OPINION Until two years ago I didn’t give a rat’s ass about pigeons. But then I began researching my book, and I was stunned by what I didn’t know. I quickly grew to admire the birds — and this coming from a guy who still prefers playing fetch with a dog to running about with a pair of binoculars chasing pretty tail.
San Francisco, it seems, is of two minds about pigeons. The city was ahead of the curve (as usual) when it banned avicides, which are used to target pigeons but indiscriminately punish all birds. That’s a great thing. Not only are the avicides cruel and difficult to control — they don’t work. Sure, you’ll see a lot of dead pigeons around. You might even see them fall out of the sky and convulse on the ground. But as they say, nature abhors a vacuum, and even more pigeons will fill the void.
San Francisco has also banned the feeding of pigeons (although songbirds still get a free lunch). The ban feels a touch cruel, but the city is on to something: too much food leads to too much breeding, which leads to too many pigeons, which leads to collections of unsightly droppings. It’s not the pigeons that are the problem, it’s that there are simply too many of them, which is why their droppings appear to pile up. Overfeeding exacerbates the problem.
But rather than banning feeding altogether, the city should consider reguutf8g the feeding. People like feeding pigeons, and there’s no law short of capital punishment that will stop them from this enjoyable pastime.
Many European cities have had success with a humane pigeon control policy that drops a pigeon population by half in a handful of years. It works like this: the city places modern-day dovecotes around town and encourages citizens to feed the pigeons there and only there. Pigeons like dovecotes and choose to lay their eggs there. At the end of each week, a park’s employee can cull the eggs.
Wildlife can be inconvenient. But does that mean we need to brutalize it? The pigeon has athletic abilities and an unparalleled history nothing short of astounding. Pigeons are the world’s oldest domesticated bird — Noah’s dove was a pigeon. They have been utilized by every major historical superpower from ancient Egypt to the United States. It was a pigeon that delivered the results of the first Olympics in 776 BCE and a pigeon that first brought news of Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo some 2,500 years later. Nearly a million pigeons served in both world wars and are credited with saving thousands of soldiers’ lives. They have served us loyally for aeons — and look upon us as their guardians.
Pigeons don’t carry any more diseases than we do, and they are only as filthy as our own cities. The queen of England doesn’t consider the birds dirty. Rather, she owns racing pigeons. Many of us forget that pigeons are really just doves (rock doves), which we view as a sign of purity. Picasso’s doves? He was painting pigeons. In fact, he named his daughter Paloma, Spanish for pigeon.
It’d be great if America’s most progressive city were to develop a humane pigeon control program that the rest of the nation could then copy. Not only would it be great publicity for a great city, it’s the right thing to do. SFBG
Andrew D. Blechman
Andrew D. Blechman is the author of Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World’s Most Revered and Reviled Bird (Grove Press).
Opinion
Be nice to pigeons!
Over easy
› paulr@sfbg.com
Changing public consciousness is an inglorious task that seems to involve a great deal of repetition. There is an art to repetition, to saying the same thing over and over without boring or infuriating people or losing one’s patience at their benightedness and resorting to jeremiads. But observation suggests that this branch of the suasive arts is, in our drink-Bud-or-we’ll-kill-you culture, at least slightly in eclipse.
Still, despite the rather dismal state of the art and the basic human resistance to change — our preferred mode of advance is evolutionary not revolutionary, as science instructs us — change does appear, sometimes with notable swiftness. The imperilment of the world’s fish, for instance, is a matter lately ascendant in the global consciousness. (Yes, I know I have mentioned this glum subject before — artfully, I hope.) In Honolulu on Nov. 10, I picked up a copy of the local paper, the Advertiser, to find that the op-ed page carried both an editorial calling for “aggressive management” by Hawaii’s Department of Land and Natural Resources of the state’s marine life — in particular, for enhanced protection of the bottom-dwelling and vulnerable species opakapaka and onaga — and an opinion piece (by Bruce Anderson, president of the Oceanic Institute) arguing that aquaculture, if responsibly practiced, can ease human pressure on the seas as a source of food. Research and innovation are critical here.
I was pleased, though not surprised, to find major Hawaiian media paying serious attention to the plight of fisheries locally and around the world. I was also pleased — and surprised — to find that awareness of the issue has seeped to deeper levels. While on a brief visit to a friend recovering from surgery at the Towers (the continuum-of-care facility on Cathedral Hill), I glanced at a menu in one of the dining rooms and saw on offer mahimahi, ling cod, and swordfish — all line-caught, the first and last in Hawaiian waters. There are some questions with all of these fish, and I would not give the menu a perfect ecoscore, since apart from everything else, “line-caught” is ambiguous. Some lines are better than others. Still, it was evident that even in some institutional kitchens, care is now being taken that might not have been taken five years ago. There must be more than a few people in the Towers asking an artful question or two about the food they’re being served.
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.
Clint Reilly wins a big one against Hearst and Singleton. Fighting to keep one newspaper towns from becoming a one newspaper region.
By Bruce B. Brugmann
On April 26, 2006, the McClatchy newspapers and the Chronicle/Hearst and MediaNews/Singleton publicly announced a complex series of transactions that resulted in Singleton owning three major Bay Area dailies (Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, and the Monterey Herald) that had been previously owned by Knight-Ridder and then McClatchy.
