s repaying a political debt with hihg-paying job. Sparks looks like someone who played ball with the mayor and got a reward. The new police chief — who by all accounts is a straight shooter — comes out looking awful, too; I have no real reason to suspect a shabby deal here, but it sure gives what one calls the “appearance of inpropriety.”

Mar’s bill is cosponsored by Ross Mirarimi, David Chiu, David Campos and Chris Daly. I dare Newsom to veto it.

Did Newsom forget to mention COPS cash during budget talks?

-
6

By Rebecca Bowe

The San Francisco Police Department received $16.5 million in federal funding through the Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) hiring grant program, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced July 28.

That’s a lot compared with the sums allocated to other cities throughout the country, but it’s just a fraction of the $89 million that Mayor Newsom and then-Police Chief Heather Fong requested for the SFPD in mid-April. So did the mayor mention that the city had applied to receive millions for the police from the federal government when the budget talks were going on?

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi told the Guardian that he was never informed that the city had applied for the COPS grant. “If in fact an application was submitted, then in my opinion it’s incumbent upon the mayor’s budget office and the police department to inform us of this,” Mirkarimi told us, adding that in his opinion, it should have come up during the budget talks.

Why the rich attack Daly’s voting record on housing

-
3

Text by Sarah Phelan
Illustration by Jose Luis Pavon

Pavon80%.jpg

Actually, you’ll never see the rich attack Daly’s actual voting record on housing, which you can find here.

That’s because facts don’t concern San Francisco’s well-heeled political elite, who remind me of a high school clique that knows how to demean folks they don’t like. I always wondered what those folks would do when they grow up. Apparently, some of them run for higher office.

“It’s garbage,” is how cartoonist Jose Luis Pavon, describes C.M. Nevius’ and Sup. Michela Alioto’s Pier’s most recent attempt to blame San Francisco’s housing crisis on Daly.

Pavon, who grew up in San Francisco, says his grandparents came here in the 1940s and spent their whole lives working, yet none of their grand kids can afford to hang on.

“And I’m scrambling,” said Pavon, who fears that left to millionaires like Mayor Newsom and Alioto-Pier, San Francisco is destined to become another Venice.

‘Venice was really scary,” said Pavon, who visited the fabled city on a recent trip to Italy. “There is virtually no working class at all. The workers all come in on buses, then go back to their ghettos and suburbs at night. Venice is only for the elite rich.”

And just to be clear, this post is about Daly’s voting record on housing, not his family’s decision to move to Fairfield, which, me thinks, is a whole other story.

Who’s in charge again?

-
0

By Tim Redmond

I’m glad to read in the Chron that Christine Soto-DeBerry likes her job, and is willing to defend her boss against charges that he’s flouting the needs of Latino business leaders, but her descrition of her responsibilities in the Newsom administration was a little weird:

“Being a Latino, a minority, in this administration, that has not been my experience,” Soto-DeBerry said. “I am essentially second in command, which speaks volumes about (Newsom). I have been very humbled by the opportunity, and a lot of advocates are grateful to have a Latina in a high post in the administration that they can reach out to.”

“Essentially second in command?” Does that mean that Steve Kawa isn’t the chief of staff anymore and Soto-DeBerry reports directly to Newsom? Or does it mean that in the Newsom administration, she and Kawa are running things anyway because the “First in Command” is never around?

By the way: The complaint small business owners had was not that Newsom didn’t hire or promote Latinos in his administration. The problem is that Newsom is planning to fire the popular Christopher Iglesias, director of the Human Rights Commission, and they fear that the HRC won’t be as vigorous about helping minority businesses get city contracts.

Enclosed 49ers stadium in Santa Clara?

-
0

Text by Sarah Phelan

The draft EIR for the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara states that the proposed construction will result “in significant cumulative transportation, air quality and global climate change impacts.”

According to the study, the significant unavoidable impacts of the proposal include a substantial increase in ambient noise levels during large stadium events, temporary noise impacts from construction, regional air pollutants in excess of established thresholds, significant impacts on 17 intersections on 8 weekday evenings a year, and on two local intersections on 42 weekend days.

It could also result in the abandonment of active raptor nests or the destruction of other migratory birds’ nests.

And expose construction workers and future site users to contaminated soil, airborne asbestos particles, and lead-based paint.

The proposed site is located within the worst-case release impact zone for two toxic gas facilities and thus, “could expose event attendees to toxic chemicals.”

