Parking Archives — Page 2 of 39 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Motorists fight back

Michael Redmond

July 15, 2014

Believing that they’re somehow discriminated against on the streets of San Francisco, a new political coalition of motorists, conservatives, and neighborhood NIMBYs last week [Mon/7] turned in nearly twice the signatures they need to qualify the “Restore Transportation Balance in San Francisco” initiative for the November ballot.

It’s a direct attack on the city’s voter-approved “transit-first” policies, which prioritize alternatives to the car, and efforts to reduce automobile-related pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It would prevent expanded parking meter enforcement unless requested by a neighborhood petition, freeze parking and permit rates for five years, require representation of motorists on the SFMTA board and create a Motorists Citizens Advisory Committee within the agency, set aside SFMTA funds for more parking lot construction, and call for stronger enforcement of traffic laws against cyclists.

“I think it’s been building for a long, long, long time, but the real catalyst was the Sunday and holiday parking meters,” political consultant David Looman — the 74-year-old Bernal Heights resident who is one of three official proponents of the measure — said of the motorist anger that led to the campaign. “That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Yet he also said the meetings that led to the measure began in March, after Mayor Ed Lee had already called for a repeal on charging for parking meters on Sundays. The SFMTA voted to repeal Sunday meters in April, a month before the measure was certified to begin gathering signatures — an effort paid for by tech titan Sean Parker (founder of Napster and a top investor in Facebook) and the city’s Republican Party, which kicked in $49,000 and $10,000 respectively.

But Looman fears the repeal of Sunday meters could be temporary and that a small minority of road users are dictating transportation policy in a way that unfairly discriminates against motorists.

“The bike lobby is running transportation policy in San Francisco,” Looman said, even though motorists “are the overwhelming majority and we make this society run.” He said the city needs to do more to facilitate driving “so the economy can continue to function, so people can continue to shop.”

But given that drivers already dominate the space on public roadways, often enjoying free parking on the public streets for their private automobiles, transportation activists say it’s hard to see motorists as some kind of mistreated population.

“Anyone looking at how street space is allocated in our city or at the fact that a mere 1 percent of transportation funding is focused on biking improvements knows that we have a long way to go toward creating real balance on our streets,” San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Leah Shahum told us. “City leaders are making up for decades of lost time by rightfully investing in safe, affordable and healthy transportation options.”

“The idea that anyone who walks or cycles or takes public transit in San Francisco would agree that these are privileged modes of transportation is rather absurd,” Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and an elected member of the BART board, told the Guardian.

He said this coalition is “co-opting the notion of balance to defend their privilege. They’re saying the city should continue to privilege drivers.”

But with a growing population using a system of roadways that is essentially finite, even such neoliberal groups as SPUR and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce have long promoted the idea that continued over reliance on automobiles would create a dysfunctional transportation system.

“This balance measure would be a terrible step backward for San Francisco, and it misunderstands what makes cities work,” SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf told the Guardian.

But the revanchist approach to transportation policy in San Francisco has been on the rise in recent years, starting with protests against parking management policies in the Mission and Potrero Hill, and continuing this year with the repeal of Sunday meters.

The coalition behind this ballot measure includes some of the combatants in those battles, including the new Eastern Neighborhoods United Front (ENUF) and old Coalition of San Francisco Neighborhoods. Other supporters include former westside supervisors Quentin Kopp, Tony Hall, and John Molinari, and the city’s Republican and Libertarian party organizations.

They seem to be banking on the idea that motorists are a majority of the population and should be able to dictate transportation policy.

“With 79 percent of San Francisco households owning or leasing an automobile and nearly 50 percent of San Franciscans who work outside of their homes driving or carpooling to work, it is time for the Mayor, the Supervisors, and the SFMTA Board to restore a balanced transportation policy for all San Franciscans,” the group claims on its petition.

Walk SF has long advocated transportation policies that would better protect pedestrians, focused largely on trying to slow down automobiles and create safer street crossings using curb bulbouts and other tools, all of which proponents of the initiative criticize for making the streets less “efficient” for cars.

“Between bulbouts and bike lanes, the space given to cars has been drastically reduced,” Looman said.

Walk SF Executive Director Nicole Schneider told the Guardian that any effort to bring “balance” to the city’s transportation policy would help those who walk, which includes all San Franciscans at times.

“Pedestrian safety is something that accounts for 50 percent of all traffic fatalities in San Francisco and has traditionally been given 1 percent of the transportation budget,” Schneider said.

While some city officials have embraced pedestrian safety after a recent record 20 pedestrians were killed by cars in San Francisco last year, joining New York City with Vision Zero goals that seek to eliminate pedestrian fatalities, that program still hasn’t been fully funded.

Schneider said that addressing pedestrian safety means slowing down cars, citing studies showing that the chance of a collision causing a death increases exponentially with a vehicle’s speed: “There is a direct connection between slowing down traffic and reducing all deaths.”

But the initiative criticizes the “increased travel time for motorists” and calls for this official city policy: “Any proposed re-engineering of traffic flows in the City should aim to achieve safer, smoother-flowing streets.”

It’s hard to see how the initiative does anything to create “safer” streets, particularly when one listens to the rhetoric and standards of proponents of the measure.

For example, Looman considers Valencia Street to be “a disaster” after taking away a car lane to create bike lanes more than a decade ago. Yet many cyclists and city officials see Valencia as a well-functioning transportation corridor, with its “Green Wave” timed stoplights that allow both bikes and cars not to get caught in any red lights if they travel at 13 mph. Obviously, good transportation policy is a matter of perspective.

“Any city that has a Costco has to make substantial accommodation for automobiles. It’s not realistic for this to be a transit and bike town,” Looman told us, calling for the city to cater more to shoppers, families, and others that he says need to drive.

But Metcalf said it’s not realistic for San Francisco to continue catering primarily to automobiles in its transportation policy, which was the approach adopted in the bland and environmentally unsustainable suburbs that simply doesn’t work in big cities.

“Cities are crowded, diverse, and messy. There is not a great city in the world where it is easy to park,” Metcalf said. “What we need to be doing is ramping up our investments in transit, walking, and biking, not ramping it down. We need to be moving toward a city where there is less driving.”