On the same day, April 26, 2006, Hearst and Singleton secretly signed a key centerpiece deal that set up a secret arrangement between Hearst and Singleton that in effect would allow them to join forces, destroy daily competition in the Bay Area, and establish a regional monopoly for the duration.
The key point: the two big publishing chains from New York and Denver lied in effect about the monopolizing features of their deal, and in effect concealed key evidence in the Clint Reilly antitrust case, according to Federal Judge Susan Illston. And then the two chains, who love to holler about freedom of the press and government suppression of documents, moved to keep the documents under seal, including the incriminating letter outlining the monopoly agreement. Their coverage amounts largely to rummy little business stories buried deep in their papers.
Illston neatly skewered the Hearst/Singleton lie that their deal was harmless and would not interfere with vigorous competition between the two companies. Illston quoted the April 26 letter, which she pointed out was not disclosed in the first hearing on a request for a temporary restraining order. (Alioto got the letter in discovery. It is an even bigger bombshell than his charge in the first Reilly trial that Hearst was “horesetrading” favorable coverage for political favors with then Mayor Willie Brown and others to get political help on its moves to create a morning monopoly.)
The letter of agreement was from Hearst Corporation Vice President James Asher to Joseph Lodovic, president of MediaNews. She quoted “in pertiment part” these statements: “The Hearst Corporation and Media News Group agree that they shall negotiate in good faith agreements to offer national advertising and internet advertising sales for their San Francisco Bay Area newspapers on a joint basis, and to consolidate the San Francisco Bay area distribution networks of such newspapers, all on mutually satisfactory terms and conditions, and in each case subject to any limitations required to ensure compliance with applicable law.
“In addition, Hearst and MediaNews agree that, with respect to the newspapers owned by each of them on the date of this letter, they shall work together in good faith to become affiliated with the networks operated by Career Builder…and Classified Ventures) on the same terms, and each of Hearst and MediaNews further agrees that neither of them shall enter into any agreement, arrangement, or understanding to participate in Career Builder or
Classified Ventures or their respective networks with respect to such newspapers unless the other party is offered the opportunity to participate on identical terms…”
Illston quoted extensively from the “secret” letter, but the Guardian and nobody else can see the letter, oor the supporting documents and depositions, that would further flesh out monopoly deal. That is a terrible position, let me emphasize, for big daily chains to be taking in federal court these days.
Illston said the letter “casts serious doubt on several key findings underlying” her previous order denying a temporary restraining order. She said that she had previously accepted Hearst arguments that “Hearst’s involvement in the transactions was solely that of a passive investor.” But she continued, “Though (Hearst and Singleton) offered no explanation why Hearst was willing to finance an acquisition that would only make competition stronger, the Court did not understand that Hearst expected, or would receive, any quid pro quo. However, the April 26 letter suggests, at the very least, that Hearst’s involvement was specifically tied to an agreement by MediaNews to limit its competition with Hearst in certain ways.”
This “cooperation” between Hearst and Singleton, she said, was “in fact, quid pro quo for Hearst’s assistance to MediaNews in acquiring two of the Bay Area papers.” (The quid pro quo was also a $300 million Hearst investment in Singleton, which I think might evaporate should Illston ultimately nix or water down the deal.) Illston also said the letter indicated that the Chronicle may not continue to be “strong competition” for the other Bay Area papers.
Had the letter been disclosed to the court, she said, it would have “affected the court’s analysis of the McClatchy-MediaNews-Hearst transactions in this case.” Summing up, she stated that “such agreements, the mere existence of the letter, and the cooperation between Hearst and MediaNews they reflect, increase the likelihood that the transactions at issue here were anti-competitive and illegal.”
And so she granted a temporary restraining order in part and temporarily restrained and enjoined Hearst and Singleton from entering into any agreements “of the nature described in the April 26 letter, including agreements to offer national advertising sales for their San Francisco Bay Area newspapers on a joint basis, and consolidation of the Bay Area distribution networks for their papers.” She ordered Hearst and Singleton to show cause at a Dec. 6 hearing why she should not impose a preliminary injunction. Quite an opinion.
As an antitrust attorney told us after reading the opinion, “How the hell does Joe Jr. keep getting the Hearst people to lie under oath, then cough up the documents that prove it? Haven’t they figured out that judges don’t react well to that little character flaw?”
Implicit in all of this is Brugmann’s Law of Journalism: where there is no economic competition, there is no news or editorial competition. Suddenly,for the first time ever by the terms of the proposed deal, daily competition would be eliminated and one of the most liberal and civilized areas of the world would be firmly under the monopoly thumb of conservative billionaires from New York and Denver. The result would give ad rates a monopoly boost, gut and centralize editorial staffs, make editorials and endorsements ever more uniform and conservative, and send all profits out of town on a conveyor belt to headquarters to buy more properties. The carnage is well underway (note our stories and those carried on ChainLinks, the newspaper guild publication)
Illston should disclose the letter and other documents in open court. And the U.S. Justice Department and California Attorney General should awake from their long naps and jump into this case and stop this secretive march to regional monopoly. Meanwhile, thank the Lord for Reilly and Alioto. Keep on rolling. B3, celebrating San Francisco values since l966
P.S. We are running lots of material on this story, including the judge’s order, because it amounts to a “censored” story in the mainstream media. Each year, as the local part of our Project Censored package, we cite the monopolization of the press story. We will follow the current version along in the Guardian and the Bruce blog. Send us your comments and evidence of Eurekas or Censored material. (See previous blogs)
The morning after by G.W. Schulz
While drunk on big newspaper purchases, Dean Singleton promised competitive papers and no layoffs. Now he’s swinging the ax, cutting deals with Hearst, and decimating local news coverage
Judge slams daily-paper chains by Tim Redmond
With a federal court ruling exposing a secret plan by Hearst and Singleton to join forces and end competition, the federal and state Justice Departments should intervene – and all records in the case should now be open
More on Singleton by G.W. Schulz
Read the judge’s decision
Judge Susan Illston’s ruling on Hearst-MediaNews collaboration
Guilty of independent journalism
OPINION The pogrom against independent journalists who refuse to conform to corporate media definitions of what a reporter should be continues full throttle. The murder of Indymedia correspondent Brad Will on Oct. 27 on the barricades in Oaxaca by gunmen in the employ of that southern Mexican state’s bloodthirsty governor segues into the denial of the courts to release 24-year-old Josh Wolf from prison during the life of a federal grand jury.