Then there is the fact that it could impact “unknown buried prehistoric and/or historic resources.”

And numerous BBQ activities within 700 feet of neighboring residences “could result in odor complaints”

What impact this draft EIR will have on Santa Clara voters when they go to the ballot next March remains unclear.

But a quick skim through this 336-page report finds it concluding that other alternatives, including Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed site at Hunters Point Shipyard, are mostly deemed inconsistent with the 49ers objectives.

“The costs and time required for hazardous materials clean up, infrastructure and roadway/transit improvements, and permitting make the Hunters Point site inconsistent with the following objectives: locate the stadium on a site that can be readily assembled and that enables the development of the stadium within budget and on schedule; locate the stadium on a site that is served by existing streets and highway infrastructure adequate to reasonably accommodate local and regional game-day automobile circulation.”

The existing Candlestick Point site, as well as Pier 70, Pier 80, Pier 90-94 backlands, Baylands, San Francisco Airport, Moffett Airfield, Zanker Road, San Jose State, Santa Clara Fairgrounds, a reduced stadium size alternative and an enclosed stadium alternative are also evaluated.

Ultimately the report concludes that “the enclosed stadium alternative would meet all of the project proponent’s objectives.”

“In addition, this alternative would reduce impacts from crowd noise in the stadium…and would eliminate the visible light increases,” the draft EIR continues. ” Energy use would increase to some extent with the enclosed stadium because it would require more of the stadium area to be climate controlled. An enclosed stadium would, however, allow for a variety of design features that would at least partially offset energy consumption. This alternative is environmentally superior to the proposed project.”

The Newsom campaign’s in trouble

-
4

By Tim Redmond

Lots of interesting opinions about what the loss of Eric Jaye means to the Newsom campaign. Paul Hogarth at Beyond Chron Thinks that Garry South, who is now in charge, could lead to Newsom’s downfall. Brian Leubitz at Calitics thinks that

Eric Jaye was an enormous asset to Newsom’s campaign. It is hard to see how a departure of somebody with that kind of relationship and with that kind of intricate knowledge of the candidate is good for the campaign.

And Jerry Roberts, who has been covering politics in this state even longer than I have, thinks this is exactly what the Newsom campaign needs:

The last political consultant to elect a Democrat governor of the state, the Duke of Darkness is a bare-knuckles, in-your-face, shoe-leather, hand-to-hand combat veteran who has two main tasks: 1) Get his candidate to raise a ship load of money and 2) Needle, badger and tweak primary rival Jerry Brown at every turn.

A few thoughts:

1. Everyone agrees that South is, in political terms, an asshole, someone who loves negative campaigning and sees the key to victory as raising tons of money and trashing your opponent. He has had both success (Gary Davis, at first) and failure (Gray Davis, later; Joe Lieberman, Steve Westly) with that approach.

But the thing to keep in mind is that, whatever you think of Newsom’s politics, this isn’t his style. Newsom’s not a brawler; he wouldn’t even show up at supervisors meetings to argue with Chris Daly. He’s much more of a stand-in-the-well-scripted-public-meeting-with-a-cordless-mike kinda guy. In fact, if this becomes a bloodbath, Newsom loses; he can’t take a punch. Real conflict makes his nervous. And I don’t think Jerry Brown will come out of the gate with a negative campaign, but if Newsom starts it, Brown will respond.

2. Newsom ought to be the clear front-runner in this race. It’s almost a textbook campaign — the new, fresh face, the young, tech-savvy charmer with the grand ideas against the been-there-done-that crabby old pol who has changed his political stripes so many times it’s hard to know what he actually believes in any more. That’s what Eric Jaye was trying to do. Sure, the fundraising was slow, and Jaye mistakenly thought that Newsom could pull an Obama (I’ve seen Barack Obama, and Mr. Mayor, you’re no Barack Obama). But if they could raise enough to be competitive, they had the right strategy.

3. It’s hard to win a Democratic primary without the progressives in California. And South has done everything possible in his career to anger and alienate progressives.

4. Eric Jaye is no fool — he had hitched his own star to Newsom long ago, was looking not just at Sacramento but beyond — and if he thought South’s approach was the correct one, that it would lead to victory, he wouldn’t have been so quick to bail.

I dunno — Jerry Brown ought to be terribly vulnerable at this point, but I think Newsom’s campaign is in trouble.