At its core, the initiative calls for a revanchist approach to transportation policy, conjuring up a bygone era of unfettered automobility even as the number of residents and workers using the finite street grid increases substantially.

Asked what he’d like to see in transportation policy for San Francisco, Looman told us, “Let’s go back 10 years, before the proliferation of bike lanes and increased parking fees.”

“Prioritization of the single modes of transportation isn’t a matter of ideology, it’s a matter of geometry,” counters Radulovich. “We’re all better off, including motorists, if we prioritize other modes of transportation and encourage people to get out of their cars.”

Yet many San Franciscans resent being told there are limits to how much transportation policy can prioritize free parking and fast-moving streets. Radulovich said that while conservatives are driving this coalition, anger over the city’s transportation policies is based more on a sense of entitlement than conservative principles (for example, the SF Park program criticized by the coalition uses market-based pricing to better manage street parking and encourage turnover in high-demand areas).

As Radulovich said, “There are certain people who believe in the welfare state, but only for cars and not for humans.”

Treasure Island development plans moving forward after lawsuit rejected

Sasha Cuttler

July 10, 2014

Treasure Island development plans moving forward after lawsuit rejected

Construction on the first 1,000 of up to 8,000 new homes planned for Treasure Island could begin as soon as next year after the State Appeals Court this week rejected a challenge of the project’s environmental impact report by Citizens for a Sustainable Treasure Island, a grassroots group led by former supervisor Aaron Peskin.

The group challenged the project’s unanimous 2006 approval by the Board of Supervisors after its terms were modified the next year by the developers, Wilson Meany and Lennar Urban, to increase the number of homes and decrease their affordability. The project Peskin helped approve was 6,000 homes, 30 percent of them affordable, but now it’s up to 8,000 homes, 25 percent affordable.

More recently, stories by the Center for Investigative Reporting/Bay Citizen, San Francisco Chronicle, and others have also found evidence of lingering radiological contamination on the island from its days as a US Navy base, something that Peskin told us should raise concerns about the project.

“Obviously, we are disappointed in the court ruling and are very concerned it ignores the now widely reported news that Treasure Island is much more contaminated, by radiologically contamination, than we knew,” Peskin told us. As for whether his group intends to appeal the case to the California Supreme Court, he said, “We are assessing our options.”

Wilson Meany principle Chris Meany didn’t immediately return Guardian calls for comment (we’ll update this post if and when we hear back), but in a press release, he said, “After several years of unnecessary and costly litigation, we can finally begin building more homes for people who want to live in San Francisco.”

In addition to the homes, the project includes up to 500 hotel rooms, 450,000 square feet of retail space, 100,000 square feet of office space, and 300 acres of open space. To compensate for projections that rising seas caused by global warming would inundate the artificial island by the end of the century, its height will be raised substantially, with the EIR noting there will be about 100,000 trucks of landfill coming over the Bay Bridge during construction.

Traffic generated by the project has been a major concern of transportation officials from the beginning. San Francisco Transportation Authority Executive Director Tilly Chang said the challenge was, “How do you keep the Bay Bridge flowing and not muck up traffic?”

The plan calls for expanded bus and shuttle service to Treasure Island, new ferry service from the Ferry Building, and both expensive parking on the island for non-residents and a toll for driving onto the island, most likely set at $5, Chang said. The ferry service is set to launch around when the first phase of housing construction is complete, probably in 2018.

Meanwhile, work has already begun on a project to replace and improve the freeway ramps at adjacent Yerba Buena Island and the bridge that connects them to Treasure Island. SFTA Deputy Director for Capital Projects Lee Sage said the ramps will give much more time for cars to slow down or accelerate as they enter or exit the freeway there.

“It’s going to be very complicated, but we’re on target,” he said, estimating the eastside ramps will be done in 2016 and the westside ones a few years later.

Just last month, the Board of Supervisors approved terms accepting Treasure Island from the US Navy. Later this month assuming that the issue of radiological contamination doesn’t derail the transfer — the city and project developers are scheduled to pay the Navy $55 million for Treasure Island and complete the deal.

But Peskin’s group and its attorney Keith Wagner, objected to the transfer in a June 25 letter to the Navy, calling for more studies on the substantially increased density of development on the island and more thorough testing and cleanup of contamination.

Wagner wrote, “In summary, the Navy’s 2003 EIS, on its own terms, did not evaluate the true nature of the City’s far more expansive contemporaneous development plans/proposals, let alone the even more expansive development plans that were ultimately devised and approved by the City in 2011; in the decade since the 2003 EIS was finalized, the Navy has developed significant and substantial new information indicating the nature, scope and severity of radiological and hazardous materials across NSTI that could impact the City’s 2011 development plans.”

Motorists fight back in “transit-first” San Francisco

Sasha Cuttler

July 8, 2014

Motorists fight back in “transit-first” San Francisco

Believing that they’re somehow discriminated against on the streets of San Francisco, a new political coalition of motorists, conservatives, and neighborhood NIMBYs yesterday [Mon/7] turned in nearly twice the signatures they need to qualify the “Restore Transportation Balance in San Francisco” initiative for the November ballot.

It’s a direct attack on the city’s voter-approved “transit-first” policies and efforts to reduce automobile-related pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It would prevent expanded parking meter enforcement unless requested by a neighborhood petition, freeze parking and permit rates for five years, require representation of motorists on the SFMTA board and create a Motorists Citizens Advisory Committee within the agency, set aside SFMTA funding for more parking lot construction, and call for stronger enforcement of traffic laws against cyclists.

“With 79 percent of San Francisco households owning or leasing an automobile and nearly 50 percent of San Franciscans who work outside of their homes driving or carpooling to work, it is time for the Mayor, the Supervisors, and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) Board to restore a balanced transportation policy for all San Franciscans,” the group claims on its petition.

He said this coalition is “co-opting the notion of balance to defend their privilege. They’re saying the city should continue to privilege drivers.”