Wolf is charged with refusing to turn over video clips of an anarchist anticapitalist march on Mission Street during which San Francisco’s finest beat the living shit out of protesters (and at which one cop claims to have been maimed).
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is now insisting that it will entertain no further motions in the case, which insures Wolf will earn a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-serving imprisoned reporter in US history.
The callous and cynical response of corporate media (with some notable exceptions) to these outrages has been as grievous as the crackdown by the courts and the death squads on independent journalists. The New York Times and its accomplices — including the New Times version of the Village Voice — insinuate that Will was less than a journalist. Will, the corporados cluck, was a tree sitter and a squatter, a troublemaker rather than a young man who reported on trouble.
Similarly, Josh Wolf is often treated as a postadolescent blogger — as if blogging were not reportage — and an anarcho-symp unworthy of the concern of serious journalists who graduated from famous J-schools.
Compare how the plights of these two brave young journalists are being spun with that of the notorious Judith Miller. Miller, whose 11 mendacious front-page New York Times stories on Saddam Hussein’s fictitious weapons of mass destruction helped justify the Bush invasion that has now taken 650,000 Iraqi lives, was jailed for refusing to give up the name of a friendly neocon who outed a CIA operative the White House did not cotton to. I submit that Miller is as much an activist as Will and Wolf — she’s just on the wrong side of the barricades.
When I was a younger fool just getting started in the word trade, I was sent off to federal prison, much like Wolf. I was the first US citizen to be jailed for refusing induction in the Vietnam War military. I wrote my first articles while imprisoned at Terminal Island Federal Penitentiary in San Pedro and helped formulate a convicts committee against US intervention (everywhere), for which I was regularly tossed in the hole, the prison within a prison. Jail was fertile turf in which to learn how to write.
When, finally, I was kicked out of the joint, the parole officer who had made my life hell for a year walked me out to the big iron gate at TI and snarled, “Ross, you never learned how to be a prisoner.”
Brad Will never learned how to be a prisoner either, and neither will, I trust, Josh Wolf. All of us, both inside this business and out, owe these two valiant reporters a great debt for their sacrifices in defense of freedom of the press.
Live, act — and report back — like them! SFBG
John Ross
John Ross, whose latest volume, ZAPATISTAS! Making Another World Possible — Chronicles of Resistance 2000–2006, has just been published by Nation Books, teaches a seminar on rebel journalism at San Francisco’s New College.
The new media offensive for the Iraq War. Why the Santa Rosa Press Democrat/New York Times ought to stop “censoring” and mangling Project Censored and its annual list of censored stories on Iraq and Bush et al
By Bruce B. Brugmann
Norman Solomon, a syndicated columnist who appears on the Guardian website, wrote a chilling column this week
on how the “American media establishment has launched a major offensive against the option of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.”
He noted that the “heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA–the front page of the New York Times. The present situation is grimly instructive for anyone who might wonder how the Vietnam War could continue for years while opinion polls showed that most Americans were against it. Now, in the wake of midterms elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war, powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops.”
Solomon cited a Nov. l5 front page piece by Michael Gordon under the headline “Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say.” Gordon then appeared hours later on Anderson Cooper’s CNN show, “fully morphing into an unabashed pundit as he declared that withdrawal is ‘simply not realistic,'” Solomon said.
“If a New York Times military-affairs reporter went on television to advocate for withdrawal of U.S. troops as unequivocally as Gordon advocated any such withdrawal during his Nov. l5 appearance on CNN, he or she would be quickly reprimanded–and probably would be taken off the beat by the Times hierarchy. But the paper’s news department eagerly fosters reporting that internalizes and promotes the basic world views of the country’s national security state.”
Solomon’s key point: “That’s how and why the Times front page was so hospitable to the work of Judith Miller during the lead-up to the leadup to the invasion of Iraq. That’s how and why the Times is now so hospitable to the work of Michael Gordon.”
And so it is not surprising that the New York Times and its Santa Rosa daily have been so inhospitable through the years to Project Censored, housed nearby at Sonoma State University. (See my previous blog and the scathing criticism by founder Carl Jensen and current director Peter Phillips of PD/NYT coverage of the 30th anniversary project and conference.)