Are undocumented kids accorded due process in SF?

-
8

Reading the Chron’s article yesterday about citizens suing the US for having been wrongly held/deported, reminded me of an email exchange I had with Mayor Newsom’s mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard earlier this year.

I’d asked Ballard what the city is doing to guarantee due process to juveniles who are arrested on suspicion of having committed a felony and who the city suspects are also undocumented.

It’s a question that immigrants rights’ advocates have been asking since Newsom changed the city’s sanctuary policy last summer. And the answers coming from the Mayor’s Office have been troubling to say the least

As these advocates note, using Juvenile Probation Department data to support their case, back in 2006 there were 288 petitions filed against Latin American juveniles, but only 211 were sustained. That means that if Newsom had revised the city’s policy in 2006, 77 Latin American juveniles who weren’t actually found to have committed a felony could have been reported to ICE and deported.

And as the Chronicle noted yesterday, though US citizens are a tiny fraction of the 400,000 people who pass through ICE custody each year, cases in which they are held and/or deported “occur with some regularity.”

City Hall’s collaborators

-
0

rebeccab@sfbg.com

As the Board of Supervisors prepared to give final approval to the city budget July 21, Sup. John Avalos, who chairs the board’s Budget and Finance Committee, told his colleagues the budget deal that he and President David Chiu negotiated with Mayor Gavin Newsom is "ushering in a new spirit of cooperation and collaboration at City Hall."

But at the end of the day, frantic last-minute revisions and indignant criticism from Avalos’s progressive colleagues felt more like a family feud than the culmination of a team effort. Avalos and Chiu were able to restore $44 million of Newsom’s proposed cuts and got the mayor to promise to fund progressive priorities, such as public health and social services. Progressive supervisors, however, voiced deep skepticism about whether Newsom can be trusted.

To make matters more complicated, the messy conclusion of San Francisco’s budget process coincided with the news that Sacramento officials had finally struck a state budget deal that proposes borrowing more than $4 billion from local government coffers. So the city’s spending plan, balanced with no small amount of pain, may already be thrown out of balance.

Compounding that problem, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that San Francisco voters will have an opportunity to weigh in on new tax measures that could help soften the blow of rapidly declining city revenues this fall, a situation that could quickly test this "new spirit of cooperation."

The tension at the July 21 meeting stemmed from Newsom’s decision last year to close a massive cash shortage by making midyear cuts aimed at the heart of the progressive agenda — even after giving his word that he would not do so.

In some cases, the money was never allocated to begin with. According to a report prepared by the city’s budget analyst, "The Board of Supervisors approved $37,534,393 in monies that were restored in the FY 2008-2009 budget, which include $30,657,078 in General Fund monies and $6,877,315 in non-<\d>General Fund monies. Yet $15,627,397 in restored monies were either cut to meet mid-year reductions or never expended."

The mistrust generated by this episode and others prompted Sups. Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, and David Campos to push for a series of last-minute changes that were designed to shield critical services from future cuts and give the board some power in its dealings with the Mayor’s Office.

"We need a hedge. We need a contingency. If we put a number of items on reserve … it gives us leverage," Mirkarimi noted. A Campos motion to place $45 million on reserve from the city’s seven largest departments was approved by the progressives on a 6-5 vote. Mirkarimi also succeeded in winning approval for a motion to move $900,000 from the trial courts to restore cuts to the Public Defender’s and District Attorney’s offices.

Other proposals failed to win over Avalos and Chiu, such as Mirkarimi’s pitch to target reserve funding for mayoral projects, including the Community Justice Center, 311 call center, and Newsom’s bloated communications staff. Daly’s suggestion to put $300 million on reserve also went nowhere.

"We are on the border of tearing apart a lot of goodwill," Avalos warned. "A $300 million reserve gets to toxic levels. I would be remiss in not saying that the mayor did give us his word. I believe that there was a new Board of Supervisors elected and … a new spirit of negotiation and collaboration in City Hall."

But Daly, making scathing references to "Gavin Christopher Newsom" as he fumed about budget cuts, clearly wasn’t buying it. Also on the afternoon’s agenda was his proposal to place a charter amendment on the ballot that would force the mayor to fund board-approved programs in the budget.

