Newsom

A fall revenue measure

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

There’s no money.

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I think it’s safe to say that most people in the real estate business tend to oppose raising taxes on real estate. And generally speaking, you don’t find the industry well represented at dinners for urban environmental groups. But John Barry is different. He’s a Sunset District Realtor who is full of ideas about how to get the city more revenue, and after I ran into him at the San Francisco Tomorrow dinner May 21, he sent me a proposal he says would bring in more than $5 million a year.

Barry was digging around in property records recently and learned that a parcel out on 19th Avenue sold a year ago, in June 2007, for $2.5 million — and the new owners still hadn’t received a property tax bill. The owner "most likely won’t be getting the bill until July or later," Barry wrote. "He will then have another 30 to 90 days to come up with his payment."

Although the city will eventually get the money, the late property tax bill means that cash is sitting in a property owner’s bank account, earning interest that ought to go to the city. At the current tax rate of 1.141 percent of market value, which is typically the sale price, the lost interest on this one property is about $2,800. Multiply that times all the commercial and residential sales in the city, and Barry estimates San Francisco is losing some $5 million in interest every single year.

"Who is to blame? All of us," he wrote. "If taxpayers had been raising a fuss, the city would have found ways to do this all quicker."

When property changes hands, it typically goes through a title company and an escrow procedure and, at closing, a bunch of money changes hands. The buyer pays a whole list of fees — to the title company, the broker, the mortgage company, etc. Why can’t the city be in the mix?

Here’s how it could work, Barry suggests: "The title company calls the tax collector and says, ‘We are closing a sale in two days. The sale price is $1 million. Send us an interim estimated tax bill.’ The tax collector multiplies .01141 [the property tax rate] against $1 million and instantly prints an interim bill of $11,410 and e-mails it to the escrow officer."

Makes sense to me.

So the day I got Barry’s e-mail, I called Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting and left him a message saying I’d found him $5 million. He called back right away. I ran Barry’s idea by him, and he told me it was worth pursuing.

It’s a bit more complicated than it seems, he said, particularly with commercial property — which is where the big money is, anyway. In many cases the city doesn’t accept the sales prices as the actual value, and under Proposition 13, you can’t raise a tax bill once you set it. But I have great faith that City Attorney’s Office can figure a way around that.

Of course, Ting has another problem: he doesn’t have the staff to catch up on the existing backlog — and Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to cut his budget. "Nobody wants to stand up and fight to fund the tax man," he told me. That, of course, is lunacy. If you’re short of money, you don’t cut the folks who are bringing it in.

It’s hard to talk about taxing anyone, even in San Francisco. "I write this," Barry said, "because I am a founding member of the How a Realtor Can Commit Professional Suicide Club." But you know he’s right.

Leno celebrates tough win

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Lime on Market Street near Castro was crowded with Mark Leno supporters when the candidate took the microphone just before midnight. He had already taken the concession calls from Carole Migden and Joe Nation and was primed to celebrate his victory over an incumbent senator, whom Leno supporter Bevan Dufty had just taken a couple subtle digs at as he introduced Leno, suggesting that Migden didn’t listen to her constituents or play by the rules.
Leno then gave a speech that demonstrated the unique package of issues, enemies and allies that he has turned into a winning coalition. “Tom Ammiano, it’s gonna be a helluva lot of fun serving with you,” Leno said of the man who will succeed him with his endorsement. “I just heard Prop. E passed,” Leno continued, referencing the measure that will submit the mayor’s SFPUC appointments to Board of Supervisors approval. “As an early supporter, I was happy to see that.” That stand was already a hopeful sign of his independence from Mayor Gavin Newsom and PG&E, but then he really went after the company, which had funded a hit piece mailer by a group calling itself Californians to Protect Children, trotting out some old sleaze about Leno being soft on pedophiles because he resisted right wing efforts to capitalize on crime fears.
“When you attack one gay man like this, you attack all gay men,” Leno said. “All gay men should be outraged with PG&E tonight.” He thanked Dennis Kelly of United Educators of San Francisco for giving his campaign early credibility. Then Leno returned to the LGBT community, promising to heal the rift his challenge of Migden opened by leading the fight against the fall ballot measure that would ban same sex marriage. “I invite you to join together to defeat the religious right,” Leno said.
He then thanked a long list of leaders who endorsed him, from Mayor Gavin Newsom and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to District Attorney Kamala Harris and former SFPUC director Susan Leal to members of the late night entertainment community, which rallied for Leno with signs on nightclubs all over town. And then he thanked his campaign consultants, the downtown darlings BMWL, affectionately naming a list of people from there and saying of the campaign they created: “It was clean, it was smart, it was effective.”
And Leno’s final name check was to the presidential candidate he supports, who also had a good night: “The winds of change are blowing tonight. Let me congratulate Barack Obama on his victory.”

Cold wind in the Bayview

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When the chill wind of early returns showed Prop. G leading Prop. F in the polls, (67 percent to 33 percent ) the folks at the Prop. F campaign HQ put it down to all the money that Lennar spent to influence the election.

Inside the Prop. F party at 5030 Third Street, supporters munched on pizza, listening to the Nation of Islam’s Minister Christopher Muhammad expounding on “the $4 million of known money that Lennar has spent, not to mention the unknown slush funds.”

“I’m encouraged just by the fact that we forced them to spend so much,” Muhammad said, berating, “the Labor Council’s leadership for selling out its leadership in a backroom deal.”

Muhammad was referring to the community benefits agreement that the SF Labor Council negotiated with Lennar at the last minute, with Lennar promising to develop 32 percent affordable housing units at Bayview/Candlestick Point.

Bishop Ernest Jackson joined Muhammad in casting aspersions on Lennar ‘s deal with the SF Labor Council, by pointing to what he called Mayor Gavin Newsom’s “secret press conference” about the 2008-09 budget at the Hunters Point Shipyard on June 2, as a clue to why Labor capitulated to Lennar and Newsom’s demands.

Noting that Newsom announced his budget in a “police station surrounded by all kinds of weaponry and armored personnel carriers,” Jackson claimed that Newsom “held the unions hostage”.

“Newsom used the budget cuts as veiled threats over people of conscience,” Jackson said. “But the Prop. F movement proves there is another constituency in the Bayview. The City had no idea it would have its own cyclone in the southeast sector. This same groundswell can look at its supervisor and say, you’re not doing the right thing.”