But with a growing population using a system of roadways that is essentially finite, even such neoliberal groups as SPUR and the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce have long promoted the idea that continued overreliance on automobiles would create a dysfunctional transportation system.

“Prioritization of the single modes of transportation isn’t a matter of ideology, it’s a matter of geometry,” Radulovich said. “We’re all better off, including motorists, if we prioritize other modes of transportation and encourage people to get out of their cars.”

Still, the revanchist approach to transportation policy in San Francisco has been on the rise in recent years, starting with protests against parking management policies in the Mission and Potrero Hill, and continuing this year with Mayor Ed Lee successfully pushing the repeal of charging for parking meters on Sundays.

Spokespersons for the coalition didn’t return Guardian calls, but we’ll update this post if and when we hear back, and we’ll have a longer analysis of this issue in next week’s Guardian.

But Radulovich said that while conservatives are helping drive this coalition, anger over the city’s transportation policies is more of a throwback to a bygone era than it is based on conservative principles (for example, the SF Park program criticized by the coalition uses market-based pricing to better manage street parking and encourage turnover in high-demand areas).

As he said, “There are certain people who believe in the welfare state, but only for cars and not for humans.”

Guardian Intelligence: July 9 – 15

Michael Redmond

July 8, 2014

LUNCH WITH RHYTHM

Starting Wednesday, and running through early October, People In Plazas hosts a series of free, outdoor musical concerts during lunchtime (shows usually noon-1pm), mostly downtown but also in the Castro and other ‘hoods. “Our mission is to activate urban open spaces through events which generate social congregation,” the group explains on its website. This translates to over 170 shows, reaching an annual audience of more than 45,000. Wed/9, swing by 50 Fremont to catch jazz vocalist Sony Holland (pictured), or 525 Market for Peter Di Bono Accordion Trio. This week along also brings Latin jazz, bluegrass, funk, opera, and Filipino pop, so head to www.peopleinplazas.org and check out the diverse schedule.

MIME TROUPE NAILS IT!

The San Francisco Mime Troupe’s new play, Ripple Effect — which debuted July 4 in Dolores Park as usual, but this time in a park shrunk to half its usual size by ongoing renovations — was a rousing success that perfectly captured the city’s current zeitgeist and growing pains. And the tight space the large crowd squeezed into seemed to focus its energy all the more, reinforcing the message that political radicals, immigrant workers, and young techies (represented by the three main characters, who blamed one another for their troubles before realizing their common ground) are all in this together. Brava! The play, the Troupe’s 55th, now tours the Bay Area before returning to Dolores Park for closing shows on Labor Day weekend. www.sfmt.org

THE BURNING BATHS

Sutro Baths wasn’t always a weird hole in the ground right by Ocean Beach. It used to be the ultimate bath house (not that kind, jeez) drawing families from across the city to its ocean water pools. In a newly unearthed 8mm film — posted on invaluable western SF neighborhoods site Outsidelands, a Best of the bay winner — you can witness the Baths’ final hour as the iconic landmark burns in a 4-alarm fire in 1966. The ultimate hook-up spot, gone before its time. www.outsidelands.org/baths_burning.php

BOOGALOOED

Crowds packed Oakland’s Mosswood Park July 5 and 6 for the irreverent punk, garage, and rockabilly-focused Burger Boogaloo. While the masses waited for the queen (Ronnie Spector) Sunday evening, ’90s pop-punk faves The Muffs (pictured) celebrated their first new album in a decade with a respectably rockin’ set. See www.sfbg.com/noise for more. PHOTO BY AMANDA RHOADES

GAYMERS UNITE!

Last year San Francisco hosted the nation’s first LGBT video game convention, and now it’s sequel time. GaymerX2 will feature Pokemon Snap contests, grind-ready video game music, and video game coding classes — because inclusivity starts with you! Check it out at the intercontinental hotel July 11-13, and remember to dress in your best cosplay. (We’re going as Mario, because who doesn’t want a hot ‘stache?)

FOLSOM TUNES IN

Folsom Street Fair (happening September 21) has the justifiably naughty reputation as the world’s largest fetish gathering, of course. But in the past few years it’s also been garnering raves — and attracting eager crowds — as a music festival as well. The lineup for this year’s stages was just released, and while you’ll still find plenty of driving circuit techno, your chains will also be rattled by the likes of electro-ethereal acts Austra, MNDR, and Monarch; deep house favorites DJs Pareja and Stereogamous, and hometown heroes Younger Lovers, Micahtron, and Zbörnak. www.facebook.com/folsomstreetevents

ROCK THE BOX

We issued a challenge to the artists of the Bay Area: make our paper boxes beautiful! Now we’re ready to unveil the work of 12 artists who will brighten up the streets with their work. And party! Join us Thu/10, 6pm-9pm at 111 Minna, SF, at our Rock the Box event, to celebrate with cocktail specials and a look at the new work. www.sfmediaco.com/rockthebox

TECH BACK

A new group show opening Fri/11, 6pm-8pm, at SF’s Jessica Silverman Gallery called “The History of Technology” sets out to “explore themes of nostalgia and futurism, obsolescence and transcendence.” Artists Simon Denny, Samuel Levi Jones, Dashiell Manley, Philipp Timischl and Margo Wolowiec and writer Joseph Akel distill the effects of attention span, user experience, and source-material splicing so that “the grand, abstract history of communications technology becomes a personal history played out in real time before an art object.” www.jessicasilvermangallery.com

MOTORISTS FIGHT BACK

Believing that they’re somehow discriminated against on the streets of San Francisco, a new political coalition of motorists and neighborhood NIMBYs on July 7 turned in nearly twice the signatures they need to qualify “Restore Transportation Balance in San Francisco” initiative for the November ballot. It’s a direct attack on the city’s voter-approved “transit-first” policies and efforts to reduce auto-related greenhouse gas emissions. It would prevent expanded parking meter enforcement without neighborhood approval, require representation of motorists on the SFMTA board, set aside SFMTA funding for more parking construction, and call for stronger enforcement of traffic laws against cyclists. See www.sfbg.com/politics for more.