"Without it, we only have blunt instruments at our disposal," Daly said. "A blunt instrument is to take a significant fund, put it on reserve and have a hostage to make sure the administration doesn’t use this most significant loophole. This is crafted to allow a majority of the Board of Supervisors to place a special marker on an appropriation that the board feels strongly about."

But Daly’s idea went down in flames after Chiu and Avalos voted no along with Sups. Michela Alioto-Pier, Bevan Dufty, Sophie Maxwell, Sean Elsbernd and Carmen Chu. Afterward, Daly left the chambers and later returned to circulate a letter addressed to Chiu reading, "I am no longer interested in serving as Chair of the Rules Committee or Vice Chair of the City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee."

Daly wasn’t the only one not feeling this new spirit of collaboration. All the last-minute changes clearly exasperated Elsbernd, who paced his corner of the room for much of the meeting, rubbing his forehead, and looking irritated. Eventually, Elsbernd and Chu were the only two votes against the final budget.

The prospect of new revenue measures also dimmed at the meeting. A proposal to place a measure on the November ballot calling for a 0.5 percent sales tax hike fell short of the eight votes it needed (Alioto-Pier, Chu, Dufty, and Elsbernd voted no). And it’s still too early to say whether a move to place a vehicle tax on the ballot can move forward because it’s contingent on state legislation.

The state’s funding raid could also hit the city hard. Leo Levenson, budget and analysis director with the San Francisco Office of the Controller, told the Guardian the city stands to lose $71 million in General Fund dollars and $32 million in other funds, although those numbers were still in flux at press time.

"The state must repay these funds within three years with interest," Levenson explained. "It is likely that San Francisco could be able to borrow money to mitigate the short-term financial impacts of this proposal, since the state is legally obligated to repay the funds within three years."

If the state goes after the gas tax, it could impact the city’s General Fund by an additional $18 million, Levenson noted, "so the city would need to backfill this reduction to sustain basic street cleaning operations."

So budget season isn’t over yet.

Gabrielle Poccia contributed to this report.

Best of the Bay 2009: Local Heroes

-
0

>>BEST OF THE BAY HOME

————-

449-chan.jpg

ANGELA CHAN

As staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus, Angela Chan has been at the forefront of a yearlong effort to ensure that all undocumented juveniles have the right to due process in San Francisco.

That effort began last summer, shortly after Mayor Gavin Newsom, who had just decided to run for governor, announced that undocumented juveniles henceforth would be reported to federal authorities the minute they are booked on suspicion of having committed a felony — and before they can access an immigrant-rights lawyer.

These changes primarily affect Latino youth, but Chan, whose Cantonese-speaking parents ran a restaurant in Portland, Ore., sees the broader connections to other immigrant communities.

"I grew up in an immigrant community in a white working-class neighborhood," Chan explained. "I saw the barriers — language, culture, racism, xenophobia — and I realized that there was not a lot of power and awareness. I learned to appreciate civil rights."

As a teenager, Chan was determined to become an attorney. The temporary passage of California Prop. 187 — prohibiting undocumented immigrants from using social services, health care, and public education — intensified her determination. Chan graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School, and has been able to focus on this particular juvenile justice battle thanks to a Soros Justice Fellowship and the ALC’s "innovative, fluid, creative, and client-centered vision."

"I’ve tried different ways of challenging inequality — direct confrontation, anger — but I’ve found the best way is through policy, and being very educated and strategic," Chan said.

She said she’s hopeful that Sup. David Campos has the votes this summer to pass veto-proof amendments to the city’s undocumented-youth protection policy. As she put it: "People are starting to understand the difference between the juvenile and adult justice system and the issues around due process." (Sarah Phelan)

————-

449-davis.jpg

JULIAN DAVIS

Take a look at just a few of the things Julian Davis has done: He ran the 2008 public-power campaign. He’s on the board of San Francisco Tomorrow. He’s president of the Booker T. Washington Community Service Center. He’s a founder of the MoMagic Collaborative, which fights youth violence in the Western Addition. He’s on the board of the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation. He’s been appointed by the Board of Supervisors to serve on the Market-Octavia Citizens Advisory Committee. He’s a founder of the Osiris Coalition, which is working to ensure that public-housing tenants have the right to return to their homes after renovations. He’s hosted countless events for charities and political campaigns.

Then think about this: he’s only 30.

Davis grew up in Palo Alto, and moved to the corner of Haight and Fillmore after getting bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from Brown University. Philosophers weren’t exactly in demand at the time, so he wound up "playing my guitar on the streets for burrito money" while starting a PhD program at Stanford.

