San Franciscans at every level — from individual homeowners to neighborhood groups to public safety advocates and city officials — have been complaining for years about how slowly Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has been moving its overhead power lines underground. The case for undergrounding is clear and indisputable: buried wires are not only far more aesthetically pleasing, they’re far safer, particularly during earthquakes, when wires hanging over streets can snap, start fires, cause electrocutions, and generally be a real menace.
But PG&E won’t pay for the full cost of undergrounding. So wealthy neighborhoods where property owners have agreed to cough up a few thousand dollars each get their wires buried, and the rest of the city waits. There’s a city fund to help underwrite the cost in other parts of town, but it’s never been a big fund, and now it’s out of money. The Utility Undergrounding Task Force is preparing to ask the supervisors to add a modest 5 percent tax on every electric bill in the city to pay for moving 490 miles of wires under the streets.
The tax isn’t going to bankrupt anyone — for most residential users, we’re talking about a couple of dollars a month. But the whole idea strikes us as backward thinking: Why should city residents and businesses pay a private utility to do something that it ought to be required to do on its own? Why is the city even talking about taxing residents to subsidize PG&E when the company is already operating an illegal monopoly in town — and when the very mention of the Raker Act, the federal law that requires the city to run a public power system, ought to be enough to get the utility to fall into line and pay its own undergrounding bills?
And why are we talking about putting a bandage on a system that doesn’t work when a concerted effort at bringing public power to San Francisco — now, not later — would make the entire discussion unnecessary? After all, any credible economic analysis will show that public power would bring so many hundreds of millions of dollars into the city that minor irritants like burying power lines wouldn’t cost the taxpayers an additional penny.
We fully recognize that the battle for public power has never been and never will be easy. PG&E just spent upward of $10 million to defeat a public power plan in Davis, and that service area is far smaller than San Francisco. The company informed Mayor Gavin Newsom this fall that it will fight bitterly any municipalization effort. And there’s no giant pot of pro–public power money out there to finance a campaign.
But with the mayor, the head of the Public Utilities Commission, the city attorney, and two-thirds of the supervisors saying they support public power, it seems crazy to simply accept that the city is stuck under PG&E’s thumb for the foreseeable future (and that basic public safety amenities like buried power lines have to be paid for out of tax dollars). If Newsom is serious about this, he needs to step up and offer a public power plan — and if he doesn’t, the supervisors need to. And let’s not talk about higher utility taxes until they do. SFBG
Newsom
Tax money for PG&E? Why?
EDITOR’S NOTES
› tredmond@sfbg.com
Like far too many liberals, I spend far too much time listing to NPR, which can lead to a special kind of brain rot: I once actually sat through an hour-long program on Mormon folk songs that included a long, upbeat, and respectful ode to Brigham Young “and his five and 40 wives.” Jesus, that’s a lot of wives.
But there are things I love, and Science Friday is one of them. While I was fighting the traffic on my way back from a friend’s house in Healdsburg last week, I heard a fascinating interview with Michael Pollan, the UC Berkeley journalism professor who’s written a series of New York Times articles and now a book on how truly weird food production is in the United States in 2006.
Of course, everyone was digesting a big Thanksgiving dinner, and Pollan wasted no time getting to his thesis: if we are what we eat, then most of us are a mixture of corn and petrochemicals.
He’s got evidence of this too: he has a friend in the biology department at Berkeley who ran a bunch of samples of fingernail and hair clippings from students and learned that much of the carbon that makes up the basic organic structure of a lot of human bodies can be traced back to one Midwestern grain and some fossil fuels.
The cow or turkey or pig you ate was fed with corn. The sugar in the salad dressing came from corn. The calories in the sodas the kids were drinking came from corn. And the corn came in part from ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which came from petroleum.
The point of all of this is that America has created a monocrop food system (well, duocrop — a lot of the animal protein that we eat comes from soybeans). That’s not healthy for a long list of ecological reasons — and it’s really bad for the economy.
The thing is, very little of what we eat comes from anywhere near where we live. Iowa, one of the most agriculturally productive parts of the world, imports almost all of its food these days. The corn grown in the state is shipped to giant centralized animal feedlots, which ship meat elsewhere.
I mention all of this, which is hardly news to a lot of people, because it plays into something that’s going on the first week in December in San Francisco. Dec. 4 through 10 is Shop Local First Week, which sounds kind of like small-town-Chamber-of-Commerce-boosterish stuff (and indeed, Mayor Gavin Newsom, who clearly isn’t paying attention, has formally endorsed it), but there’s a lot more behind this. The Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, which sponsors the event, actually has a fairly radical economic platform emphasizing how local merchants — and not big chain stores and other out-of-town corporations — benefit local economies. In the food world, that means buying stuff grown somewhere near you (not hard around here). In the arena of holiday shopping (and consumer behavior in general), it means patronizing locally owned outfits — and not giving your dollars to the chains.