Garbage game

Michael Redmond

July 8, 2014

San Francisco elected officials frequently celebrate the ambitious citywide goal of sending zero waste to the landfill by 2020, an environmental feat widely viewed as attainable since the current waste diversion rate stands at a stellar 80 percent.

Official city numbers — based on reporting by Recology, a company that has a monopoly on trash collection and curbside recycling in San Francisco — demonstrate that only 20 percent of all city dwellers’ trash ends up in a landfill, that unenlightened dead end for matter discarded from our lives, never to be reprocessed.

Yet a lawsuit against Recology exposed some inconsistencies in the company’s record keeping. It also shed light on how some material counted as “diverted” is routinely sent to a landfill anyway, a practice that muddies the concept of the city’s Zero Waste program but is nevertheless legal under state law.

On June 17, a San Francisco jury determined that Recology misrepresented the amount of waste diverted from the landfill in 2008, enabling it to collect an incentive payment of $1.36 million for meeting the goal. The verdict compels Recology to pay the money back to the city, since it was obtained after submitting a false claim.

The outcome of this lawsuit — brought by a former manager of the Tunnel Road recycling Buy Back facility, who also claims he was retaliated against for trying to expose fraud — highlights some larger questions. Was this inaccuracy unique to 2008, or are Recology’s numbers always a little fuzzy? Are there adequate safeguards in place to prevent the company from fudging the numbers, particularly when both company and city officials have an incentive to exaggerate the diversion rate? And if what’s on paper doesn’t quite square with reality, is San Francisco really keeping as much garbage out of the landfill as the city’s Department of the Environment says it is?

Attorney David Anton, who represented the former Recology employee, Brian McVeigh, said he found it odd that San Francisco officials didn’t show much interest in collaborating to recover the bonus money, even though millions of dollars was potentially at stake. Since damages are trebled under the False Claims Act, cited in the lawsuit, Recology could ultimately be made to fork over the incentive payment three times over.

“The city’s representative in the Department of the Environment actually testified that he hoped this lawsuit would be unsuccessful,” Anton recounted. He guessed that officials remained on the sidelines because in San Francisco’s political power centers, “relationships with Recology are so close and tight. It was a very strange thing,” he went on, “to be pursuing this lawsuit, trying to get money to the city, and the city’s representatives are saying, ‘we don’t want it.'”

Recology has filed post-trial motions in a bid to have the penalty reduced, “asking the court to decide whether there was any evidence at trial that there were public funds in the Diversion Incentive Account, and if so, how much,” explained Recology spokesperson Eric Potashner. “We expect a ruling this summer.”

Department of the Environment spokesperson Guillermo Rodriguez told the Guardian that Robert Haley, manager of the department’s Zero Waste team, was unavailable for comment before press time. With regard to the lawsuit, Rodriguez noted, “The city has been following the trial closely and is awaiting the judge’s ruling on post-trial motions before determining any reaction.”

FALSE CLAIMS

The False Claims Act is designed to recover damages to government when false statements are made to obtain money or avoid making payments. It has a provision allowing whistleblowers, such as McVeigh, to lead the charge on seeking civil enforcement action. The whistleblower may be eligible to receive a share of recovery.

Under the bonus incentive program, Recology sets aside extra cash — collected from garbage customers’ payments — in a segregated account. But it cannot withdraw funds from that account unless it hits the city’s established waste-reduction targets. Recology submitted paperwork to the city in 2008 showing that it met the diversion goals, so it was allowed to withdraw the money.

But the lawsuit demonstrated that Recology actually fell short of those goals — and apparently, nobody in city government ever followed up to check whether the reporting was accurate.

A key reason the jury ruled against Recology on this particular claim, according to Anton, was that it was found to have misclassified some construction and demolition waste as “diverted” material. Under state law, when ground-up construction debris is used to cover the top of a landfill — to prevent pests, fires, and odors, for example — it’s counted as “alternative daily cover.” Trash in this category winds up in a landfill, just like any other trash. But state law allows garbage companies to count it as “diverted,” just as if it were an aluminum can tossed into the blue bin.

The lawsuit claimed that Recology tried to count a great many tons of construction and demolition waste as “alternative daily cover” when in reality, it should have been counted as just plain trash.

Solano County records show that a landfill inspector had flagged an “area of concern” after discovering solid waste mixed in with construction debris Recology shipped to a landfill for use as that top layer. “It looks like they didn’t do a good enough job of cleaning out that material,” CalRecycle spokesperson Mark Oldfield noted as he pulled up the report from 2008 at the Guardian’s request.

Had the material gone to the landfill as just plain garbage, instead of “alternative daily cover,” Recology would have had to count it as waste sent to the landfill, instead of waste diverted from the landfill. That would have meant falling short of the waste diversion goal, hence losing out on the $1.36 million.

“Recology kept this completely secret from San Francisco,” according to Anton.

Potashner said it was actually a bit more complicated — the company challenged the inspector’s findings, he said. “The local enforcement agency in Solano County had questions about that material,” but Recology never received a cease-and-desist order, he added. “When we had talked to jurors after the fact, that was the issue that seemed to sway them. In 2008 we didn’t make that bonus by that much. They thought we shouldn’t have been able to count that as diversion because of this issue.”

Either way, the incident exposes a strange reality: When San Francisco city officials trumpet the citywide success of “diverting” 80 percent of all waste from the landfill, some portion of that 80 percent actually winds up in a landfill anyhow. Whether the construction debris counted as “alternative daily cover” has trash mixed into it or not, it’s still destined to wind up in a big, environmentally unfriendly trash heap.

CONCRETE NUMBERS

The lawsuit highlighted a few other red flags, too, raising more questions about the city’s true diversion numbers. For instance, the suit claimed that Recology was involved in a system of digging up concrete from its own parking lots, to be handed over to concrete recyclers as “diverted” waste.

“Recology facilities have large areas of concrete pads,” the complaint noted. “Management of Recology … directed Recology work crews in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 to cut out sections of concrete pads and deliver the removed concrete to concrete recyclers, to falsely inflate the diversion incentive reported to SF.”