He also saw three people shot to death on his corner. "And I realized," he explained, "that the academic life wasn’t going to be for me."

Davis started organizing against community violence, and, inspired by Matt Gonzalez’s mayoral campaign, ran for supervisor in 2004. That got him started in local politics. He’s headed to law school at Hastings this fall, and it’s a safe bet that he’ll be a leader in the progressive political community for years to come. (Tim Redmond)

———–

449-Schooley.jpg

DAVID SCHOOLEY

"He’s a visionary. He’s very determined. He never gives up."

That’s how Ken McIntire, executive director of San Bruno Mountain Watch, describes David Schooley, who founded the Mountain Watch nonprofit four decades ago.

"For many years, David led every Sierra Club hike, organized every restoration party, and even took the bus to community fairs up and down the Peninsula so he could set up a table and distribute fliers about San Bruno Mountain," McIntire recalls.

Now snowy-haired and allegedly semiretired, Schooley, 65, remains as nimble as a goat when it comes to hiking across his beloved mountain, which rises and cuts across the Peninsula just south of San Francisco in San Mateo County — and whose ecosystem has been identified as one of 18 global biodiversity hotspots in need of protection

Schooley’s love for the mountain — which is covered with low-growing grasses, coastal sage, and scrub year-round and is dotted with wildflowers each spring — led him to found SBMW in 1969 and fight the expansion of the Guadalupe Valley Quarry and the growth of nearby Brisbane. Both were threatening to destroy the biggest urban open space in the United States and the habitat of rare butterflies, including the San Bruno elfin.

As Schooley explains, while the mountain is often hit with strong gusty winds and enveloped in thick fog, it is a great butterfly habitat and the last fragment of an entire ecosystem — the Franciscan region — the rest of which has been buried beneath San Francisco’s concrete footprints.

Two years ago, Schooley had the pleasure of once again finding the tiny raspberry-colored elfin caterpillars on some sedum (its host plant) on the north-facing upper benches of the quarry.

"It’s a miracle," Schooley told me at the time, delighted by this living example of nature’s ability to overcome human-made damage on the mountain.

At the time, Schooley was hoping the state park system would annex the property where the elfins were found. That hasn’t happened yet. But as McIntire says of Schooley (who dreams of a wildlife corridor that runs from the bay to the ocean), "David is always pushing for more open space around the mountain, for more nature and less development, and trying to reach a bigger audience." (Sarah Phelan)

————-

449-mime.jpg

SAN FRANCISCO MIME TROUPE

The San Francisco Mime Troupe is the conscience of the city, our proudest export, and — as it celebrates its 50th year — perhaps our most enduring sociopolitical institution. That’s a lot of kudos to heap on an artists’ collective, particularly one that delivers its theatrical social satire with such over-the-top comedy and music, but it isn’t a statement that we make lightly.

The SFMT embodies the very best San Francisco values — limitless creativity, a hunger for justice, courage under fire, an uncompromising commitment to creating a better world, and a progressive missionary zeal — and offers a powerful and entertaining reminder of those values every July 4, when it presents its new show in Dolores Park.

After it sings (and preaches) to the progressive choir of San Francisco, the troupe hits the road, visiting such less-than-enlightened outposts as the Central Valley and rural Northern California, delivering important messages to audiences that need to hear them most. "First of all, it’s humorous, so that breaks down a lot of barriers from the get-go," SFMT general manager Jenee Gill tells us.

But even here in the early ’60s, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission tried to use obscenity laws to ban the SFMT from performing in public parks. The troupe successfully fought the commission in court, setting an important free speech precedent. Modern San Francisco has grown up with the SFMT showing us the way forward with its uniquely high-stepping, knee-slapping, consciousness-raising style, and we’re a better city for it. (Steven T. Jones)

All local heroes photos by Pat Mazzera

———–

BEST OF THE BAY 2009:
>>BEST OF THE BAY HOME
>>READERS POLL WINNERS
>>EDITORS PICKS: CLASSICS
>>EDITORS PICKS: CITY LIVING
>>EDITORS PICKS: FOOD AND DRINK
>>EDITORS PICKS: ARTS AND NIGHTLIFE
>>EDITORS PICKS: SHOPPING
>>EDITORS PICKS: SEX AND ROMANCE
>>EDITORS PICKS: OUTDOORS AND SPORTS

What went wrong

-
0

EDITORIAL David Dayen, a political blogger at Calitics, had the best line on the California budget crisis.