I asked Jensen about the PD and Times record of covering what ought to be a top annual local and national press story. “At first,” Jensen said, “the PD merely ignored the Project. Then, after Newsweek ran a column about it, the PD was embarrassed into covering it. Which they did, using the annual results as an excuse to criticize me for being a liberal, left-wing agitator. Finally, they just started to run one story a year, or sometimes none, announcing the results. This year they didn’t even bother to announce the results for the 30th anniversary of the project. Instead, they did Paul Payne’s hit piece about Steve Jones. To my knowledge, and a Lexis-Nexis search, the New York Times has never run an article about the project.”
The PD has also not answered my impertinent questions about their censor-or-mangle coverage, which I emailed to the reporter, editors, and publisher.
Let us remember that IF Stone, in his famous IF Stone’s Weekly, exposed in l964 the Gulf of Tonkin scam only days after President Johnson used it as the excuse to expand U.S. involvement in Vietnam. And ever after he led the journalistic charge brilliantly against the war. It took years and tens of thousands of dead American soldiers for the New York Times (and the other big “liberal” papers, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post) to figure out that Stone was right and change their “we can’t get out now” news and editorial policies in support of the war. If Project Censored had been going at that time, Stone and his powerful little four page publication would have had major stories on the Censored list every year.
My impertinent advice to the Post Democrat and the New York Times: if you are are going to run Jayson Blair and Judith Miller and Michael Gordon and Paul Payne, then you sure as hell ought to be giving serious regular coverage to Project Censored at Sonoma State University and its annual roster of major “censored” stories the New York Times, PD, and the mainstream press don’t cover properly. Why not start by running Phillips’ op ed piece and inviting Jensen, Phillips, and their Project Censored crew into the PD for a full editorial conference and a podcast question and answer session? B3
The new Iraq-war media offensive
How powerful institutions like The New York Times are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops
BY NORMAN SOLOMON
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat/New York Times “censors” the annual Project Censored story. Why? Some impertinent questions for the Press Democrat by Bruce B. Brugmann
No more surveillance cameras
OPINION In July last year, San Francisco began installing video surveillance cameras to monitor the public streets. What quietly started as a pilot program with two cameras in the Western Addition has quickly expanded, with more than 30 cameras throughout the city. The Mayor’s Office is seeking to install 22 more cameras at a number of locations, including heavily trafficked areas such as the 16th Street and Mission and 24th Street and Mission intersections.
On Nov. 15 the Police Commission will decide whether to approve the installation of additional cameras. It should reject the mayor’s proposal and send a strong message that scarce public safety dollars should be spent on less intrusive and more effective programs such as increased foot patrols, improved lighting, and community policing.
While surveillance cameras may seem like an intuitive solution to the serious problem of violent crime, in reality cameras pose significant threats to civil liberties while providing few public safety benefits. Study after study demonstrates that video surveillance does not reduce violent crime in cities.
In Britain, for example, where there is one camera for every 13 people and the average person is photographed more than 300 times a day, a recent comprehensive review of 13 jurisdictions showed that cameras do not reduce crime or fear of crime. A University of Cincinnati study found that cameras in its city merely shifted crime beyond the cameras’ view. As Cincinnati police captain Kimberly Frey mentioned in one recent news report, “We’ve never really gotten anything useful from them…. We’ve never had a successful prosecution…. We’re trying to use … money for other things.”
With limited public safety dollars, cameras deprive more effective programs of funds that would significantly reduce crime. Studies show that improved lighting can reduce crime 20 percent, and increased foot patrols have also been shown to significantly impact crime, including violent offenses.
Moreover, the ever-increasing expansion of surveillance cameras poses a significant threat to our privacy. The prospect of 24-hour surveillance of innocent San Franciscans — with video accessible to city officials and the public under state open-records laws — is chilling in and of itself. If the trend continues, cameras installed today may be paired with other new developments, such as facial recognition and Radio Frequency Identification technology, giving law enforcement the ability to develop dossiers about our personal lives.
While San Francisco has some regulations governing camera use, those regulations have already changed and may change again, due to an overreaching political response to crime concerns. To see San Francisco’s future, one need only look to the inspiration for the program — Chicago. There, Mayor Richard M. Daley recently announced a plan that by 2016 would put a camera on almost every street corner in the city.
In light of the significant privacy and free speech implications and limited public safety benefit, the Police Commission should decisively reject further camera placement and strongly urge the mayor and Board of Supervisors to pursue effective programs. San Franciscans deserve more than symbolic measures like video surveillance cameras in response to very real crime problems. Scarce public resources should not be spent on ineffective Big Brother surveillance programs. SFBG
Mark Schlosberg and Nicole A. Ozer
Mark Schlosberg is police practices policy director, and Nicole A. Ozer is technology and civil liberties policy director, respectively, for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California.
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
City hall’s new secrets
EDITORIAL Back in 1999 reporter Scott Rosenberg dug up a juicy little scoop for Salon: he found out that part of Microsoft’s annual report was written on an Apple computer. That caused the giant purveyor of Windows software (and Apple competitor) no small amount of embarrassment. And Rosenberg did this without any secret source or leaked records; he just looked at the metadata embedded in the files of public company documents.
Metadata is part of the new frontier of public-records law. It’s the stuff you can’t see that’s hidden in digital versions of, say, Microsoft Word documents. It shows what computer (and type of computer) created the document and often shows the revisions the document has gone through. It’s sort of an electronic history of what used to be something typed on paper — and as such, it’s extremely useful to researchers who want to follow what the government is doing.