Our main news story this week (see “The Morning After,” page 18) illustrates well how big chain owners operate: the combine owned by Dean Singleton, which now controls almost all the big papers in the Bay Area, is laying off journalists and (maybe) outsourcing jobs to India. The San Francisco Chronicle is outsourcing its printing, killing the local press operators union.
And the money all leaves town. SFBG
Newsom should comply with Prop. I
OPINION Much has been said about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s stunning defeat at the ballot Nov. 7. Newsom’s slate of endorsements went down in flames — from supervisorial candidates Rob Black and Doug Chan to the contenders he hoped would take control of the school board to a host of progressive ballot propositions, including worker sick leave and relocation assistance for evicted tenants. Every incumbent supervisor was also reelected, indicating an overall approval level of the Board of Supervisor’s performance. And the voters took a further unprecedented step with the passage of Proposition I, which asked the mayor to appear before the board in person once a month to discuss city policy. The voters sent a clear message that they want the mayor to work with the supervisors rather than against them.
Will Newsom respect the mandate and comply with Prop. I? It’s anyone’s guess right now. The measure is not legally binding, and he vehemently opposed it. Here are five reasons why Newsom should comply with Prop. I:
1. The voters asked him to. Newsom claims to care about the will of the voters. He cited the “will of the voters” as his basis for vetoing a six-month trial of car-free space in Golden Gate Park — even though a trial has never been voted on. Will he respect the voters this time?
2. The status quo is not working. The homicide rate, traffic deaths, and Muni service have gotten worse every year under the Newsom administration. Commissioners aren’t being appointed on time, police reform is off track, promised low-income housing is delayed, all bicycle improvements are on hold, and our roads are falling apart. Popular public events such as the North Beach Jazz Fest are under attack by a city government that can’t keep Halloween revelers safe. Meanwhile, the mayor focuses on political damage control related to his apparent loss of the 49ers in 2012 and the Olympics in 2016.
3. Newsom consistently opposes ideas coming from the Board of Supervisors but doesn’t seem to have any of his own. The homicide rate is at an all-time high and keeps getting worse. But Newsom has opposed every significant measure proposed by the supervisors, including funding for homicide prevention and assistance for victims’ families via Proposition A, as well as police foot patrols. Fare hikes and service cuts haven’t solved Muni’s problems, but Newsom sided with the local Republican Party in opposing Proposition E, which would have provided much-needed funding for Muni through an incremental increase in the car parking tax.
4. Newsom has been missing in action too long. The mayor spent almost the full first three years of his four-year term fundraising around the country to pay off his 2003 campaign debts. This busy fundraising schedule, combined with the demands of his relentless PR machine, has sent the mayor chasing photo ops in China; Italy; Washington, DC; Los Angeles; Chicago; New York; and a host of other places. The majority of the voters are now siding with progressives, the Guardian, and even the San Francisco Chronicle in asking “Where is the mayor?”
5. The voters asked him to. Really, that should be enough. No? SFBG
Ted Strawser
Ted Strawser is the founder of the SF Party Party.
The next police chief
EDITORIAL Heather Fong is not a popular police chief these days. Nine of the 11 supervisors just rejected her proposal for staffing foot patrols and insisted on one of their own — with some of the supes openly saying they had no faith in her management of the department. And inside her own department, the knives are out — the Police Officers Association (POA), which has never liked having a chief who wasn’t part of the old guard, is practically gleeful at the idea that she may be ousted, and several senior commanders are said to be moving not-so-quietly behind the scenes to try to get her job.
Mayor Gavin Newsom has given no official indication that he’s preparing to fire her (although the rumors were swirling a week ago) and neither has the Police Commission, which by law has the final say. But Fong will have put in 30 years in the department this June, making her eligible for a very sweet retirement package. It’s safe to say that San Francisco will probably be looking for a new police chief within the next 12 months.
So it’s not too early for the mayor and the commissioners to make a few very clear statements about what they expect from the next person to lead the deeply troubled department. At the very least, there has to be a national search — and we’d argue that the next chief absolutely has to come from outside the department. The sooner that message gets out, the sooner all this ugly backstabbing and internal political maneuvering will end.
San Francisco has a tradition of bringing chiefs up from the ranks; it’s almost unheard of to do anything else. The late mayor George Moscone brought in an outsider, Charles Gain, who took a few steps to make the department more accountable and less intimidating and got a furious backlash from the troops. Frank Jordan, in the sort of bizarre backroom political move that characterized much of his mayoralty, handed the job to former sheriff and supervisor Dick Hongisto — who only lasted a few months.