Meanwhile, Muhammad was expressing his belief that San Francisco is going to the dogs, literally, a view he aired in the heart of the Bayview, earlier this week, as the following video shows:

“There are now more dogs than blacks living in the city,” Muhammad said, “San Francisco is becoming a playground for young urban multimillionaires.”

Cal-ISO totally changes tune on power plants

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Oh my. For all you folks that have been following the controversy around building new power plants in San Francisco, it just got even better.

Mayor Gavin Newsom sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors today outlining a “more promising way forward than the current proposal” to build two natural gas-burning “peaking” power plants in the city.

The way forward: retrofit three existing diesel turbines at the Mirant-Potrero Power Plant, while at the same time shutting down Unit 3, the most polluting part of the power plant, as soon as the Transbay Cable comes online.

“On Friday, May 23, Ed Harrington [General Manager of the SFPUC], City Attorney Dennis Herrera and I met with president of Cal-ISO – Yakout Mansour, the chairman of the CPUC – Mike Peevey, the CEO of Mirant – Ed Muller, the CEO of PG&E – Bill Morrow, and our respective staffs. In this meeting we vetted the possibility of retrofitting the diesel turbines [currently owned and operated by Mirant] and asked each stakeholder to give us the necessary commitments to advance this alternative,” Newsom wrote to the Board.

For anyone who’s been closely following the nuances of this argument, this is a significant change in position from the California Independent System Operator [Cal-ISO], and it should be noted that it took — not just the Mayor sitting down at the table — but top dogs from PG&E and Mirant (who both stand to lose money by the city building its own power plants), as well as the CPUC’s Peevey, who’s never expressed a positive opinion about the true need for more power plants in the city.

Now, suddenly, Cal-ISO is departing significantly from all previously expressed demands that we build power plants.

The background: The state, through Cal-ISO, has for the last several years insisted that San Francisco needs 150 megawatts of peak electricity at the ready. We currently get this from Mirant-Potrero, but Unit 3 of that facility has a bad rep as the greatest single source of pollution in the city. People in the Bayview neighborhood, which have carried more of their fair share of pollution, have been waiting a long time for the plant to close. Stakeholders have been meeting for over seven years, working on ways to close the plant, and much of the leadership on the issue has come from Sup. Sophie Maxwell, who represents the Bayview district.

Cal-ISO has insisted that the only way to close Unit 3 is to build new peakers, which would be owned and operated by the city, run cleaner and more efficiently, and still supply that 150 MW of peak power. Even when the 400 MW Transbay Cable was approved, Cal-ISO insisted San Francisco would still need the peakers.

But in a June 2 letter, Cal-ISO suddenly had a different response for the Mayor.

Budget picks on poor and infirm

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The Coalition on Homelessness has done a quick survey of the budget slashes that were announced today.

To sum, if you’re a cop, you’re psyched. If you’re down on your luck, without a place to stay and off your meds, and the city’s been helping you sort all that out….well, you’ve got until the end of the month to get it together.

From COH’s executive director, Jennifer Friedenbach:

Mayor Newsom released a budget today that will terminate critical health and human services, while pumping up salaries for police by 25% and adding many new high paid patronage positions into his own administration.

Some highlights of the devastating impact of the budget include:

1) Closure of Ella Hill Hutch shelter, serving up to 100 people every night in the Western Addition.

2) Closure of Caduceus Outreach Services, a mental health treatment and wrap around support program for severely disabled homeless adults with co-existing addictive disorders.

3) Almost total elimination (66% cut) of “SRO Families United,” a program for families with dependent children living in hotels.

4) Cut of 22% to residential substance abuse and mental health treatment programs budgets. This includes:

a. Removal of support from Conard supportive housing program for severe psychiatric disabilities.
b. Closure of Cortland Acute Diversion Unit for individuals in psychiatric crisis.
c. Loss of 12 out of 24 community based medically supported detox beds.
d. Many more residential cuts yet to be determined.

5) Cut of 30% to all outpatient substance abuse and mental health treatment

6) Almost total elimination of STOP treatment program.

7) 1,600 people lose psychiatric treatment through Private Provider Network.

8) Closure of Tenderloin Health, homeless multi-service center in the Tenderloin serving over 300 people a day, 16,000 unduplicated people a year. Program provides health services, HIV case management, HIV prevention, mental health services, harm reduction work, improving quality of life by getting people out of rain, providing hygiene kits, bathrooms, snacks, crisis intervention, 30, 000 shelter reservations a year.

Mayor’s plan for changing homeless shelters

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At today’s Local Homeless Coordinating Board meeting, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s homelessness “czar,” Dariush Kayhan, briefed the group on new ideas for improving city-funded shelters that he and the mayor have been hashing over.

There were just a few, and most of them seem like they need coordination more than cash, but they all answer, to some extent, some of the calls for help that have been coming from the city’s homeless shelter system.

All of this comes from a Feb. 14 announcement by Mayor Newsom that he’d like to redesign the city’s shelters, (the day after SFBG published an expose on conditions inside.) At the announcement, Newsom discussed possibly consolidating shelters into larger facilities, offering more medical respite care, and bringing Project Homeless Connect into the shelters. Ultimately, he called on the people working in San Francisco’s homeless services industry to come up with for how to make shelters better.

Since then, a series of long, comprehensive meetings have been held to gather ideas from homeless people, shelter clients and employees, non-profit groups, medical and mental services providers, and advocates. Meetings were held at shelters and other places convenient to the homeless population (though at all the meetings I attended there was a lot of criticism that the forums weren’t drawing in enough actual homeless people.) Topics tackled included problems accessing the shelters and the quality of medical and other support services — and suggestions were plenty. The Local Board pulled together a report, outlining the most frequent, concrete, and consensual, the most repeated being: don’t reduce the number of beds. (Too bad: The Human Services Agency cut the shelter at Ella Hill Hutch from their budget, which means, as of June 30, 100 fewer mats will be available every night unless advocates rally the Board of Supervisors to put the funding back.) The other biggest cry was for more services in general, made more easily accessible, and a number of really smart ideas came out for how to do that and are included in the report [PDF].

Kayhan said he and the Mayor would be putting together an official response to the report with more concrete details of their vision. In the meantime, he threw a few ideas to the meeting.

They include:

Will the real Newsom stop campaigning?

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As we predicted , Mayor Gavin Newsom used today’s budget announcement at at the Hunters Point Shipyard to campaign.
But there were, in fact, two Newsom’s at today’s event, but only one was told to shut it.

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‘You can’t campaign here, it’s city property,” police told the guy, who was wearing a Newsom mask and protesting the Mayor’s Budget.