The waste management company then “solicited cement companies to deliver and dispose of excess and rejected concrete loads to Recology, to fill in the removed concrete pad sections,” according to the complaint. Those shipments were brought in on trucks that weren’t weighed at entry, and then placed in the concrete pads. Management then had work crews remove the same concrete that had been delivered, shipped it to the concrete recyclers, and reported it “as diverted from being disposed in a landfill,” the complaint noted.

This account was corroborated by a Guardian source unrelated the lawsuit, but nonetheless familiar with the inner workings of the company. “They would take the concrete across the road — right across the street,” this person confirmed.

Asked to provide an explanation for this, Recology’s Potashner said, “it is clear, and wasn’t even challenged by the plaintiff at trial, that recycled concrete is diverted, whether it had been from Recology’s lots or anywhere else.”

McVeigh’s case stemmed from his realization, while working as a manager at Recology’s Tunnel Road recycling buyback facility, that employees there were routinely marking up the weights of recyclable materials brought in, in order to pay out certain customers more than they were actually owed. The suit suggests that these routinely inflated California redemption value (CRV) tags contributed to Recology missing its waste-diversion targets, but the jury ultimately sided against the plaintiff on this question since it amounted to a financial loss for Recology, not the city.

The complaint included tag numbers and logs of scale weights that didn’t match up, showing a pattern of fraudulent dealings at the buyback center. In November 2007, for example, “ticket reports showed that 23.4 tons of aluminum CRV cans were purchased at the Bayshore Buyback Center, yet only 16.56 tons existed and were shipped.”

Asked about these claims, Potashner acknowledged that there may have been some “knuckleheads” involved in messing with the scales at the buyback center, but asserted that such activity had since been addressed. He added, “If there were any staffing issues around theft, that was actually affecting Recology’s books,” not the public.

Oldfield, the CalRecycle spokesperson, noted that a long list of paperwork violations had been recorded in 2010, but he said the company appeared to have been in compliance since then — based on logs from inspectors’ visits once a year.

Another problem uncovered in the trial, Anton said, had to do with Recology misrepresenting tons of garbage from out of county, so that it would be counted outside the parameters of the waste diversion program. Potashner said that had been corrected, adding, “the out-of-county waste is really a small volume.”

But he confirmed that yet another practice brought to light in this lawsuit is ongoing, revealing a surprising end for some of the stuff that gets tossed into the green compost bins.

MANY SHADES OF GREEN

According to every colorful flier sent out by Recology, the stuff that goes into the green bin gets composted. The green bin is for compost. The blue bin is for recycling. The black bin is for trash that goes to the landfill. This is the fundamental basis of Recology’s waste collection operation and, taking the company and the Department of the Environment at face value, one would assume that 80 percent of all waste was being processed through the blue and green waste streams.

Instead, some of what gets tossed into green bins makes its way to a landfill.

The green-bin waste is shipped to a Recology facility where it’s turned into compost, a process that involves sifting through giant screens. But some of what gets processed, known as “overs” because it isn’t fine enough to drop through the screens, is routinely transferred to a nearby landfill, where it’s spread atop the trash pile. Once again, this six-inch topper of neutralizing material is known as “alternative daily cover.”

Although Recology could convert 100 percent of its green-bin waste into soil-nourishing compost, the practice of using partially processed green-bin waste for “alternative daily cover” is cheap — and it’s perfectly legal under California law. Roughly 10 percent of what gets tossed into the compost bins is used in this way, Recology confirmed.

“There are some people who will say using green waste isn’t really diversion,” acknowledged Jeff Danzinger, a spokesperson with CalRecycle, which oversees recycling programs in California counties. “There’s some people who say we should stop that practice because that just incentivizes a landfill solution for green waste. But if somebody’s saying green waste shouldn’t go into a landfill and get counted as diversion, it’s an opinion.”

Nor is it something the city objects to. The Department of the Environment is aware of this practice, Recology’s Potashner told the Bay Guardian. Yet the city agency has never raised formal concerns about it, despite a mandate under its composting program agreement that the company use green-bin waste for the highest and best possible use.

But there’s no incentive for anyone in city government to complain: Recology may legally count this discarded material as “diverted” in official reporting, thus edging it closer to an annual bonus payment. San Francisco, meanwhile, may count it as part of the 80 percent that was successfully diverted — thus edging it closer to the ambitious Zero Waste program goal.

“It’s great PR to say you’re the highest recycling,” noted the person who was familiar with the company, but wasn’t part of the lawsuit. “It’s almost a movement more than reality. But who’s really watching for the public on these numbers? There’s no watchdog. It’s all about bragging rights.”

Recology is “a political business”

Recology’s political connections in San Francisco run deep. Years ago, when former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown served as speaker of the California Assembly, he also worked as a lawyer for Recology, which was then known as Norcal Waste Systems.

Campaign finance archives show that when Brown ran for mayor in 1995, he received multiple campaign contributions from Norcal employees in what appeared to be a coordinated fashion.

Brown continues to be influential in the city’s political landscape due to his close relationship with Mayor Ed Lee, who himself came under scrutiny in his capacity as head of the Department of Public Works in 1999 when he was accused of granting Norcal a major rate increase as a reward for political donations to Brown.