Other than that, it’s been business as usual — one of the senior commanders gets picked by the mayor, and the commission goes along and rubber-stamps that decision.
But this department is desperately in need of fresh blood, of an outsider with a new perspective on the situation — and more important, no previous political baggage. Right now, the POA practically runs the department, effectively vetoing all sorts of reform efforts, and any chief who defies the powerful union is crippled. The disciplinary process is a mess — cops who would have been fired without a second’s thought in most jurisdictions walk away from serious offenses with modest suspensions and are back out on the streets. Department brass treat civilian oversight with open hostility — and do so with no fear of repercussions.
The crime rate, particularly the homicide rate, continues at unacceptable levels. And as we saw with the foot patrols, nobody at police headquarters is willing to step up and try anything creative or new.
Fong, for all her flaws, has tried somewhat to accept reforms in the department and is far better than anyone else on her senior command staff. In fact, the best argument for keeping her around is that nobody who’s likely to replace her is any better. But that’s not any way to run a big-city police department.
If Fong decides to leave or the commissioners decide that she can no longer handle the job, the city needs to immediately start looking for someone who has a proven track record of accepting civilian oversight, welcoming reform, and standing up to old-school police union tactics. That, almost by definition, means an outsider. SFBG
49ers aren’t worth public money
EDITORIAL The prospect of the San Francisco 49ers moving to Santa Clara — and taking with them any hope of a 2016 Olympic bid for San Francisco — caught the Newsom administration off guard and has much of City Hall scrambling to figure out a way to keep the fabled sports franchise in San Francisco. It’s not a futile effort by any means: the deal to build a new stadium in Santa Clara still has a long way to go, and there are some very real issues (including the phenomenal parking and traffic problems and the utter lack of accessible transit).
But city officials need to keep a sense of perspective here: the loss of the Olympics was almost certainly a good thing, and the loss of the 49ers wouldn’t be the end of the world. So there’s no reason to even start to talk about handing out promises of more public money, tax breaks, or favorable land deals to keep the Niners in town.
We’ve never been terribly hot on the idea of hosting the Olympics. The last time the issue came up, with a possible bid for the 2012 games, we noted that cities hosting the Olympics tend to wind up with huge public debt and that the costs (typically including gentrification and displacement) aren’t worth the gains. Our articles infuriated local sports leaders, but we’re not the only ones raising questions these days. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Gwen Knapp, in an insightful Nov. 16 piece, suggested that the city might want to thank 49ers owner John York: “He might have saved San Francisco from a vanity project that often leaves ugly blemishes on a community’s bottom line.”
San Francisco is one of the world’s great cities, an international tourist destination, a place that’s already on everyone’s map. We don’t need the Olympics.
We may not need the 49ers either. That’s what Glenn Dickey, Examiner sports columnist, argued Nov. 14. Football teams, with a limited number of home games, bring very little to a local economy — and this is hardly a city that needs the name recognition of a National Football League franchise. “Mayor Gavin Newsom should spend his time on more critical priorities,” Dickey noted.
Of course, if the 49ers leave, something has to be done with the park formerly known as Candlestick — a white elephant that cost the city tens of millions of dollars in bonds. But almost any sort of new development there would do more for the neighborhood than a stadium filled by people who drive in, bring their own food, drive away, and spend almost no money at local businesses.
The San Francisco Giants managed to build a new stadium almost entirely with private money, and it’s been a huge financial success. The city shouldn’t be tempted to throw big chunks of public money at keeping the 49ers from moving. SFBG
Board overrides Mayor’s foot patrol veto
By Sarah Phelan
It hasn’t exactly been a good couple of weeks for Mayor Gavin Newsom.
His picks for Board of Supervisors got thumped.
The 49ers said they’re running away with Santa Clara but keeping San Francisco’s name.
Newsom nix sayed the city’s Olympic bid
And then the Board of Supervisors overrode Newsom’s veto of police foot patrol legislation in a 9-2 vote that means the city will go ahead with a one-year citywide pilot project.
Worse, the nine sups that defied his veto got to explain their reasons, which included slamming the mayor and the police chief for lack of leadership..
Sup. Ross Mirkarimi talked about giving the mayor and Chief of Police plenty to time to take action. When they didn’t, and the Board took the lead, Mirkarimi says he was surprised by the mayor’s veto.
As for SFPD Chief Heather Fong’s hastily announced counter plan, which was made public on Monday, Mirkarimi said, “An acute difference between the two plans is that ours calls for accountability.”