It’s also, all too often, something that public officials want to hide. That’s the case in San Francisco, where Gloria Young, the clerk of the Board of Supervisors, has refused to release copies of the original Word versions of what are clearly public records. She wouldn’t, for example, give out a Word copy of the city’s Sunshine Ordinance.
That’s a mistake — and the Board of Supervisors needs to direct Young to change her policy.
Young isn’t refusing to release the records per se — she’s had them made into PDFs, the electronic equivalent of photocopies that don’t contain the embedded data. And she’s released those versions. The office of City Attorney Dennis Herrera concluded Sept. 19 that city officials have the right to withhold metadata and provide documents only in PDF format. The argument, contained in a six-page memo, goes more or less like this:
A Word version of a document can be edited and changed — and thus someone who requests a public record might alter it and then pass it off as a true version.
Besides, metadata might possibly contain privileged information (legal advice from an attorney). It might include early drafts of a document (which are exempt from disclosure but really shouldn’t be). And it might give somebody with evil intent the ability to hack into the city’s computer system and do a lot of damage.
In the end, deputy city attorney Paul Zarefsky argues, figuring out where there is and isn’t metadata and what it might include is a huge job that requires special skills and would be inordinately burdensome for city agencies.
The first argument is just silly. Sure, somebody could take a copy of a city record and alter it — but enterprising scammers have always been able to take real records and turn them into phonies. That’s why the city keeps the originals on file and releases only copies.
The rest of Zarefsky’s analysis is a bit more complex. But in the end the posture of the city is far too defensive. This is, after all, data that was produced by city employees on the taxpayers’ dime. And like just about everything else the city produces — with only narrow exceptions — it ought to be released to the public.
We don’t buy the argument that there are vast stores of deep secrets lurking in the metadata that might somehow damage the city’s interests. There may be a few specific cases in which documents have been reviewed by the City Attorney’s Office and might include confidential advice. But most of the material will simply show who created the document, how it was edited (and by whom), and how all of that relates to the final product. Like the Microsoft revelation, some of that might embarrass city hall — but that’s not an excuse to keep it secret.
Tom Newton, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association, noted in a Sept. 22 letter to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force that the “CNPA is aware of no other state or local agency that has adopted this restrictive policy.”
Herrera’s office, interestingly, isn’t arguing that all metadata must be secret — the opinion only says that department employees have the ability to withhold it if they want to. That’s where the supervisors need to weigh in.
Young asked the Rules Committee on Nov. 2 for policy direction on the matter. The committee heard testimony and took the matter under advisement.
The chair, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, should bring up the issue again at the next possible meeting, and the committee should direct Young — and all other city officials — to stop using metadata as an excuse to withhold documents. San Francisco ought to be taking the lead here and setting a policy precedent for cities across the state. SFBG
PS This is just one example of what seems to be a renewed war on sunshine at City Hall. The task force just had its budget cut and no longer has a full-time staffer assigned to it (although the Sunshine Ordinance mandates full-time staff assistance). The supervisors should make it clear that San Francisco isn’t going to slide backward into the old, dark days.
Keep police discipline public
OPINION Three years after San Francisco voters passed Proposition H, the landmark police reform initiative, the San Francisco Police Commission finds itself at a crossroad. At the heart of the matter is how the commission deals with one of the worst decisions to come out of the California Supreme Court in recent memory, Copley Press v. Superior Court. In that decision the court held that records reutf8g to police officer disciplinary proceedings are confidential and not subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act.
Citing the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, the court even held that an officer’s identity in disciplinary proceedings is confidential. How the Police Commission deals with this ruling will determine the level of openness with which the commission — and consequently, the Police Department — will conduct its business.
In turn, this may well determine the extent to which the promise of Proposition H — transparency and accountability for the police — will become a reality.
In an effort to protect transparency and accountability, the three undersigned police commissioners, as individuals, proposed what we believe is a commonsense approach to Copley: let’s comply with Copley’s requirement of confidentiality, but let’s only be as confidential as the decision requires us to be. Stated differently, let’s follow the law — but let’s be as open as the law allows.
This is why we proposed a rather simple and measured idea — since Copley only requires the confidentiality of records in police disciplinary proceedings and since the state legislature never gave police officers the right to confidential settlements, why not continue to handle such settlements out in the open, the way they’ve been handled for 14 years without ever facing a legal challenge? To be sure that our idea would pass legal muster, we asked the City Attorney’s Office to draft a resolution that would be legally viable and could survive legal challenge. That resolution was submitted for the public and the Police Commission’s consideration last week.
One would think a resolution reflecting a tried-and-true process that was never challenged in more than a decade, a process carefully vetted with the city attorney, would satisfy even the strictest of legal constructionists. And yet, not surprisingly, the San Francisco Police Officers Association has come out against our proposal to openly handle settlements in police disciplinary cases. Without citing any legal authority, the POA argues that police officers have the right to settle disciplinary cases through backroom deals without ever revealing their identity or the terms of the deal to the public.
The POA’s position seems to be shared by a number of other commissioners, and a counterresolution essentially changing how settlements are handled was recently introduced. Both our original resolution and the counterresolution are scheduled to be heard Nov. 15. Even though it’s unclear which resolution will pass, we remain hopeful that the Police Commission will not grant police officers a right the legislature never bestowed on them — the right to cloak settlements in secrecy. This is especially true since several commissioners come from communities adversely impacted by police actions and have a long legacy in support of civil rights and public access.