In 2010, when Recology submitted a bid for a lucrative waste-disposal contract proposing to haul waste to its Yuba County landfill, Lee reviewed its proposal in his then-capacity as city administrator. As the Guardian reported (see “Trash talk,” 3/30/10), Lee recommended far higher scores for Recology than his counterparts on the contract review team, a key to the company winning the landfill contract over competitor Waste Management Inc. Before Lee declared his mayoral candidacy in 2011, news reports indicated that powerful Chinatown consultant Rose Pak had worked in tandem with Recology executives on a campaign effort, “Run Ed Run,” organized to urge Lee to launch a mayoral bid. Company employees had also been instructed to help gather signatures to petition Lee to run for mayor, news reports indicated, but Pak publicly denied her role coordinating this effort. David Anton, the attorney for Brian McVeigh, emphasized that Recology’s close ties to powerful city officials might have something to do with the city’s lack of interest in targeting the company for the improperly received incentive payments. Yet Recology spokesperson Eric Potashner called this assertion “completely untrue. Recology meets with the various city departments and regulators weekly. We are constantly improving our controls and practices for handling the city’s ever-changing waste stream; often at the behest of city regulators.” Recology and its predecessor companies have maintained the exclusive right to collect commercial and residential refuse in San Francisco since 1932, and rates are routinely raised for city garbage customers, based on the company’s own reporting that its costs are increasing. “I can tell you today, there will be another significant increase on July 21, 2016” — five years after the last rate increase — “because they have a monopoly,” said neighborhood activist and District 10 supervisorial candidate Tony Kelly, who previously worked on a ballot measure that sought to have the city’s refuse collection contract go out for a competitive bid. “When you have a closed system … then it’s entirely a black box. It’ll all be self-reported. It’s too powerful of an incentive.” An industry insider familiar with Recology echoed this point, adding that cozy relationships with local officials make it easier for the self-reporting to escape scrutiny. “It’s a political business,” this person said. “In San Francisco, they’re really a political organization.” Since the rate is guaranteed, this person added, the mentality is that there’s plenty of wiggle room for financial losses and expenditures such as generous political contributions. “If you’re losing any money, you just ask for it back when you do your next rate increase. The city doesn’t have any objection. The ratepayers just get stuck with it.” (Rebecca Bowe)

Recycle-pocalypse

Michael Redmond

July 8, 2014

Joe@sfbg.com

Red explosions and yellow starbursts lit the sky, accompanied by the requisite oohs and aahs.

San Franciscans sat by the beach at Aquatic Park celebrating our nation’s independence, eyes fixed upwards. But all around them, a team of independent scavengers, mostly ignored, methodically combed the wharf, plucking cans and bottles from the ground and overflowing trash bins.

Often derided as thieves or parasites, these workers are cogs in a grand machine instituted by California’s Bottle Bill in 1986, forming a recycling redemption economy meant to spur environmentalism with market principles.

The concept is simple. Taxpayers pay an extra five cents when they buy a can or bottle, and may redeem that nickel by trading the used can or bottle in at a recycling center. Thus, more recycling is spurred.

But now a wave of recycling center evictions is causing San Francisco’s grassroots recycling economy to crumble, and newly released numbers reveal just how much stands to be lost by the trend.

San Franciscan recyclers may miss out on millions of dollars in redemption, local mom-and-pop stores could wind up on the hook for millions of dollars in state fees, and neighborhoods stand to be besieged by recyclers flocking to the few remaining recycling centers.

Recycling activists and local businesses are pushing for change, but NIMBY interests are pushing for more of the same.

SOLUTION IS THE PROBLEM

San Francisco Community Recyclers is on the parking lot of Safeway’s Church and Market location, and after months of legal entanglement, the recycling center’s eviction draws near. Still, SFCR is making a show of resistance.

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department is set to evict the recycling center within a week or so, as the rebel recyclers have so far refused to vacate voluntarily.

Sup. Scott Wiener says he’ll be glad to see them gone.

“This recycling center caused enormous problems in our neighborhood,” he told the Guardian. This particular Safeway lies within the boundaries of his district, and Wiener says his constituents complain the recycling centers draw too many unruly patrons, who are often homeless.

“There is problem behavior around the center in terms of camping and harassing behavior, defecation, urination in a much more concentrated way,” he said.

This animation shows the areas around San Francisco where recycling centers remain, which are often overburdened with customers as other centers close. The red zones indicate areas where supermarkets are mandated by state law to host recycling centers, but have chosen to pay fees instead.

But others say the not-in-my-backyard evictions only serve to create a ripple effect. The catalyst is a story we’ve reported on before: As well-heeled Golden Gate Park neighbors complained of homeless recycling patrons and waged a successful campaign to shutter the Haight Ashbury Recycling Center two years ago, the clientele adjusted by flocking to the Church and Market recycling center. New numbers illustrate this outcome.

Susan Collins is the president of the Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit that conducts analysis on recycling data. On average nationwide, Collins said, one recycling center serves about 2,000 people.

But since 2012 the number of recycling centers in San Francisco has been reduced from 21 to 7, causing Church and Market’s service population to boom closer to 40,000, a difference that has more to do with the closures than the density of the area. Data from CalRecycle shows almost half of the city’s populace lacks a recycling center within close proximity, forcing patrons to overwhelm the few remaining centers.

“This makes it a chicken and egg process,” Collins told us. “For people to have the perception that the site is attracting so many people, they have to realize it’s because there are so few sites to begin with.”

Late last month, Assemblymember Tom Ammiano wrote to Safeway Chief Executive Officer Robert L. Edwards, urging the grocery chain to reverse its decision to evict San Francisco Community Recyclers from the Church and Market Safeway.

“Safeway has such a long history of supporting sustainability efforts,” Ammiano wrote, “and I truly believe that it can do so again.” Safeway, however, has other concerns.

“As curbside recycling has increased in San Francisco and around the state,” Safeway Director of Public Affairs Keith Turner wrote to Ammiano, “Safeway’s focus on recycling has evolved as well.”

Safeway is now also flouting local and state laws to throw recyclers off its back. CalRecycle, the state’s recycling agency, performed an inspection in April of the Diamond Heights Safeway. It found that the grocer failed to accept recyclables and offer state guaranteed redemption, despite signing an affidavit with CalRecycle pledging to do just that. CalRecycle cited that location and two other San Francisco Safeways for noncompliance with the bottle bill.

And that’s just the violations CalRecycle has documented so far. Ed Dunn, owner and operator of San Francisco Community Recyclers, has initiated his own investigation into Safeway statewide, filing complaints with CalRecycle alleging that as many as 75 Safeway stores aren’t following the mandates of their affidavits and offering redemption for recyclables.

On the other side of the fence, Safeway and other recycling-center critics (such as Chronicle columnist C.W. Nevius) are essentially saying, who cares? Don’t we all just use blue bins nowadays?

The short answer: Nope.

MAKING GREEN, GOING GREEN

“Why do we need recycling centers if we have curbside recycling?” Sup. Eric Mar asked the deputy director of recycling at CalRecycle, point blank.