Sup. Bevan Dufty, citing increased incidences of violent crime and inadequate response in the Castro, said “the visible presence of foot patrols is helpful.”
“No one is higher than the chief of police but the chief needs to speak up and to speak clearly without regard for where the chips may fall,” said Dufty, alluding to a lack of morale in the SFPD. “This vote is not offered as a criticism of the Mayor or the Chief. This is the best we can do as a Board right now. Let us rise above that and recognize that we need leadership.”
Sup. Chris Daly couldn’t resist asking how the increased number of officers under the Chief’s plan (44 isntead of the 33 specified in the Board’s plan) “isn’t playing politics.”
Sup. Tom Ammiano wondered what kind of cooperation will be forthcoming, and Sup. Fiona Ma noted that if there was a garbage problem or a flu epidemic, this board would propose a plan, which is why the board reacted to crime wave with foot patrols.
Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier, who along with Sup. Sean Elsbernd voted to uphold the mayor’s veto, said one of the problems was the way the ordinance was written.”
Elsbernd argued that the mayor and police chief should make policing decisions, not the Board of Supervisors.
But Sup. Gerardo Sandoval was upset that SFPD Chief Heather Fong had said that if the Board overrode the mayor’s veto, she didn’t want to disobey the Board’s legislation, but her captains might ignore it.
“We need to be very protective of our roles in this city,” Sandoval told his colleagues.
“To have a Chief of Police say something like that should not go unnoticed.”
Sup. Sophie Maxwell, noting that she probably has the highest incidence of gun violence in her district, recalled walking the precincts this fall and people telling her that they wanted to see the police,
“I have no choice. I have to do this,” said Maxwell of supporting the legislation.
Board Chair Aaron Peskin, who previously voted against the Board’s legislation, but ultimately voted to support it found it ironic that the legislation embraced by the police and the mayor “supports the Board’s idea.”
Sup. Jake McGoldrick found the SFPD’s counter proposal, “a day late, a dollar short.”
“For 5 months, 7 months, 18 months , we were looking for tools, all we got was reaction, not action. But there’s something hopeful about this dialogue.”
After the historic vote, SFPD Chief Heather Fong told the assembled media that she would disagree about their being a morale problem in the department.
Acknowledging that the SFPD is currently 300 officers under its mandated staffing levels, Fong said, “ I believe the captains have to have flexibility.”
Noting that the SFPD’s plan would kick in Nov. 24 and involve 44 officers, Fong added,” I believe the deployment plan will be incompliance with the legislation.”
As for the mayor, it would have been interesting to be a fly on the proverbial wall of his office.
Oh, the fists!
by Amanda Witherell
Mayor Newsom is getting pummeled left and right. (Actually, they’re probably all lefts.) Only one of his three acolytes won the election last Tuesday. The 49ers are waving good-bye after they promised they weren’t talking with any other cities. The Olympic bid went south with them. Supe. Aaron Peskin switched sides and Supe. Jake McGoldrick showed up for the Board of Supervisors vote for foot patrols.
Oh, what else…after Newsom said abolishing JROTC in public schools “sends the wrong message…” You guessed it: the Board of Education just voted to nix the program and send the military packing. What’s next for Mr. Popularity…
What’s with the pot bill?
By Tim Redmond
Sup. Tom Ammiano has a real simple measure coming to the board that ought to pass unanimously. It’s worked fine in Berkeley for many, many years. It works fine in Seattle, Santa Cruz, and Santa Barbara. And yet, it faces what could be a tight board vote and a mayoral veto. Crazy.
What Ammiano wants to do is make enforcing the marijuana laws the city’s lowest police priority. We’re just talking about possession laws, not sales. The city’s narcotics cops say it won’t be a problem. It will just send a message to the chief and the street patrols that they should worry more about violent crime than about busting someone smoking a joint in the park.
So far, Ammiano can count Sups. Jake McGoldrick, Chris Daly, Ross Mirkarimi, Aaron Peskin, Gerardo Sandoval and himself in favor. That’s six. But Mayor Newsom will probably veto it, so he needs two more.
Bevan Dufty and Sophie Maxwell really ought to get behind this.
Newsom fights veto override
By Sarah Phelan
With the Board of Supervisors set to vote Tuesday on the mayor veto of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s foot-patrol legislation, the mayor ‘s office has reportedly gone into overdrive to try to ensure his veto will hold .
The math is tough for Mayor Gavin Newsom: Supes Mirkarimi, Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano and Gerardo Sandoval are solidly behind the legislation. That’s four votes. Bevan Dufty, Sophie Maxwell and Fiona Ma all voted for it the first time around, when it passed 7-3, and all have spoken loudly in support of getting the cops out of their cars and into the neighborhoods. Jake McGoldrick was out of town for the vote, but he tells us he’ll side with the majority – which adds up to eight votes, enough to sustain a veto and deal the mayor an embarrassing political setback.