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“I’m not campaigning,” the guy replied, his voice muffled by his mask, as his friend, who was wearing a Ronald Reagan mask handed out fliers that listed nine ways in which “Mayor Newsom terminates poor with massive budget cuts.”

(These included closing the Ella Hill Hutch shelter, Caduceus Outreach services, SRO Families United program, and a 22 percent cut of residential substance abuse and mental health treatment programs budgets.)

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But no one said diddley when the guy who one was wearing a very well tailored suit and presenting the Mayor’s $6.5 billion budget, began to campaign by unashamedly pushing Prop. G, which out-of-town developer Lennar has spent $4 million to promote.

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“You can’t have a budget speech about the future of the City and the structural challenges we face without talking about it,” Newsom said.

Nor did anyone say squat, when Newsom began to bash the competing Prop. F, which requires that 50 percent of housing built at the Shipyard and Candlestick Point be affordable to families of four who make $65,000 and under, which is the average median income for that size household in the Bayview.

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Yes, it was cool to be inside the SFPD’s unit, without being on the wrong side of the law.

What the Prop F-Prop. G battle is really about

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I’ve gotten a lot of calls about the two redevelopment measures, and while I think our endorsements make the case for F and against G pretty well, let me add something else.

In many ways, this is the first of a long series of battles that will determine whether Southeast San Francisco becomes a high-end residential community. That’s what Gavin Newsom wants to see, and it’s what a lot of downtown and big-money forces want to see, and frankly, it’s what the more moderate and conservative political activists want, too.

Because the more rich people you bring into San Francisco, and the more poor and working-class people you drive out, the more likely to are to change the progressive voting patterns of this town and get rid of politicians who want to tax big business and provide public services to the needy.

This is not conspiracy thinking — dontown political strategists talk openly about it. As Calvin Welch likes to say, “Who lives here, votes here.” W e know that; they know that.

I appreciate the fact that labor got some concessions out of the Lennar Corporation . But in the end, even if the labor deal holds up, the numbers are brutal: If Lennar agrees to build about 32 percent affordable housing, that means that 68 percent of the new housing in Bay View Hunters Point will be exclusively for millionaires.

That’s the calculus. A developer promising to build one-third affordable units is also promising that two-thirds of the new housing will be affordable only to the very richest segment of American society, the top tenth of the top tenth, the people who can put down $200,000 cash and pay a mortgage of $6,000 a month on a one-bedroom condo. If two thirds of the next generation of San Franciscans are people with that kind of money, the city will change, dramatically.

Sup. Chris Daly’s call in Prop. F for 50 percent affordable ought to be the absolute minimum floor. Again, that means half the new housing will go to the superrich, and only the superrich.

Lennar says it can’t do the project at that level. I personally think that’s horseshit — remember, they’re getting the land essentially free. But if the best Lennar can do is build housing two-thirds of which is unreachable to the vast majority of the people who make this such a wonderful, diverse and creative city, then we need to send Lennar packing and find someone who can do better.

This is the future of San Francisco, folks. That’s why I’m yes on F and no on G.

Mayor uses Shipyard to announce budget, Monday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mirkarimi calls the move “highly unorthodox and outrageous.”

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

“Fuck Lennar!”

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I’ve witnessed my share of political rallies, but Prop. F’s “We Shall Not be Moved” event at 3rd Street and Palou in the Bayview takes the bumpin’-block-party prize.

Wedged between three cash checking stores, a beauty parlor, and a T-Third station, the rally was awash with multilingual “Yes on F” signs, edgy urban chic and fighting words.

But beyond the many powerful speakers who showed up to stir up the crowd, the afternoon’s three most memorable moments involved song, dance and the spoken word.

Turfaholics’ Johnal performed to a funky remix of “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair).

Prop. F supporters put a smile on the crowd’s face with their soulful attempts at the Cha Cha Slide.

And last but not least was hiphop emcee Cobe Obeah

Stay with the following video for a minute and you’ll get to the part where Cobe announces that he doesn’t usually cuss, then gets the crowd joining in a “Fuck Lennar!” chant, before delivering a final FU to San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Lit: Erick Lyle on rehab for Newsom and SF, the awful flair of Willie Brown, book box mansions and life in the City

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This week’s Lit features a review of Erick Lyle’s new book On the Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of the City (Soft Skull Press, 272 pages, $14.95). Liam O’Donoghue recently talked with Lyle, who will be appearing at Get Lost Travel Books on June 4th and AK Press Warehouse in Oakland on June 5th:

By Liam O’Donoghue

SFBG: The phase “secret history” is in the subtitle of your book and the term “urban archeology” is used to describe it. Did it feel like an archaeological project — like you were digging up this buried history of the city — when you were compiling the book?
Erick Lyle: When I moved to San Francisco I was lucky enough to be around a lot of older folks who told me their stories about the city and I fell in love with this place instantly. I feel like I’ve got all those stories filed away in my mind, so that when I’m out, riding my bike around the city, if I’m at a certain intersection, for example, I’ll think, “Oh, this is where that punk club was in 1988, but it’s also where so-and-so broke up with her boyfriend in 1995 and there was that one time when a guy tried to hit me with a 2×4.” But I can see all these layers simultaneously in my mind, and for me, part of the enjoyment of living here for awhile is seeing how these layers fit together over time. It gives an added dimension to, for example, a protest event you might be doing, to understand how that event fits into the longer history of the area.

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Erick Lyle, in his secret mansion enjoying the high life

As far as thinking about it as archeology at the time, I wouldn’t say that we were so self-conscious that we would do generator shows in the street so we could say, “This is history.” But if we don’t write this shit down, no one is, it’s not making it in the Chronicle or anywhere else. The things that happen in the doorsteps of the Mission or on the dance floor at the punk club or are spray-painted on the walls: these are the things that make up our lives. That’s the fabric of life in the city.

Assessing the deal

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› sarah@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom stood with San Francisco Labor Council executive director Tim Paulson, flanked by Sup. Sophie Maxwell and representatives from megadeveloper Lennar, the San Francisco Organizing Project, and the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) May 20 to announce "a historic community benefits agreement."

Lennar had been persuaded to promise more affordable housing and other giveaways in order to win some important new endorsements in their troubled bid to take control of Candlestick and Hunter’s points and cover them with about 10,000 new homes.

"This is a very big deal," Newsom said, plugging the Lennar-financed Prop. G and bashing Sup. Chris Daly for his leadership of the campaign to qualify Prop. F, which would require that half the new units be affordable to households making less than $75,000, a requirement that Lennar casts as a deal breaker.