Jose Ortiz responded in less than a beat. “While some communities think curbside operations ensure the state’s goals of collecting [recyclables], the reality is that 90 percent of recycling volume is collected through recycling centers, not curbside programs,” he said from the podium.

That number came as a shock to many at the Board of Supervisors Neighborhood Services and Safety Committee June 19, including Sups. Mar, David Campos, and Norman Yee. Only 8 percent of recycling statewide comes through blue bins, CalRecyle confirmed to the Guardian.

Nor is that limited to California: Data from the Container Recycling Institute shows that the 10 states with recycling redemption laws produce such a high rate of return that they account for 46 percent of the nation’s recycling. And since California Redemption Value recycling is pre-sorted, experts note, the bottles are often recycled whole (as opposed to broken) which can be used for higher-grade recycling purposes.

So for the city with a mandated goal of zero waste by 2020, the case for keeping recycling centers open is an environmental one. It’s also fiscal.

San Franciscans make $18 million a year selling back recyclables, Ortiz said, most of which went directly into the pockets of recyclers. Those scavengers at the Fourth of July festivities may have only collected five cents per can, but that’s enough to buoy the income of many poor San Franciscans.

At the recycling hearing, David Mangan approached the podium to speak. His red hat was clean and his grey sweatshirt was ironed, but his face was worn with worry-lines and creases.

“I can’t walk more than about eight blocks at a time, and I’m unemployable because of my disabilities,” he told the committee. Recycling centers are a lifeline, he added. “I need this job, I’m on a limited income. I need the help they offer. I need them to stay open, please.”

Critics say some poor and homeless depend on a black market of recycling truck drivers who trade drugs for cans and bottles, then turn to recycling centers to make a profit. But those at the hearing said the extinction of recycling centers actually helps the mobile, black market recycling fleets bloom, as motorists have an easier time shuttling recyclables across the city.

So recyclers are increasingly forced to rely on these so-called “mosquito fleets” for far-flung trips to cash in their bottles.

SMALL BUSINESS BUST

Meanwhile, recycling center evictions are becoming a source of anxiety within the small business community.

State law establishes a half-mile radius called a “convenience zone” around any supermarket that annually makes more than $2 million. The supermarket is mandated to provide recycling on-site, accept recyclables in-store, or opt to pay a $100 a day fee.

With the eviction of SFCR from Church and Market, Safeway may opt to pay the fee. But that gap would leave surrounding businesses inside that convenience zone with the same options: accept recyclables in-store or pay $36,000 a year.

Miriam Zouzounis of the Arab-American Grocer Association said those options are daunting for liquor stores and mom-and-pop grocers.

“We just don’t have the space for [recycling],” she said at the hearing. If SFCR were to close, the total of small businesses shouldering the burden of state recycling fees would jump from 100 to more than 360, said Regina Dick-Endrizzi, director of the city’s Office of Small Business.

All told, San Francisco small businesses would be made to send $12.96 million in annual fees to California coffers because a few supermarkets didn’t want to handle recyclables. Mar is now calling upon all involved to step up and solve this glaring problem.

SOLUTIONS ON THE WAY

This week the Board of Supervisors is tentatively set to vote on a moratorium of recycling center evictions, introduced by Mar on June 24. The pause would give Mar time to form a work group with those involved: Department of the Environment, Department of Public Works, CalRecycle, local supermarkets, grocers, the Coalition on Homelessness, and others to come together to form a compromise solution.

Department of the Environment proposed a mobile recycling center, which Wiener called an equitable solution that would help distribute recycling responsibility evenly across the city. While that agency did not provide a timeline on the creation of a mobile recycling center before our deadline, it’s been in the works since 2012, when then-District 5 Sup. Christina Olague said it was the answer to the Haight Ashbury Recycling Center’s closure.

It’s been a long wait for a solution. And in the meantime, many more stand to lose.

Reinstate the 42: SF protest in solidarity with Brazilian transit workers

Sasha Cuttler

July 2, 2014

Reinstate the 42: SF protest in solidarity with Brazilian transit workers

Hey there, lovers and haters of the World Cup, if you missed out on the protest of Google and FIFA at Pride, there’s still time on the clock to score that goal: there will be another protest tomorrow [Thu/3] to support Brazilian transit workers and their quest for higher wages.

In solidarity with Brazilian protestors, a group of queer anarchists blocked the joint Google/FIFA float in the SF Pride Parade on Sunday. The group saw the float protest as an opportunity to draw together two issues linking San Francisco and Brazil: gentrification in the Bay Area and the displacement of Brazilians in order to make this year’s World Cup possible.

As the protestors said, “We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to connect issues of gentrification and evictions in the Bay Area with the violent displacement of Brazilians who live in the Favelas. The Google/FIFA float was a perfect target for direct action to raise awareness about these issues!”

According to Al Jazeera and Solidar Suisse, more than 150,000 people were evicted from their homes to create the World Cup arenas, including parking lots. Following the Brazilian government’s pacification initiative, Brazilian police occupied multiple favelas, or slums, housing around 1.5 million people total, near the airport and roads leading to the World Cup stadiums in order to make the communities more presentable. Besides minimizing gang activity temporarily, there are no programs implemented to help favela residents in the long run.

Brazilian transit workers also felt cheated by World Cup preparations. Despite Brazil’s underfunded transit system and low wages for workers, Brazil’s government poured $11.5 billion into World Cup preparations. Protestors with the Subway Workers Union of Sao Paulo were beaten and attacked with tear gas by police during a five-day strike for higher wages.

Brazilian Justice Ministry declared the strike illegal and implemented a $250,000 per day fee, and allowed the Brazilian government to fire employees that continue to strike. The workers suspended the strike before the Cup, but the 42 transit workers fired during the strike have not been reinstated.

The SF protest joins the Subway Workers Union in asking for the 42 fired workers to be reinstated. You can root for that goal Thu/3 outside the Brazilian Consulate, 300 Montgomery, SF. 4-5pm.