So Newsom is trying hard to get one of the eight to switch sides. Among the plays: Chief Heather Fong held a hastily arranged press conference Monday to announce her own, slightly watered-down foot-patrol plan, in a clear effort to undercut the supes. And we’re told that Senator Dianne Feinstein has been calling board members to lobby against the plan.
McGoldrick and Maxwell both told us that they were planning to vote to override the mayor’s veto, and chided Feinstein for getting involved. “If Feinstein wants to be mayor, she oughta run,” he said.
As for the police’s hastily announced foot patrol plan, Maxwell said, maybe it would be fine, but it was coming too late for her to backpedal.
“The mayor and Heather Fong had ample time. Why did we even get to this point? Because we’ve been asking and asking and finally we came up with legislation. The police have promised things before and didn’t do anything, so this isn’t the time for me to be backpedaling.”
Reached Friday Nov. 10, Dufty told the Guardian that he’s “always supported foot patrols” and has “no confidence” in Fong. But three days later, when Fong was promoting her alternative, all Dufty would say about his vote was, “no comment”
The wildest rumor had Newsom offering to fire Fong if some of the supes would back away from the veto override. The Mayor’s spokesperson, Peter Ragone insisted to us that “There’s no truth to that.” Then his line mysteriously went dead.
So who else could be the swing vote the mayor needs to keep his vanity intact?
Well, on Oct. 24, when the bill was approved, Sean Elsbernd, Michela Alioto-Pier, along with BOS chair Aaron Peskin voted against it.
Elsbernd and Alioto-Pier are known to be solidly in the mayor’s court. But what about Peskin?
Reached Monday night, Peskin wasn’t about to give up his voting plans, but he did say that he found it disingenuous of the mayor to veto the measure on the grounds that the board shouldn’t tell a paramilitary organization what to do, then turn around and say that he, the mayor, was planning to go ahead with foot patrols anyway.
Either way, Tuesday’s 2 pm board meeting will be worth watching.
As Sup. Mirkarimi told the Guardian, “People have told me that the police’s press conference was surreal, strange and desperate. The only reason we’re even in this position is because of an absence of leadership on the part of the chief of police and the mayor. And now they have the audacity to say that their plan is better than ours.
Public safety should never be compromised because of the Mayor’s vanity and the chief’s inaction. It’s an unreal, practically juvenile situation.”
“This is a progressive town”
By Steven T. Jones
Pollster David Binder was about to begin his regular election post-mortem in the SPUR offices this afternoon when I ran into Mayor Gavin Newsom’s press secretary, Peter Ragone. “Not a very good night for the mayor, huh?” I noted.
But rather than admitting the obvious, Ragone began to spin and dissemble like crazy, shrugging off the defeats of supervisorial candidates Rob Black and Doug Chan – who Newson endorsed and campaigned heavily for – and the approval of a slate of progressive ballot measures that the centrist mayor opposed.
“We endorsed them, but didn’t put a lot into it,” Ragone said, despite the fact that Newsom spent the last two weekends campaigning for Black and Chan (who finished in fourth place) and obviously made a high priority of defeating his main political nemesis of recent years: Sup. Chris Daly.
“The real key for us was Hydra Mendoza, who won [a seat on the school board],” Ragone said. “From my perspective, we now have the mayor’s education advisor on the school board. It’s a good thing.” Perhaps, although I noted that even with support from the mayor and lots of mainstream groups, Mendoza still finished behind a green: Jane Kim. He shrugged again, sticking to his line.
But Ragone can’t spin away the fact that, as Binder said a few minutes later, “I don’t think Newsom had a very good night.”
It was a night for the progressives, with Daly and most of his ballot measures winning decisively and San Franciscans proving themselves to be way to the left of even the leftward national trend. One indicator among many was that nearly 60 percent San Franciscans approved Prop. J, urging Congress to pursue impeachment even though soon-to-be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says she’s taken it off the table.
“It showed that we had a progressive turnout and this is a progressive town,” Binder said.
Midnight reflections
By Tim Redmond
The evening started out as a resounding victory for the national Democrats, a train wreck for California Democrats, and a defining night for San Francisco progressives. But the state results are getting a little tigher, and it now appears that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s huge victory won’t drag down every Democrat running for statewide office. John Garamandi may survive to be lieutenant governor (keeping far-right loon Tom McClintock out of that office). Jerry Brown will be the next attorney general, and Bill Lockyer the next treasurer.