Openness in the handling of settlements in police disciplinary hearings has been the norm in San Francisco for more than a decade. There is no reason to change course today. SFBG
David Campos, Petra de Jesus, and Theresa Sparks
David Campos, Petra de Jesus, and Theresa Sparks are members of the San Francisco Police Commission.
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.
Still dizzy
› andrea@altsexcolumn.com
Dear Andrea:
About what you said about infatuation — isn’t it possible to be head over heels in love with someone and also have caring and mutual support? What would preclude it? I am not talking about commitment — there are lots of “committed” couples out there who don’t care at all and take each other for granted, as well as couples in the starry-eyed stage (I hope) who care for each other deeply. Caring should happen soon, otherwise it’s a crappy relationship, in my humble opinion.
Love,
Starry but Supportive
Dear Support:
There’s such a thing as spaghetti sauce, right? It’s made of tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, and probably some oregano or something, but regardless — the existence of spaghetti sauce does not negate the existence of tomatoes, onions, garlic, and so on. Each still has its individual reality; all can be combined in any permutation and will still probably be OK on pasta, even if these mixes can’t reasonably be referred to as “spaghetti sauce” specifically.
Right? Oh, what am I talking about? Love, intimacy, sex, romance, caring, trust, and commitment are components — any given relationship may contain any or all of them. Your relationship with your best friend? It has love, intimacy, caring, trust, and commitment. Your relationship with your husband? You probably hope to have all of them, with some in ascendance at certain times while others slack off, eventually to return. Not that a satisfying relationship must feature all seven above plus the ones I forgot. A pickup in the park doesn’t promise any more than sex alone, but if that’s what the participants were looking for, it’s hunky-dory. Even the classic “men are from Mars”–type hetero marriage is often big on trust and commitment (and some have plenty of sex and romance, even many years in) without being nearly as intimate as many people’s close friendships or even work partnerships. We tend in this culture to hold up an idea of perfect partnership. At San Francisco Sex Information we use a Venn diagram with love, sex, and intimacy as intersecting circles, with the middle representing the holy grail. But satisfactory relationships can be forged using whichever components suit the participants’ needs. There is no duty to conform to the current local ideal if you don’t feel like it. Nor is it a sin to settle, if you ask me. One does what works.
I make a distinction between loving a whole lot and limerence (which differs from infatuation both in duration and intensity). Limerence — or longing for reciprocity — is not so much a feeling as it is a form of madness, and like other forms of madness is turning out to have a biochemical basis. “When I think of you my serotonin plummets, my darling! O, how my dopamine soars!” Not that faithful, mutually concerned, monogamous pair-bonding is entirely without its biochemical aspects — look up “prairie vole” on the Web sometime. Drugs and varmints aside, though, of course you can love and care for and be supportive of the same person you’re deeply in love with but perhaps not madly in love with. You do have to know the person to have that sort of relationship, while to crush out wildly on someone, you needn’t even have met. Since true limerence is a form of madness, it doesn’t tend to concern itself with planning for the future either, beyond the obvious (and unprovable) “I will always love you.”
Now, while we’re on the subject of love and limerence, a reader tipped me off that I was mistaken: Dorothy Tennov did not pull the word “limerence” out of her scholarly butt back in the ’70s and the word does share a root with other English words, which I’d list here if I hadn’t promptly lost her e-mail. I was horrified, since who wants to be wrong? Happily, not only does the Wikipedia entry on limerence back me up on Tennov’s pure invention of the term (“The word was pronounceable and seemed to her and two of her students to have a “fitting” sound…. The coinages are arbitrary; there is no specific etymology”), but here’s Tennov herself, back in 1977: “I first used the term ‘amorance,’ then changed it back to ‘limerence’…. It has no roots whatsoever. It looks nice. It works well in French. Take it from me, it has no etymology whatsoever.”
So there we have it. As long as it works well in French! Unless Dorothy Tennov writes in telling me that she didn’t, after all, pull “limerence” out of her scholarly ass, I’m standing by my story.
Love,
Andrea
Andrea Nemerson has spent the last 14 years as a sex educator and an instructor of sex educators. In her previous life she was a prop designer. And she just gave birth to twins, so she’s one bad mother of a sex adviser. Visit www.altsexcolumn.com to view her previous columns.
Allison inspires youth
OPINION I first saw Aimee Allison, District 2 candidate for the Oakland City Council, when she addressed a large, enthusiastic crowd of high school students, mostly students of color, from Oakland Tech, McClymonds, and Skyline. She spoke about the ruin and costs of war, the need for decent jobs, and practical ways and means for overcoming poverty in Oakland.
What impressed me about the young, vivacious candidate from the Grand Lake–Chinatown district was not just her Ron Dellums–like vision of Oakland, where “a better world begins.” It was her special ability to break through youthful feelings of despondency, the Generation X cynicism that continues to impede social progress. Allison has a special asset that her adversary, incumbent Pat Kernighan, lacks: an ability to inspire hope and activism among youth, including the struggling students in the least affluent sections of our city.
On Sept. 17, Constitution Day at Laney College, students hosted a debate between Kernighan and Allison. After the debate I talked with Reginald James, a 24-year-old Laney College student. He told me other students agreed that Kernighan was unprepared. “She was unable to relate to youth, to find common ground.”