"Prop. F is a pipe dream that guarantees you only one thing: what you already have," Newsom said. "We have to get the message out what a Trojan horse Prop. F is." Lennar’s top local executive, Kofi Bonner, added that the agreement "enables us to go forward, because now we have new allies."

The Labor Council’s ability to invigorate a campaign makes it an important ally. Yet Lennar’s giveaway of more than it had previously promised and the fact that the agreement comes just two weeks before the June 3 vote seem to indicate that the Prop. G supporters have grown desperate.

Lennar already has spent $3.26 million to promote Prop. G and oppose Prop. F, only to find polls showing Prop. F well ahead despite a campaign that has raised less than $10,000. The weak poll numbers clearly convinced Lennar and its backers in the political power structure that voters would be more likely to support Prop. G if Lennar came up with something that seemed legally binding.

But by supporting a deal that appears to pin down Lennar on levels of housing affordability and community investment, Newsom ironically seems to be validating the concern of Daly and Prop. F’s other backers that Prop. G lacks guarantees on these fronts (see "Promises and reality," 04/23/08).

Not even Newsom could deny that Prop. F’s presence on the political landscape pushed Lennar to seek a community benefits agreement with the Labor Council and ACORN, a group that had been a solid part of Daly’s affordable-housing constituency.

"It probably has," Newsom told the Guardian. "That said, I don’t think Prop. F should suggest the deal is better because of them. Perhaps it’s worse."

Daly dismissed Newsom’s attacks as more attempts to hurt Prop. F’s popularity by trying to attach it to Daly’s personal negatives. Daly also attacked the agreement as overstated in its promises and impossible to enforce.

"I really don’t know if there is any net gain from one deal to the next," Daly said. "And how is it enforceable? We’re not sure anything legally binding is on table now. If there was a development agreement then obviously we would have some surety, as we would if we had a development plan that had cleared the approval process — Lennar’s financial vulnerabilities notwithstanding."

Noting that the city has had "bad luck with big order projects before," Daly recalls how Lennar reneged on building rental units at the Shipyard’s Parcel A, where the developer also failed to properly monitor and control asbestos dust despite promising to do so.

The agreement, which doesn’t include the city or any government agency as a party, is certainly unconventional. But is the deal legally binding? And just who benefits from it?

The CBA purportedly commits Lennar to create 31.86 percent "affordable" housing units in the Bayview, contribute $27 million to provide affordable homes throughout District 10, rebuild the Alice Griffith public housing project, and give down payment and first-time homebuyer assistance on another 3 percent of the homes.

All told, Paulson claims the deal locks in an unprecedented 35 percent affordable housing into Lennar’s mixed-use proposal for the Bayview. The deal also obligates Lennar to invest $8.5 million in workforce development in District 10, hire locally, pay living wages, and allow worker organizing with a card check neutrality policy.

"This legally binding agreement is a way we can insure that our community gets the benefits it needs," said SFOP co-president and longtime Bayview resident Eleanor Williams.

Paulson said May 22 the deal is still being "lawyered up" to ensure its enforceability, and ACORN’s John Eller insists the deal was done with community input. "We have had numerous meetings in which the community was demanding accountability and clear commitments to the workforce and housing, including the possibility of home ownership," Eller told the Guardian.

But Julian Gross, director of the San Francisco–based Community Benefits Law Center, clarifies that the deal only becomes legally binding if Lennar builds a mixed-use project in Bayview/Candlestick Point. "A community benefits agreement gives people a way to work in a coalition," said Gross, who helped negotiate CBAs at Oakland’s Uptown and Oak to Ninth projects, and at Lennar’s development in San Diego’s Ballpark Village in 2005.

Michael Cohen, director of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Workforce and Development, said the city hopes to enter into its own legally binding agreement with Lennar over a mixed-use project by the end of 2009, once environmental reviews on the project are completed.

Given that the project is expected to take 12–15 years to complete, could Lennar change the CBA’s terms after it starts to develop the Bayview? Yes, says Donald Cohen of the San Diego–based Center for Public Policy Initiatives, but only if both sides agree to any changes.

"In a private deal between private parties, those parties can agree to change the terms of the deal at any time," Cohen explained.

That’s significant given the divisions over development within the Labor Council. As Paulson confirmed, the building-trade unions were pushing for outright endorsement of Prop. G and opposition to Prop. F, but he successfully pushed for the negotiations with Lennar, which lasted more than eight weeks and almost broke down several times, Paulson told us.

"I told them, I don’t think that’s where we are coming from because Prop. G doesn’t contain guarantees on affordable housing or jobs," Paulson said of his initial response to Prop. G supporters.

The agreement appears to stretch the definition of "affordable housing," reaching up to those earning 160 percent of area median income, which is essentially market-rate housing for the low-income southeast sector.

Prop. F supporter Alicia Schwartz of People Organized to Win Employment Rights said that what labor’s deal with Lennar means is that only 15.6 percent of the housing will truly be affordable to the folks who currently live in the Bayview. While "3,500 units sounds good," Schwartz observed, "Only 50 percent of them will be for families making 60 percent and less of area median income, while the other 50 percent are for 80 to 160 percent AMI. That means $500,000 condos, which 70 percent of the Bayview can’t afford."

Yet Cohen said it’s understandable that the Labor Council crafted a deal that caters to those with above-average incomes.

"Affordable-housing policies over the last 10 years have tended not to address the needs of many of their members," Cohen said. "Many families make more than $64,000, so they can’t qualify for affordable housing, but don’t make enough to buy. This provides a fantastic and large-scale opportunity to address the problem of the squeezing of the middle class in San Francisco."

Public records obtained from the Mayor’s Office show that prior to this latest deal, Lennar planned to build up to 75 percent market-rate housing at the site, including hundreds of million-dollar townhouses, thousands of high-rise units at $787,483, mid-rise units at $734,400, townhouses at $651,366, and low-rise units at $592,797.

But under the CBA, the top tier of condos that Lennar deems "affordable" cost about the same as the cheapest market rate units it had already planned to build, leaving only 1,566 rental units at rates truly affordable to San Francisco’s low-income workers.

Paulson believes the resulting agreement "ensures that residents, workers, tenants, and future homebuyers have a path to new jobs and housing." He also claims that it is tied to the land, "meaning that it would be transferable to other developers if Lennar pulls out."