And Prop. 90 seems to be sinking.
So all in all, a good night — except for Mayor Gavin Newsom, who must be sitting around wondering why none of the voters seem to want to do what he tells them to.
The near-certain defeat of Rob Black in District Six is a huge deal: It’s proof that a storng progressive with grassroots support and troops on the ground can beat back even a massive political assault by some of the most sophisticated and well-funded forces in the city. It’s also going to mena a few tough years for Newsom, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, SFSOS, Don Fisher and the rest of the anti-Daly gang: Daly has proven himself an effective politician, and he has never particularly liked it when jerks like these guys try to mess with him.
One of the more interesting aspects of this election was the money that Michela Alioto-Pier spent on ads for a race in which she had no real opposition — big, pricey, video ads on sfgate, for example. What’s that about? Well, part of what it’s about is that Mark Leno is in his last term in the state Assembly, and that seat will open up in two years, which means that in the spring of 2008, a Democratic primary contest will determine the next Assembly member from the east side of San Francisco. Tom Ammiano has already announced his candidacy. Bevan Dufty has loudly proclaimed that he won’t run. Is Alioto-Pier looking at that race?
If so, she’d probably have the support of the mayor — but from the looks of things tonight, that isn’t going to help much.
In fact, from the looks of things, Newsom needs to back away from the SFSOS types and try to make peace with the progressives if he wants to accomplish anything as mayor.
The SFPD will not reform itself
EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has vetoed legislation requiring a few police officers to actually walk beats in high-crime neighborhoods, says he was proud of the San Francisco Police Department’s action in the Castro on Halloween night. Proud? Some 800 cops were on hand, and yet someone managed to bring in a gun, shoot nine people — and get away. As we report on page 11, a lot of cops weren’t really doing much for most of the night except standing around; foot patrols (that is, cops actually mingling with the revelers, keeping an eye on things) might have prevented the shootings.
The SFPD is a mess — and the department isn’t going to reform itself. The mayor ought to be in the forefront on this, but he’s ducking — so the supervisors need to step up.
The foot patrol legislation, sponsored by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, is hardly radical and isn’t a threat to the department’s independence. The bill simply directs the department to put a few cops on the beat, out of their cars, in a few high-crime areas. It passed 7–3, with only Sups. Aaron Peskin, Sean Elsbernd, and Michela Alioto-Pier dissenting, and Sup. Jake McGoldrick absent. If that vote holds and McGoldrick sticks with the majority, the supervisors can override the veto.
But there’s immense pressure coming down on individual supervisors to change their votes, and even one member slipping away would allow Newsom’s position to hold. That’s unacceptable: every supervisor who approved foot patrols needs to vote to override the veto — and just to be sure, Peskin, who is generally good on these issues, needs to come over to the progressive side. This one modest mandate could be not only a lifesaver in areas with high homicide rates but also the beginning of some real change at the SFPD.
The Police Commission is struggling with a disciplinary issue that’s also potentially a turning point: three commissioners — David Campos, Petra de Jesus, and Theresa Sparks — want to refuse to settle any disciplinary cases unless the cops agree to make the settlement public (see Opinion, page 7). Commissioner Joe Veronese initially agreed with that proposal but has shifted his position and is offering a really weak alternative instead. That’s a bad sign for the politically ambitious commissioner; he needs to show some spine, defy the Police Officers Association, and sign on with the Campos plan.
This just in: Bill Lee, who works for Mayor Newsom and (sort of) for the airport, is up for reappointment as a planning commissioner at the Rules Committee on Nov. 9. It’s a clear conflict of interest: a city employee working directly for the mayor shouldn’t be on the Planning Commission. Besides, he’s been a pretty bad vote. The supervisors should send him packing. SFBG
Newsom gets hammered
By Tim Redmond
The big news of the night is that Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking a serious beating. The two candidates he invested the most time and political capital in — Rob Black and Doug Chan — are both going down to a clear defeat. In District 4, Chan has pretty much dropped off the map, with Ed Jew, Ron Dudum and Jaynry Mak locked in a close struggle for first place. This race will almost certainly come down to the IRV runoff.
“The mayor may be popular, but he has no coat tails,” Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi told me.
The bigger story is how little impact big money has had in district elections. If Daly pulls it out, and it looks like he will, and Chan loses, which is almost certain at this point, then it’s a sign that downtown really can’t buy district races.
Newsom vetoes foot patrols
By Tim Redmond
Late on a Friday, at the slowest possible time in the news cycle, when politicians make moves that they hope will get very little media attention, Mayor Gavin Newsom vetoed a plan to require police foot patrols in high-crime areas. That marks a dramatic shift in his position. Just a few days ago, he was prepared to sign the bill.