James said Kernighan tended to blame the federal government for Oakland’s problems, deflecting responsibility from the City Council on which she serves. In contrast, Allison said incumbents should accept accountability for their failures, and she challenged the students to become active in their own cause.
During the debate Kernighan was almost fatalistic. “When there are not enough resources, we have to make hard decisions,” she argued. After the debate, Oakland teacher Jonah Zern summarized Kernighan’s presentation: “Pat continuously stated that she was powerless to change the problems of Oakland, that it was the state and federal government that need to make changes. It made me wonder. Why was she running for City Council?”
It was not her political positions as such or even her record that irked the youthful audience. One student asked Kernighan why the streets in the flatlands are not as clean as those above the freeway. She replied, “They don’t sweep the streets up there because the people do not tend to throw their trash out in the street.” The insinuation that people in the hills are superior to less-fortunate folk upset some students. Allison’s remarks, in contrast, were well received. Allison said, “In rich neighborhoods, parents can raise money for their kids’ sports teams. In others, schools don’t have teams. In rich neighborhoods, they can send their kids to music lessons, while in poor neighborhoods, music and art programs are being cut. Every child deserves an opportunity.”
Kernighan works hard. She knows the ins and outs of city government. But she has no vision, no plan to address the structural defects of Oakland’s social life. As a successful businessperson, Allison responds well to the needs and feelings of the middle class. But unlike most politicians, she maintains close relations and ties with the young and poor of Oakland. She has a valuable talent for enlisting youth in the fight against crime, for uniting our diverse cultures.
Understanding the needs and longings of young Oaklanders, tapping their potential to become agents of change, is a precondition of effective leadership on the City Council. If the Laney debate is an example, Kernighan is out of touch. SFBG
Paul Rockwell
Paul Rockwell is a writer living in Oakland.
Why won’t the PG@E attorney for supervisor answer some questions?
Douglas Chan, an attorney with the law firm of Chan, Doi, and Leal, is a candidate for supervisor from the Sunset District. PG@E has paid $2l0,054 to his firm the last two years, according to PG&E’s filings with the California Public Utilities Commission.
Chan also disclosed that he has received more tthan $l0,000 during the last year in gross income including his pro rata share of the gross income of the firm from five clients (PG&E, Ferry Plaza Limited Partnership, Chess Ventures Legal Challenge, Sugarbowl Bakery, and Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association), according to his Statement of Economic Interest filed with the Ethics Commission. This is nothing new for Chan: Back in 2002, he put his name on PG@E campaign material opposing the public power initiative and supporting PG@E and thus earned a spot in the Guardian’s Hall of Shame that year.
The PG@E connection raises some serious questions for Chan. He refused to be interviewed for our Guardian editorial endorsement interviews of candidates for supervisor (even though most other candidates in other races came in for interviews.) And he and his campaign staff have refused to talk to us about these questions. So it may be up to the residents inside and outside the Sunset District to ask him these questions at candidates’ nights and when they spot Chan on the campaign trail. Good luck! Let us know. These are the questions I emailed today to Chan, his campaign manager Tom Hsieh jr., and his firm.
To Doug Chan, Tom Hseih jr., Nicole Yelich, and to Chan, Doi and Leal:
We’ re sorry that Doug Chan, as a candidate for public office in the Sunset District (not far from where I live), has decided not to come to the Guardian for our normal round of candidate interviews, as almost everyone has done in other campaigns.
We’re also sorry that we cannot reach him, or anyone in his campaign, who can answer some important questions about the relationship that he and his law firm have had with PG@E for years. So I am asking these questions by email (for Guardian coverage and for my Bruce Blog at sfbg.com):
l. PG@E has paid $2l0,054.ll to the Chan, Doi, and Leal law firm during the last two years, according to PG@E filings with the CPUC. What has PG@E paid the law firm so far this year? Will PG@E be an ongoing client of the firm? What is the total that PG@E has paid the law firm through the years? What percentage of the firm’s revenue has been paid directly or indirectly by PG@E, year by year? If elected, will Chan fully divest himself and disengage completely from the firm?
2. What work has Chan himself done for PG@E? In reading through the resume of Chan and the partners of the firm, it doesn’t appear that this firm or its partners have any specific utility or energy expertise. Why then did PG@E hire this firm?
3. Did PG@E encourage Chan to run for the Sunset supervisorial seat?
4. Have you asked the city attorney for an opinion on how PG@E’s hiring of the firm and Chan would affect his votes and whether he would have to recuse himself on such votes as public power, the community choice aggregation project, and the many other projects and votes involving PG@E? If you have an opinion, what is it?
5. What is Chan’s position on enforcing the Raker Act and bringing Hetch Hetchy power to the city for our residents and businesses? Would he vote to put on the ballot an initiative proposal to buy out PG@E’s transmission lines and make San Francisco a public power city? Would he for example support proposals such as the last two public power proposals that went on the ballot? We would appreciate his reasoning on this critical issue that costs the city hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
6. Would he vote to direct the city attorney to sue PG@E to make null and void the city’s l939 PG@E franchise fee, which is the lowest in the state, and PG@E claims is signed in perpetuity? If not, why not? We would appreciate his reasoning on this critical issue that costs the city tens of millions a year.