Joseph Smooke, executive director of the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center, said he believes the jobs agreements labor negotiated are good. "It’s the housing stuff where they gave away the store," Smooke said. "Why didn’t they stick to the jobs piece and support Prop. F?"

Pointing to the Board of Supervisors’ passage of policy saying that 64 percent of housing in eastern neighborhoods should be targeted at 80 percent of AMI and below, Smooke added, "There are ways to make 50 percent affordable work. This is free land. It’s not rocket science. But is it city policy to protect a developer’s stated desire for 18 to 22 percent profit?"

Meanwhile, Schwartz hopes SFOP and ACORN are being accountable to their base of low-income workers. "Lennar would like to tell you that if Prop. G doesn’t pass, nothing happens. But in reality, the community’s plan stays, plus now there is a 50 percent affordable-housing requirement," Schwartz said. "That’s a win-win."

"For Newsom and Lennar to say that Prop. F is a poison pill — the irony is not lost on the Bayview," Schwartz added, recalling the city’s failure to hold Lennar accountable for its promises and misdeeds. "We’re looking to change the way business is done in San Francisco." *

Hold out for Hunters Point

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EDITORIAL In the late 1980s, Mayor Art Agnos put forward a plan for development at Mission Bay, which at that point was an underused plot of land that used to be a Southern Pacific railroad yard. He negotiated with the developer, Catellus Corp., and cut what he insisted was the best deal the city could possibly get. He insisted that any more demands — for, say, increased affordable housing — would have so damaged the project’s finances that nothing would ever be built.

Development opponents took the issue to the voters — and the mayor’s plan lost. Catellus promptly came back with a much sweeter deal.

It’s worth remembering that lesson, because next week voters will be faced with a stark choice for a massive Hunters Point–Bayview redevelopment plan. Mayor Gavin Newsom and his allies say the city has squeezed major concessions from the developer, Lennar Corp. The San Francisco Labor Council and two community groups have forced Lennar to sweeten the pot even more (see "Assessing the deal," page 11). At this point, the city’s supposed to have the best deal it can possibly get.

But with all due respect to the Labor Council, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and the San Francisco Organizing Project, it’s not good enough.

The battle — which is shaping up as a very close contest — involves dueling ballot measures Propositions G and F. Prop. G is the deal Newsom and Lennar are pushing; it would give the financially troubled developer the right to build 10,000 new housing units, office and retail space, and a new football stadium, along with 300 new acres of parks, in one of the city’s most economically depressed areas. Some of the new housing would be available at below-market rates. Prop. F raises the ante a big notch: it would require that half of all Lennar’s housing be available to people making less than the median area income, which is $75,000 for a family of four.

For the record, it’s worth noting that the new concessions labor got would never have happened if Sup. Chris Daly and a group of Bayview–Hunters Point activists hadn’t placed Prop. F on the ballot. In fact, organized labor wasn’t terribly involved in the redevelopment project until a couple of months ago. That’s when Lennar’s team of political consultants realized that they might be facing a shellacking at the ballot June 3.

The polls show that Prop. F is very popular — and for good reason. It’s a simple proposal that makes excellent intuitive and practical sense. As housing activist Calvin Welch likes to say, San Francisco doesn’t have a housing crisis — the city has an affordable-housing crisis. Multimillionaires don’t have trouble finding places to live. And unfortunately, much of the new housing being built in this city is targeted to the very rich: typical market-rate one-bedroom condos start at around $500,000 and soar quickly into the millions. The rest of the city is getting forced out, and the dramatic, profound gentrification is transforming San Francisco.

Even the city planning department recognizes what’s going on: the Housing Element of the city’s General Plan states that 64 percent — nearly two-thirds — of all new housing ought to be affordable.

But the vast majority of the residents of Bayview–Hunters Point could never afford the vast majority of the new housing units Lennar wants to build. Prop. F seeks to address the deep imbalance in the proposed housing mix.

Lennar is squealing, saying it can’t possibly make the project pencil out with that much affordable housing. The company’s political team pushed the Labor Council to side with them, and in exchange for endorsing G and opposing F, labor got some worthy goodies. The level of what Lennar calls affordable housing is now higher than 30 percent — but when you actually look at those numbers, only about half of the 30 percent is truly affordable to the neighborhood residents who face being forced out of town. There’s also a new job training program and a mandate that new businesses allow their staff to unionize through a simple card-check process (although the city would almost certainly mandate that anyway).

But the bottom line is that the deal labor cut doesn’t meet what ought to be the standard for all new housing in San Francisco. Even after all the concessions, roughly 70 percent of the new units will be available only to rich people. That’s not acceptable in a city that is rapidly losing its artists, writers, musicians, immigrants, students … just about everyone who makes San Francisco such an exciting place to live is now an endangered species. And labor’s deal fundamentally does nothing to change that.

Vote yes on F and no on G. And if Lennar won’t build enough affordable housing, let’s scrap this deal and find someone who will. *

Lennar coverage wins awards

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Just as San Francisco voters prepare to cast ballots that will determine whether controversial megdeveloper Lennar covers Candlestick and Hunter’s points in 10,000 new homes, the Guardian is being honored for stories that exposed the company’s local misdeeds. A series of stories by Sarah Phelan showed how Lennar (with the support of Mayor Gavin Newsom and other high-profile political allies) failed to monitor or control toxic dust at its Parcel A site on Hunter’s Point, allegedly retaliated against whistleblowers, and bought off allies in its campaign to avoid accountability for its actions. Phelan’s stories are being honored in the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies’ prestigious “Investigation Reporting” category, while Guardian coverage of the MediaNews merger and its facilitation by Hearst Corporation (owner of the Chronicle) is a finalist for AAN’s first-ever Public Service Award. The project was led by staff writer GW Schulz and was supported by a Guardian lawsuit that made public previously secret corporate documents.
Phelan’s stories are also being honored by the San Francisco Peninsula Press Club (at whose June 5 awards banquet finalists will learn whether they won first place or were a runner up), along with stories by three other Guardian writers and editors: Tim Redmond, Steven T. Jones, and Diana Scott.

Starry-eyed and stripped

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› a&eletters@sfbg.com

REVIEW More than one witness has reported that Mayor Gavin Newsom, fiancée in tow, dropped by the jam-packed opening reception for photographer Ryan McGinley’s show at Ratio 3. The civic-minded pair joined the fray of cool kids and art world cognoscenti — I heard John Waters and Todd Oldham were there — and in some ways the appearance was apropos: the artist and politician share a lineage of tall, charismatic Irish Catholics who inspire others to action. Noting celebrity, political, and religious connections is admittedly a little suspect in a review of a contemporary art show; still, the youthful but stately mayor’s presence at a gallery on a somewhat gritty Mission side street has meaning as an expression of the widespread appeal of McGinley’s pictures. Who could resist lush images of nubile white boys and girls cavorting naked amid what seem like national parks and roadside America?