The veto sets up a fascinating showdown: Are there eight votes on the board to override the mayor? The measure passed 7-3 on its first round, with only Supervisors Aaron Peskin, Michela Alioto-Pier and Sean Elsbernd in opposition and Jake McGoldrick absent. Willl eight votes hold?
Daly Tube
By Steven T. Jones
There’s a fascinating mix of videos about Sup. Chris Daly on You Tube these days. You can hear Chris speak or people speak about him, or you can watch political ads with stark contrasts between the Daly lovers and haters. The ads for him are funny and whimsical, the ones hitting him are dark, scary, misleading, and in one case, racist. They say Daly “never passed a single law to combat crime,” even though he chaired the committees that passed two budgets filled with crime-fighting measures, as well as placing the crime-fighting Proposition A on the June ballot, which narrowly failed because it was opposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, opponent Rob Black, and the pro-Black Police Officers Association (which was loathe to spend $10 million on violence prevention programs instead of just more cops and overtime, which is the Newsom/Black strategy). But the funniest accusation is how Daly is now in the pocket of downtown interests, with one video showing Daly morphing into former Mayor Willie Brown, who Daly has a storied history of fighting on behalf of the anti-downtown forces. Yes, it’s true that Daly has gotten some developer money in this election, but that’s only because he’s made himself the go-to person for facilitating projects by developers who are willing to provide the maximum community benefits and affordable housing payments — which is what progressives demand of developers. Even downtown interests like SPUR have said this is true (the whole story is here). The bottom line: Black and his downtown buddies (from mentor Jim Sutton to SFSOS to BOMA) know D6 voters want someone to stand up to downtown, so they’re throwing a bunch of smoke and misinformation up in the air to confuse the issue. Don’t be fooled…but enjoy the show.
The risk of honest planning
OPINION At the Nov. 1 meeting of the land use committee of the Board of Supervisors, a seemingly straightforward statement of policy will be heard. It simply requires that the city apply its own General Plan guidelines to future development in the eastern neighborhoods.
But the legislation, proposed by Supervisors Sophie Maxwell, Jake McGoldrick, Aaron Peskin, and Tom Ammiano, is creating quite a furor. A senior planning official has testified that if it’s adopted, the entire development boom in the eastern neighborhoods may be halted. The mayor has threatened a veto.
The policy in question calls for city planners to show how they intend to ensure that 64 percent of all new housing development is affordable to moderate-, low-, and very low-income San Franciscans. That’s what the housing element of the master plan says is needed.
Land use development policy lies at the very heart of San Francisco politics. It’s dangerous work for supervisors to attempt to determine that policy, especially if it calls for protection of existing neighborhoods and their residents.
Just ask Supervisor Chris Daly.
Don’t for a minute believe that he is in the fight of his political life because he’s rude, because he doesn’t care about law and order, or because he prefers dirty streets upon which to raise his son. These petty and silly charges mask a far more serious objection: the way his opponents see it, Daly has been too slow in adopting the massive wave of market-rate housing slated for his district and is far too protective of lower-income residents in District 6.
Never mind that since Daly took office some 3,000 units of housing have been built in the South of Market portion of his district alone or that an equal amount wait in the pipeline at the Planning Department. Mayor Gavin Newsom and his market-rate developer allies are simply not satisfied with Daly’s pro–housing development approach — because Daly has sought some balance in that development.
Likewise, the Maxwell resolution calls for plans that will be balanced, contain sustainable development policies, and guarantee a voice for residents against the headlong drive of the current administration to convert the eastern neighborhoods (South of Market, Potrero Hill, the Mission District) into vertical gated communities for Silicon Valley commuters. It states that it shall be the policy of the city that future plans explain not only how they will meet the affordability goals of the housing element but also how they will meet policies of preserving the arts and other productive activities; providing for public transit, pedestrian, and bike rider needs; protecting employment opportunities for current and future residents; and keeping families with children in the city.
There’s a working majority of the Board of Supervisors willing to fight for current neighborhoods and residents and a future that includes them. The battle in District 6 shows that the fight is not without risk. Do the rest of us realize it? SFBG
Calvin Welch
Calvin Welch is a community organizer in San Francisco.
Potholes, boozehounds and graffiti all stricken with fear in the wake of Newsom’s speech
By G.W. Schulz
Newsom proved during his State of the City speech yesterday at Burton High School in the Portola neighborhood that he’s got all the skills in the world necessary to … fill potholes. Look out world. Our fine-looking mayor has announced a sweeping new initiative to thoroughly repair the city’s roads.
“Not just patchwork,” he growled, as the utilities, seen regularly these days chopping up pavement across the city to mend the network of pipes underneath, trembled in fear.