7. What is Chan’s position on the community choice aggregation proposal now before the board? On the city’s development of alternative power sources such as solar, tidal, etc.? ON tearing down the ruinous Potrero Hill power plant?
7. The critical question: given PG@E’s heavy investment in Chan and his firm, could Chan explain to us and the people of the Sunset how you would represent them fairly and honestly on these critical public power/public resource issues and not be under the influence of your former client PG@E?
Thanks very much. We would appreciate talking to Chan directly or, if that is not possible, getting his answers to the above crucial public power and public policiy quetions from him. Thanks very much. B3
Rallying point
By Steven T. Jones
It’s good to be reminded sometimes that San Francisco is truly an oasis in a desert of fear and ignorance. Yesterday’s City Hall press conference on the terrible Court of Appeals ruling against same sex marriage was one of those moments, when we felt unified in our quest for justice and equality. Despite this disappointment on the way to the eventual California Supreme Court hearings, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said, “We are steadfast and couldn’t be prouder to be at the forefront of this battle.” And everyone felt it. Win or lose, we’re doing the right thing. “We’re making tremendous progress,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom, who didn’t mince words when describing the majority opinion that traditional marriage shouldn’t be updated by the courts: “They made a mistake.”
Both sounded notes of optimism. Said Newsom, “I’m confident we’re going to get there, but today was an emotional setback.” Yet Herrera noted that we need to be vigilant against the right wing forces that are trying to make judges fear doing what they must: “The threat to the independence of the judiciary by those screaming about judicial activism is a disgrace.”
Carried away
› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com
CHEAP EATS Over the years I have said goodbye to a lot of cool people in this paper. Haywire went to Maine. Moonpie went to Pittsburgh. Rube Roy went home. E.B. Matt became S.D. Matt. Johnny “Jack” Poetry I packed up and delivered to Idaho with my own two hands and old van and creaking heart. Birdbrain Brad went to Denmark. Satchel Paige the Pitcher, Thailand. Noah, J.C., Jason.
Now this …
Oof, me and Carrie moved here together 16, 17 years ago, after the earthquake. Drove across the country in my ’71 LTD with all our stuff in the backseat and trunk. We were at that time lovers, best friends, and bandmates. Some of that would change, because things do, but whatever the words were, we only got closer and closer and closer.
Tonight I’m cooking for her and Marc, another old relocated pal of mine, who’s here to help move her with him to New York. This will be the first time in our 20-plus years of kindred-spirit-ship that we won’t be living in the same place.
For dinner: one of my chickens!
I was, what, 22 when I met Carrie. Graduate writing program, UNH. In addition to falling immediately in love with her, I became a 10-times better writer on the spot. She’s still my go-to editorial opinion. Got me started playing music, showed me where to put my fingers on a ukulele, crafted the sort of songs that make you have to write them too, started a band with me — my first. So whether it’s songs or sentences, her influence has shone through everything I’ve done ever since.
And now she’s inspiring me in love. I’m serious, you should see her and Marc together. You can’t be jaded or cynical. You just can’t.
So I’m meeting a lot of new people, making new friends, going to parties where I don’t know anyone, smiling and talking a lot, because what can I say? Life is pretty cool.
At a party where I knew almost everyone, we said good-bye to her longtime pad, Belle Manor. Crashed in Joe’s room, woke up too early, crossed paths with Carrie on her way back to bed from the bathroom, hugged her, said I’ll see you tomorrow night, and booked it over to Berkeley to make new friends. This guy Quinn had asked me to have lunch with him and his Cheap Eats fan girlfriend, by way of surprising her for her birthday.
I said what I say now: “Sure!”
They were colorful folks with cool things to say. Beautiful! And the food was all right. I was surprised, actually, because it had been a long time since I’d eaten at Vik’s Chaat Corner. I remembered it being better than this. Which isn’t to say it isn’t my new favorite restaurant, just that I was probably a little overhungover, underslept, and yeah, kind of crunched up inside.
We talked about: dancing, Dickens, the universe, Indiana, growing up weirdos in normal-ass places. We ate: Bhatura cholle, which is a huge puffy mushroom cloud of crispy doughy stuff you break apart with your hands and dip into a delicious garbanzo bean curry. A bunch of other things from the chaat menu, because these folks are vegetarian. And I ordered lamb baida roti to be contrary, but it backfired because it wasn’t very good. It was OK, but all the vegetarian stuff was better, especially bhel puri, which is pretty much rice crispies with onions and cilantro instead of milk and strawberries.
The place got supercrowded while we were sitting there, chatting and chaating. Fortunately, it’s a lot bigger than it used to be. Didn’t the eating area used to be in the same place as the store, tucked away in a corner or something? Well, Vik’s has changed (because things do). People still like it though, and Quinn and Cynthia love it.
She got a little boxful of desserty pastries because it was her birthday. Happy birthday, girl!
Chaat means “to lick,” it says on the menu.
Now I have to hit the kitchen again and see if I can’t make a miracle. I want this tough, too-old hen to be the best thing I ever cooked. I wanted this article to be the best one I ever wrote, but I don’t think that happened either. Edit me, Cares. SFBG
VIK’S CHAAT CORNER
Tues.–Sun., 11 a.m.–6 p.m.
724 Allston Way, Berk.
(510) 644-4432
Takeout available
No alcohol
MC/V
Boisterous
Wheelchair accessible