McGinley is a particularly American artist. One of the photographs on view is even a dead ringer for an Andrew Wyeth painting. Rather than Christina crouched in the wheat field, McGinley’s Running Field (2007-08) offers a lithe young woman dashing through golden rolling hills wearing only white sneakers. His choreographed vision is a brand of hipster organic purity, a dream of back-to-the-land naturalism and free love.

McGinley also manages to straddle a number of positions and demographics. Among the 16 pictures in this satisfying exhibition, there’s full frontal male nudity, and a wonderful image of a shirtless blond guy embracing a black bear, both of which unabashedly read as queer. A centrally placed picture of a group of hikers in a rocky canyon plays like a still from an update of Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point (1970). McGinley’s photograph exudes cineaste hippie-spiritual vibes, as does the acid trippy image titled Blue Falling (2007-08), in which the silhouette of a male figure — the hair on his legs crisply visible in profile — is seemingly suspended in an intensely hued sky. Dakota’s Crack Up (2007-08), visualizing an ebullient male/female couple caught in an active moment of undressed while roller-skating, brims with both clothing-optional resort appeal and fashion photo bravado.

The youth and nakedness of this universe seems to be related to Larry Clark’s kid obsessions, except McGinley is still young himself — he had a solo show at the Whitney five years ago, when he was 24 — and his surprisingly wholesome pictures are more hooked on fresh air and community than the more troubled eroticism of the wizened though still dreamy-eyed elder artist. A cinematic influence also binds these two figures. Most of the photos in McGinley’s show blur the line between naturalism and studio artifice: the hikers on the rocks are positioned in light in such a way that they appear to have been inserted digitally, the woman in Fireworks Hysteric (2007-8) seems to be floating in a glittering, celestial space, as do other subjects who have been catapulted into thin air. And is that a naked dude embracing a stuffed animal or a real live bear?

According to the artist, the animal is a living thing, albeit a trained one. He also admits the colors in his works are achieved through an intense darkroom practice. That gray area between the real and the imagined works in the artist’s favor, lending his images a sense of the uncanny: the activities captured in his photos did happen, though they come across as otherworldly.

There’s also a performance art backbone to McGinley’s process. His photos depict a team of models, cast for their looks as well as their athletic abilities, who travel together for extended periods. The constant contact promotes intimacy and physical fearlessness, and while they are very believable as an actual pack of marauding, hopeful young people, they are in fact a constructed entity — a family of paid actors directed by an artist with a clear vision of a kind of communal lifestyle. McGinley assuredly realizes these images, but they don’t come off without some suspicion. Where can these photographs go from here? The likeability of the pictures — and models — is tinged with envy and perhaps a resentment of the cool high school kids who seem impervious to social or sexual obstacles. That McGinley’s models reportedly sustain their share of photo-shoot injuries only attests to his winning feats of fiction. It all appears so smooth and dreamy. I don’t know what the mayor thought, but in the end, McGinley’s work won me over, and I want the feeling to last. *

RYAN MCGINLEY: SPRING AND BY SUMMER FALL

Through June 21

Wed.–Sat., 11 a.m.–6 p.m.

Ratio 3

1447 Stevenson, SF

(415) 821-3371

www.ratio3.org

Ongoing threat

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› amanda@sfbg.com

The debate over city plans to build and own two combustion turbine power plants, a project Mayor Gavin Newsom has made a last minute effort to alter, shows that public power — and Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s fear of it — is still a significant issue at City Hall.

Newsom, a past advocate of the project, pulled the plug on its progress May 13. The proposal for the natural gas–fired power plants to handle peak energy demand (called "peakers") was up for approval at the Board of Supervisors until Newsom requested a one-week continuance.

Christine DeBerry, the mayor’s liaison to the board, told supervisors the mayor would use the time to aggressively pursue better options than the peakers, even though it’s an item that spent eight years on the planning block and was approved by the Newsom-appointed San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

"What can be aggressively pursued in the next week that hasn’t been aggressively pursued in the last few years?" asked Sup. Chris Daly, one of the four supervisors publicly opposed to the plan, questioning DeBerry on why the mayor and his SFPUC hadn’t put forth the best energy project.

"The mayor engaged in a full exploration of the options over the last several years," DeBerry said, but wants to ensure the city is considering all options.

"Are you anticipating there’s going to be a new technological breakthrough in the next several days?" Daly asked before casting the lone vote against granting the continuance. As of the Guardian‘s press time, the plan’s hearing was scheduled for May 20, but sources said June 3 would be more likely. Newsom Press Secretary Nathan Ballard would not confirm whether another continuance would be requested or discuss what alternatives the mayor’s office is pursuing.

But it appears that the new technological breakthrough being pursued by the mayor’s office is actually a retrofit of an older, existing power plant in Potrero Hill, owned by Mirant Corp.

Sam Lauter, representing Mirant on the issue, said the company has been answering questions about a retrofit from diesel to natural gas for its three turbines. Mirant already agreed to close the older natural gas units at its Potrero plant once the $15 million contract, which requires the plant to maintain the reliability of the power grid, is pulled by California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO). Lauter also said Mirant’s redevelopment of the site for commercial use would still happen if the board decides a retrofit of Mirant is a better deal than building city-owned power plants.

As of the Guardian‘s deadline, no sources could provide any solid numbers on what a retrofit would cost and if pollution would be more, less, or equal to what the city anticipates from the peakers. But, Lauter told us, "The cost is considerably less than the cost of the peakers."

The contract with Cal-ISO could mean that the costs of retrofitting the diesels would be passed on to ratepayers. As for the pollution, Lauter said it’s not an easy answer and depends on how often the units have to run: "It’s not exactly correct to say they’d be less polluting, and it’s not exactly correct to say they’d be more polluting."

Barbara Hale, SFPUC’s assistant general manager of power, agreed there are still many uncertainties about retrofitting Mirant, including permits for the plant, restraints on how much it could operate, exactly how much it would pollute, and if it would even meet Cal-ISO’s demand for 150 megawatts of in-city generation. "I’m told by engineers that when generators go through a retrofit, often their megawatt capacity goes down," Hale told us. Each Mirant diesel unit currently puts out 52 megawatts.