With the guts of a grizzled marine, he challenged graffiti to a duel. Forging ahead with raw conviction, he fearlessly vowed to tackle busted sidewalks. And God-damn if it ain’t tough findin’ a cab in this city when you’re wasted and the party’s movin’ from last call to a friend’s apartment. That will change under the FDR-inspired, second-term platform of Gavin “the pulpit-pounding populist” Newsom.
PG&E’s candidates
EDITORIAL We’ve seen plenty of allies of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. We’ve seen a few PG&E bagmen, PG&E shills, and PG&E fronts. But there’s never been anyone elected to the board in our 40 years who was actually a paid attorney for PG&E.
This year there’s at least one and possibly two candidates who have worked as PG&E lawyers — and that alone should disqualify them ever from holding public office in San Francisco. The most obvious and direct conflict involves Doug Chan, the former police commissioner who is seeking a seat from District 4. Documents on file with the California Public Utilities Commission show that Chan’s law firm, Chan, Doi, and Leal, has received more than $200,000 in fees from PG&E in just the past two years.
Chan won’t come to the phone to discuss what he did for the utility, won’t respond to questions posed through his campaign manager and press secretary, won’t return calls to his law firm, and thus won’t give the public any idea what sorts of conflicts of interest he’d have if he took office.
This is nothing new for Chan: back in 2002 he put his name on PG&E campaign material opposing public power and earned a spot in the Guardian’s Hall of Shame.
Then there’s Rob Black, who worked as an attorney for Nielsen Merksamer, the law firm that handled all of the dirty dealings for the anti-public-power campaign in 2002. Black worked with Jim Sutton, his former law professor and PG&E’s main legal operative, during that period but insists he did no work on anything related to PG&E or the campaign. That’s tough to believe.
All of this comes at a time when PG&E is going out of its way, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, to buff up its image — and to fight the city’s modest but significant plans for public power.
As Steven T. Jones reports on page 16, the notorious utility is well aware that its future in San Francisco is shaky. The city is bidding to provide public electric power to the Hunters Point shipyard redevelopment project and preparing to provide public power to Treasure Island. There is a study in the works to look at developing tidal power. The supervisors are moving forward on Community Choice Aggregation, which will put the city directly in the business of selling retail electricity to customers (albeit through PG&E’s grid). And there’s talk brewing of a public power ballot initiative for next November.
PG&E president Thomas King met with Mayor Gavin Newsom this summer and sent him a nice, friendly letter afterward discussing all the ways the city and PG&E could work together.
But in fact, the utility is already opposing even the baby steps coming out of City Hall: PG&E has bid against San Francisco for rights to sell power to the shipyard, and that’s forced the city to cut prices and reduce the revenue it could have gained from Lennar Corp., the master developer. PG&E is trying to stop the city from selling power on Treasure Island and has financial ties to a private company that has rights to Golden Gate tidal power development until 2008. Meanwhile, the utility just hired the former secretary to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission — a woman who sat in on every closed-session strategy meeting the panel held, including sessions dealing with litigation against PG&E.
In other words, PG&E is gearing up for all-out political warfare — and the mayor and supervisors need to start preparing too. From now on, people should see whatever PG&E does as hostile — and on every front the city needs to adopt an aggressive strategy to move forward toward eliminating the company’s private power monopoly.
For starters, it’s ridiculous that the city should have to fight PG&E for the right to sell power at the Hunters Point shipyard. The Redevelopment Agency should have made public power a part of the program from the start, and the supervisors should examine that plan immediately to see if it can be amended to require Lennar to buy power from San Francisco. Newsom needs to take to the bully pulpit and say that if PG&E gets this contract, nobody on the Redevelopment Agency Commission will ever be reappointed.
Meanwhile, when Chan and Black appear anywhere in public this election season, they need to be asked to fully disclose their ties with PG&E and outline their positions on public power.
And it’s time for the public power coalition to start meeting again, with the aim of crafting a ballot measure that will create a full-scale municipal system, perhaps as soon as November 2007. SFBG
PS PG&E already has one staunch ally on the board, Sean Elsbernd, a Newsom appointee who also worked in the late 1990s for the Nielsen firm. That’s three too many.
PPS If Newsom is really for public power, as he claims, then why is he pushing so hard for two PG&E call-up votes for the board? And why is he not publicly denouncing PG&E’s attempt to scuttle public power and lending his political capital to a new municipalization effort?
PPPS The SF Weekly’s Matt Smith last week all but endorsed Doug Chan — but made no mention of Chan’s PG&E ties. Did that somehow slip through Smith’s investigative reporting net?