"Whoever cares the least about the outcome wins," he wrote July 20. "If you don’t care whether children get health care, whether the elderly, blind and disabled die in their homes, whether prisoners rot in modified Public Storage units, whether students get educated … you have a very good chance of getting a budget that reflects that."

In the end, the Republicans largely carried the day because they had all the power: they could block any budget deal, they refused to raise any taxes, and they don’t really care if the state goes bankrupt. In fact, Gov. Schwarzenegger was happy to draw the crisis out as long as necessary — it helped his poll rating.

San Francisco should have had a very different situation and a very different outcome. The progressives control the Board of Supervisors and the mayor is in a tight spot — he’s running for governor and wants to show that he can manage San Francisco better than anyone in Sacramento is managing the state. It’s part of his campaign theme. A prolonged budget standoff was not in his interest.

And while the city budget is far, far better than the state budget, and the progressives managed to get a few concessions, the bottom line remains: this is a no-new-taxes budget, balanced largely with cuts and regressive new fees. In fact, for all the mayor’s talk of working with the board on possible tax measures, it now appears likely that there will be no revenue proposals whatsoever on the November ballot.

And the mayor is going to make another deep round of cuts soon, when the figures on what San Francisco will lose in state funding (almost certainly more than $150 million) become available.

It took last-minute efforts by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, supported by Sup. David Campos, to win back funding for the Public Defender’s Office and at least a shot at funding the public finance system for the next local elections.

The supervisors, frankly, should have pushed harder. The message to Newsom should have been: no budget without new revenue. And as the board approaches the next fiscal year — projections already call for a $300 million deficit — that absolutely has to be the bottom line. Critical services have been cut too deeply already.

The process needs to be better too. Allowing two supervisors — the budget committee chair and the board president — to negotiate a closed-door deal with the mayor without briefing their colleagues or letting the other stakeholders know what was going on was a big mistake that can’t be repeated.

The New York Times ran a front-page story July 21 describing in bleak terms how California has abandoned its safety net and given up the ambitious dreams that for so long defined the state. "At no point in modern history," reporter Jennifer Steinhauer wrote, "has the state dealt with its fiscal issues by retreating so deeply in its services, beginning this spring with a round of multibillion-dollar budget cuts and continuing with, in total, some $30 billion in cuts over two fiscal years to schools, colleges, health care, welfare, corrections, recreation and more.

That can’t be the model for San Francisco to follow. *

Newsom loses Crowfoot, Coloretti, and Arata

-
0

Text by Sarah Phelan
Images by Sarah Phelan and Luke Thomas

Crowfoot2.jpg
Remember the time the mayor’s office locked its door and sent out Wade Crowfoot to receive a copy from then school board member Eric Mar of the school board’s unanimous resolution that asked Newsom for a temporary shutdown of Lennar’s Bayview development until health testing could be done at the site? Crowfoot promised to “pass the message along to Newsom.”

Well, news is just in that Wade Crowfoot,who was appointed a couple of years ago as Newsom’s climate change initiative director, is headed for the Environmental Defense Fund.

Coloretti2.jpg
And remember the time that Newsom’s budget director Nani Coloretti was left to face the press after Newsom made a shocking surprise visit to the Board of Supervisors to tell them that the budget was seriously messed up, then fled?

Well, news is just in that Coloretti, Newsom’s budget director, is going to be deputy assistant to the U.S. treasury secretary.

I don’t have any great pix or memories of political fundraiser Paige Barry Arata, but feel free to share them here, as news is also just in that Arata is quitting as the finance director of Newsom’s gubernatorial bid and returning to City Hall.

A big Newsom “oops!”

-
8

By TIm Redmond

Okay, here’s a big cringe-worthy oops from the Newsom for Governor website.

The mayor loves to talk about technology, and on his campaign website he talks about transparency:

Online Government for Transparency: Mayor Newsom has used technology to cultivate an ongoing conversation with San Francisco residents and to put city services online to increase accessibility and transparency. He recently launched SFrecovery.org to allow citizens to track and provide input on how San Francisco spends federal stimulus dollars and 72hours.org to better prepare San Francisco in the case of a disaster or emergency. And San Francisco’s government television station was recently ranked first among nearly 500 government agencies archiving streaming media content from government meetings.