As for other options Newsom requested from the agency, Hale said they’re exploring how to get more demand response and efficiency from the existing grid.

That suggestion comes from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which actively opposes the city’s peaker plan and sent representatives to meet with Newsom’s staff May 5 (while Newsom was in Israel with Lauter, who said the two did not discuss Mirant or the peakers while overseas), shortly before he sought the delay.

PG&E spokesperson Darlene Chiu confirmed the contents of the proposal as presented to the mayor’s staff, which includes ways to eke more from the grid as well as a new transmission line between two substations.

Tony Winnicker, spokesperson from the PUC, said of PG&E’s plan: "We absolutely support each of these projects, think they’re long overdue improvements to the city’s transmission reliability, and hope they are committing the necessary funding to begin and complete them."

He added that there is little in the plan that differs from a past PG&E proposal that Cal-ISO rejected — except the new transmission line. But, he said, its target completion date of 2012-13 was "very ambitious, given that they haven’t even started the permitting."

PG&E’s Chiu, a former spokesperson for Mayor Newsom, didn’t respond to a question about the time frame for such a project, nor did she comment on whether PG&E considers the city’s ownership of the peakers a threat to its jurisdiction.

She didn’t have to. While City Hall scrambled to come up with an alternative that hasn’t been vetted during the last eight years of community meetings, city studies, and negotiations, PG&E was telling its shareholders that the threat of public power is alive and well.

At the May 14 annual meeting of PG&E investors, held at the San Ramon Conference Center, CEO Peter Darbee assured the assembled, "I, too, am concerned about municipalization and community choice aggregation."

He was responding to a criticism from an employee and member of Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20, who said PG&E shouldn’t be contracting outside the company because it created an experienced proxy workforce ripe for employment by another entity, like a municipality, that would be a threat to PG&E’s jurisdiction.

In responding, Darbee recalled the recent efforts in Yolo County, where the county attempted to defect from PG&E and join the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. "Peter, it’s half-time, your team is down, you better get directly involved with this," he said of the potential loss of 70,000 customers. The company mustered 1,000 employees to volunteer their time, walking from house to house and knocking on doors, prior to the November 2006 vote. "I was one of them," he said. "That vote went overwhelmingly in favor of PG&E."

Beyond knocking on doors, PG&E dropped $11 million on the campaign, outspending the competition 10 to 1.

But Darbee said it was a real victory in a state like California. "There’s always been in the water a desire for public power," he said, adding that 30 percent to 40 percent of the population approves of municipally-owned utilities.

Customer service, Darbee went on to say, is the best defense against threats to PG&E. And for the past two years, PG&E’s corporate strategy has been focused on that. To that end, its ranking in an annual JD Power customer satisfaction survey rose from 51 to 43 last year for the residential sector, and from 46 to a lofty second place for business customers.

But the JD Power survey also ranks municipal utilities, and 2007 results show PG&E was outpaced by three municipalities — the Salt River Project, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, which also took the highest ranking in the nation. *

Disclosure: Amanda Witherell owns 14 shares of PG&E Co. common stock.

We do

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› steve@sfbg.com

Less than two hours after the California Supreme Court announced its 4–3 decision legalizing same-sex marriage, San Francisco City Hall filled with smiling couples and local politicians of various ideological stripes to celebrate the city’s central role in achieving the most significant civil rights advance in a generation.

The case began four years ago in San Francisco when Mayor Gavin Newsom decided to have the city issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. City Attorney Dennis Herrera and his legal team built the voluminous legal case that won an improbable victory in a court dominated 6 to 1 by Republican appointees.

"In light of the fundamental nature of the substantive rights embodied in the right to marry — and the central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society — the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all individuals and couples, without regard to their sexual orientation," Chief Justice Ronald George wrote in the majority opinion.

Newsom cut short a trip to Chicago to return home and make calls to the national media and join Herrera’s press conference, where hundreds of couples who got married in San Francisco City Hall were assembled on the City Hall staircase as a backdrop to the jubilant parade of speakers that took the podium.

"What a wonderful, wonderful day," a beaming Herrera told the assembled crowd, adding, "California has taken a tremendous leap forward."

Some speakers (as well as the next day’s coverage in the San Francisco Chronicle) emphasized the potential of the issue to embolden conservatives and the possibility that a November ballot measure could nullify the decision by, as a prepared statement by Rep. Nancy Pelosi put it, "writing discrimination into the state constitution."

But for most San Franciscans, it was a day to celebrate a significant victory. Herrera praised "the courageousness of the California Supreme Court." He also commended Deputy City Attorney Terry Stewart, who argued the case, legal partners such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the eight other California cities that supported San Francisco’s position with amicus briefs — and Newsom, who clearly soaked up the adulation and gave a fiery speech that could easily become a campaign commercial in his expected run for governor.

"I can’t express enough how proud I am to be a San Franciscan," Newsom said, later saying of the decision, "It’s about human dignity. It’s about human rights. It’s about time."

Newsom also emphasized that "this day is about real people and their lives."

Among those people, standing on the stairs of City Hall, was Emily Drennen, a current candidate for the Democratic County Central Committee and the District 11 seat on the Board of Supervisors, who was the 326th couple to get married in San Francisco, taking her vows with partner Linda Susan Ulrich.

"When it got nullified, something was taken away from us. It really felt like that," Drennen told the Guardian, adding that she was thrilled and relieved by the ruling. "I was just holding my breath this whole time, expecting the worst but hoping for the best."

Herrera spokesperson Matt Dorsey, who is gay, was similarly tense before the ruling, knowing how much work had gone into it but worried the court might not overcome its ideological predisposition to oppose gay marriage.

"For everyone who worked on this, it was the case of their lives," Dorsey told us. "Politically and legally, there was so much work that this office did that I’m so proud of, and I hope people understand that." *

The peakers vs. Mirant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

When the ruling on same-sex marriage came down, I was in upstate New York, hanging out with my brother, who runs a small construction outfit in a working-class town. His employees are the people Democratic leaders worry about; a generation ago they were called "Reagan Democrats." They make extremely un-PC jokes and insult each other with terms that would make most San Franciscans cringe.

And you know what? They couldn’t possibly care less about same-sex marriage.

"The people in my crew have families to feed and payments to make on their houses," my brother told me. "They don’t care who marries who. It’s the most ridiculous issue in the world." (My brother, who got married on his lunch hour wearing overalls covered with concrete dust, also told me years ago that "marriage is like a horse with a broken leg; you can shoot it, but that doesn’t fix the leg." You get the picture).

Yes, there are gay couples living in his little community. The framers and roofers treat them like everyone else. The construction workers are not remotely disturbed about queers being threats to their traditional values or marriages. And they’re all voting for Obama because they’re sick of the war, sick of the recession, sick of the cost of health insurance, sick of the politics in Washington DC, and ready for something totally different.

I thought about all of that when I came back and read the San Francisco Chronicle stories repeating the old argument that same-sex marriage could be the bane of the Democrats in November. It’s the same thing Rep. Nancy Pelosi says about all kinds of social and economic issues: we can’t go too fast. We might piss off some swing voters.

Sure, you might do that. And I’m not a pollster, and my focus group, as it were, is fairly narrow here. But I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that among rapidly growing numbers of Americans, gay marriage is becoming pretty insignificant as a wedge issue. I used to say that in 20 years, people would look back at this era and wonder what the foes of marriage equality were thinking. Now I suspect we’ll only have to wait 10 years, maybe less, before this is totally accepted in the mainstream of American society.

When somebody like Mayor Gavin Newsom takes the lead on a civil rights issue like this, I think it’s pretty crass to question his motives. But you can’t dispute the outcome: Newsom may have been acting out of pure principle or out of political calculation. But in the end, his career is now tightly tied to an issue that is part of the future. He will never have to say he was sorry about this, and all of the weak and trembling little Democrats who are wringing their hands will all look like idiots one day. One day very soon.

If Newsom wants to be governor, this can only help him — but it won’t be enough. My brother’s point is that the country is in a deep recession, the economy is a disaster, economic inequality is ruining the American Dream, and social issues aren’t going to carry the day. A politician who won’t tax the rich to improve the lot of the poor and the middle class, who won’t offer comprehensive economic solutions, who has nothing to say to people who make their living building houses when the housing market is in free fall … that politician’s going nowhere. *

Go directly to court

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› news@sfbg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RFK Jr. and NRDC part ways on power plants in SF

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On May 12, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, founder of Waterkeeper, senior counsel for the Natural Resources Defense Council, and as big a wig as Al Gore in the environmental hall of fame, decided to weigh in on San Francisco’s plan to build two fossil fuel-burning power plants. He sent this letter to the Board of Supervisors, Mayor Gavin Newsom, the CPUC’s Mike Peevey, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, urging them to back away from a future hooked to fossil fuels.

“Given the size and impact of this project, I respectfully urge you to listen to the public interest and environmental groups such as Sierra Club and SPUR that are calling for an independent study to determine whether these power plants are truly required in 2008,” Kennedy wrote.

But, lest you get confused about how emphatically concerned an eco-heavy-hitter like NRDC is about San Francisco’s energy future, the group sent another letter three days later saying they don’t have a position on the controversial issue, and don’t plan on taking one. That letter was signed by Ralph Cavanagh, who handles energy issues for NRDC and has been a champion of decoupling — which utility companies love because it separates the profit-making from the energy-consuming, thus ensuring they still take home a pretty penny while encouraging customers to cut back on energy use.

Craig Noble, spokesperson for NRDC, explained the discrepancy by email, writing, “Bobby wasn’t representing NRDC in his official capacity when he took a position on that particular project. It was unclear to some people that he was speaking as a private citizen, so NRDC released a letter of clarification – we have not looked at this project and therefore have not taken a position.” He also wrote they probably wouldn’t, as they tend to focus on broader policy issues rather than individual projects.

A number of environmental and social justice groups have also allied against San Francisco’s plan to build the peakers, strongly urging city officials to step it up with renewables rather than natural gas, and sending letters with their eco-group stamps all over them. They also met with Newsom to express alternatives to the peakers, according to Josh Arce of Brightline Defense, one of the leaders of the environmental front.

But it wasn’t until Newsom’s staff met with PG&E, the quiet giant of the anti-peaker movement, that the Mayor put the brakes on the power plant’s approval process. After that meeting, Newsom intervened last week at the Board of Supervisors, temporarily pausing the approval process of the peaker plan while he called for the exploration of other alternatives.

PG&E’s peaker-less proposal

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For all those following the latest and greatest in the saga of San Francisco’s energy future, here’s a copy of the proposal PG&E put before Mayor Gavin Newsom’s staff on March 5, and which has been making rounds at City Hall. It outlines (though doesn’t go into too much detail) a number of energy efficiency measures, demand-response targets, and transmission upgrades.

Tony Winnicker, spokesperson for the SFPUC, seemed nonplussed by the plan, and said it only slightly differed from a past anti-peaker proposal from PG&E that Cal-ISO found wasn’t enough for San Francisco to forgo building two new combustion turbine power plants. The new plan includes a line connecting two substations in Potrero and Embarcadero, ultimately making our local grid a little more dynamic. But, said Winnicker, “There’s no indication from Cal-ISO that doing this would allow us to close Potrero without Cal-ISO’s consistent requirement of ‘in city, dispatchable, reliable’ generation.”

Cal-ISO’s Gregg Fishman said the new proposal had pros and cons they’d have to weigh, and introducing a new plan at this point could mean more delays on closing Mirant. “One drawback to a transmission alternative is that building a new major transmission project, instead of installing the peakers, will mean potentially years of delay in the closure of the highly polluting Potrero. Additionally, any new in-city resources, including demand response, would need to be available “around-the-clock” to meet national reliability standards the ISO is required to uphold. Currently, demand response is not available 24/7.”

Don’t know about you, but my Mission district mailbox has been bombarded by scary mailers from PG&E, posing as the Close It Coalition, screaming “NO NEW POWER PLANTS.” They claim environmental reasons but one inside source told me PG&E is “paranoid” about public power. Their 2007 annual report to shareholders includes a section detailing the risks of loosing customers to Community Choice Aggregation or municipalization of electricity services. (See pages 74-76 of this document. I also recommend page 56 for details on the fossil fuel burning power plants PG&E is also building, that are bigger and dirtier than the city’s would be.) Peter Darbee, CEO of the corporation, also expressed his own personal concern about public power at PG&E’s May 14 annual meeting (but you’ll have to tune into tomorrow’s Guardian for details on that.)

The perils of private wi-fi

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Tom Ammiano, who was just up in Portland, alerted me to this. That city’s ambitious plans to let a private company wire the entire area have fallen flat. The job is only one-third done. The company’s out of money. It’s a mess.

In other words, the critics of Mayor Newsom’s old Earthlink-Google wi-fi plan were absolutely right.

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