Anyone who has followed Newsom knows he’s the last person who ought to be bragging about transparency — the guy won’t even release his daily schedule.

But here’s the cringe: Click on sfrecovery.org.

I don’t think that’s what the mayor had in mind.

Newsom loses Eric Jaye

-
5

By Tim Redmond

While everyone’s fussing over Chris Daly’s residence, here’s some seriously big political news. Eric Jaye, who was Mayor Newsom’s campaign manager almost from Day One, who has been one of his closest advisors and who has had his fingers in much of what’s happened in the Mayor’s Office all these years, just quit the Newsom for Governor campaign.

Jaye told me only that there was “a difference of opinion about campaign direction.” There was also, I suspect, a difference of opinion in general — some might call it a power struggle — between Jaye and Garry South, Newsom’s high-priced Southern California-based strategist.

For starters, it takes much of the campaign focus out of San Francisco — Jaye helped Newsom create his political image through local programs and policies. It also shifts the campaign a big step toward the dark side — South is a conservative political triangulator who was close to former Gov. Gray Davis.

This could change not just the shape of the Newsom campaign but of policy here in San Francisco. Who’s going to tell the mayor what to do?

Some more thoughts on Daly

-
29

A few more thoughts on Chris Daly:

1. What’s with all the stories that say that “Daly moved his family” to the suburbs? Isn’t it possible (or more likely) that his wife, Sarah Low Daly, wanted to be close to her parents, and that SHE moved with the kids to the suburbs, and that Chris couldn’t talk her out of it and is now stuck with a situation that’s personally unpleasant and politically a mess?

2. Everyone who is in elected office in San Francisco ought to send his or her kids to the local public schools. Daly included. (I make exceptions only for people who have religious reasons to seek parochial schools.)

3. That said, Daly has about one year left in office. I suspect he’ll spend it the way he’s spent the last nine – with close to the best attendance record on the board, showing up at hearings, committee meetings and community meetings (his chief critic, Michela Alioto-Pier, has the worst attendance record on the board). At that point, he has to make a decision: If he wants to continue in any sort of elected office in San Francisco, he needs settle this issue with his family. I don’t envy him that choice, given what his wife clearly wants, but that’s political life in the big city.

4. Have all of the folks who so quickly call on Daly to “step down” have any idea what sort of pro-downtown loser Newsom would appoint to replace him? Rob Black, maybe? Ick.

The ultimate Newsom web site

-
0

By Tim Redmond

Okay, I have no idea who did this, but it’s wonderful — pretty much a complete compilation of all of the problems with Newsom’s record.

Destroying the California dream

-
2

By Steven T. Jones

A front page story in today’s New York Times correctly notes that California’s political leaders have abandoned the “California Dream” that made this such a great state: a social safety net that prevented the economic system’s losers from falling too far, a high-quality and affordable education system to give people the skills and knowledge needed to succeed, reliable and efficient infrastructure, and an appreciation for diversity.

“The California dream is, for now, delayed, as demonstrated by the budget state lawmakers and the governor agreed upon late Monday,” Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer wrote. “At no point in modern history has the state dealt with its fiscal issues by retreating so deeply in its services, beginning this spring with a round of multibillion-dollar budget cuts and continuing with, in total, some $30 billion in cuts over two fiscal years to schools, colleges, health care, welfare, corrections, recreation and more.”

Anti-government conservatives including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and just about every Republican in the Legislature (and many of the Democrats) have succeeded in destroying California as we know it with their mindless “no new taxes” mantra (which even our own Mayor Gavin Newsom pays fealty to as he runs for governor). They need to be recognized for what they are — a hostile threat to civil society, to the basic bargain among people on which government is based — and I’m happy to see the Times help with this analysis.

Things have already gone too far. It’s time to ease our way out of this abyss, and for San Francisco’s leaders to point the way. Some already are. Assessor Phil Ting is pushing for reform of Prop. 13 so commercial property taxes can be based on what the land is actually worth, Sen. Mark Leno is leading the single-payer health reform fight, and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano is trying to legalize and tax marijuana, which would bring in about $1.4 billion in annual revenue and save billions more in decreased enforcement costs.

That’s a pretty good start, but it’s just the beginning of a long slog back from oblivion.

1...373839...85Page 38 of 85

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