Guardian Intelligence: June 25 – July 1, 2014

Michael Redmond

June 24, 2014

The Bay Guardian is moving — into the mall. Yeah, we know, it struck us the same way initially. But the space we’ll be sharing with our sister newspapers within San Francisco Media Company, San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly, on the fifth floor of the Westfield Mall is a nice, sprawling sets of offices that previously housed the San Francisco State University extension program. As we make our move on the afternoon of June 27, however, our SFBG.com website will be down for a few hours in the evening while our servers transition to their new digs. And the next time you’re in the mall, you can wave to us from the food court.

ARCHIVES IMPERILED

A sad note during Pride celebrations: The vast and essential GLBT Historical Society this week sent word out that its building’s rent had jumped an unaffordable 30 percent, and that it would have to find a new home within 18 months. The nonprofit society’s historical archives contains more than 80,000 photographs dating from the 1880s, 5,000 posters, 4,000 magazines, and tens of thousands of other artifacts. Anybody got a free basement? For more info and to see how you can help, see www.glbthistory.org.

ALL THE ‘T’

Award-winning documentary What’s the T?, which follows five local transgender women and allows them to tell their own stories, is streaming on Hulu.com as part of the Web TV site’s Pride week. “To understand the ladies of What’s the T? is to love them,” says San Francisco-based filmmaker Cecilio Asuncion of his film’s subjects. Look for all five to be riding in the Pride parade Sun/29.

FREE LUV

The ULUV Music Day Sat/21 saw more than 100 musicians performing in parklets, BART stations, coffee shops, and other public locations in every neighborhood in San Francisco. Culminating in a musician flash mob at Dolores Park and a proclamation from the city, the day was organized by Michael Starita and Robin Applewood of ULUV, a charitable organization designed to build community and financial support for Bay Area musicians (ie, let’s stop them from feeling the need to move to LA). The organization’s next event will be a happy hour on July 16 featuring Nathan Blaz of Georgrapher, location TBA. Check www.uluvmusic.com for more.

SAVE LOST WEEKEND!

Dateline: San Francisco. Chilling news, via Facebook, on the “all the cool shit is in danger” front, with a post by Valencia Street stalwart Lost Weekend Video. “Times are tough at Lost Weekend Video! We’ve seen business suddenly drop by 30 percent just in the last few months, on top of the 60 percent hit we’ve already taken over the last few years. This has thrown us into a pretty immediate crisis.” The post went on to say the video store is hoping to bring in a co-tenant to share costs (similar to the partnership between Le Video and Green Apple Books) and ended on a cautiously optimistic note: “We’re a year away from 20, it’d be nice to see it!” Reached at Lost Weekend Monday afternoon, co-owner David Hawkins said, “We realize that you can’t probably sustain a full-scale video store in the city the way you used to. So it’s just a matter of trying to come up with the right formula.” See www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision for more.

MARTHA DOES THE MISSION

What kind of San Francisco dining establishments are good enough for a notoriously choosy lifestyle guru worth $300 million? The same ones populated by 20-something Missionites, it turns out: After checking out Mission Chinese on her last jaunt through town, Martha Stewart was spotted this past Thursday and Friday at Ichi Sushi and Tartine; she posted a photo of a ham and cheese croissant from the latter, noting it was “worth the wait.” Fifty bucks to anyone who gets her drunk at 500 Club next time.

DAM RIGHT

It’s obvious why the recent eco-activist documentary DamNation has won so many dam(n) awards. Last week, the David Brower Center in Berkeley screened the film, which was released May of this year. The “powerful film odyssey across America” explores how dams affect rivers, fish, the environment and more. The cinematography feels like a Wes Anderson film, and Ben Knight’s witty yet informative narration is laced with sass. And if the politics and beautiful images aren’t enough to draw you in, the interviews, photo montages of activists running naked through pre-dam Glen Canyon, and videos of the crew trespassing to graffiti dams and film explosions will. Go to damnationfilm.com to learn more or to host a screening.

COFFEE SPIES

You love Philz. We love Philz. Everybody loves Philz! Apparently, Phils loves us too, enough to peer deep into customers’ data anytime they connect to its Wi-Fi — and to sell it to the highest bidder. Specifically, news outlets have reported, the hand-pour masters partnered with Euclid Analytics to track and sell the Media Access Control (MAC) address of devices connected to its Wi-Fi. After the news blew up on ABC 7, Philz backed down, and announced it’d sever its icky Big Brother partnership. We’d like that Turkish with no sugar and no spying, please.

GOLDEN NO MORE?

Basketball news site the RealGM is reporting a spicy rumor: that the Golden State Warriors will change their name to the San Francisco Warriors after their move across the Bay. The team’s new Mission Bay stadium might have something to do with the switch. RealGM tweeted the photos, too, with a big SF over a basketball as the new logo.

ILLEGAL MONKEYS

An iPhone app that lets users auction off their parking spots might sound like a novel idea, especially in parking-deprived San Francisco. Unfortunately for Paolo Dobrowolny, co-founder and CEO of the MonkeyParking app that does exactly that, the practice is also illegal. City Attorney Dennis Herrera issued a cease-and-desist demand against MonkeyParking. “Technology has given rise to many laudable innovations in how we live and work — and Monkey Parking is not one of them,” Herrera said in a statement. “It’s illegal, it puts drivers on the hook for $300 fines, and it creates a predatory private market for public parking spaces that San Franciscans will not tolerate.”

Here’s an intriguing idea for Piers 30-32

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

June 23, 2014

Here’s an intriguing idea for Piers 30-32

Earlier this year, the Golden State Warriors abandoned its bid to construct a basketball arena and performance venue at Piers 30-32 along San Francisco’s waterfront, a proposal Mayor Ed Lee once championed as his “legacy project.”

The Warriors moved its ambitious project to a site in Mission Bay, to the great relief of a group of waterfront activists who viewed it as an inappropriate choice for the unique and historic 7.5-mile stretch of city waterfront that falls under the jurisdiction of the Port of San Francisco.

Nevertheless, that shift did send the Port back to the drawing board with the problem it’s encountered numerous times before: What to do with Piers 30-32, which span a 13-acre slab of crumbling concrete currently in use as a parking lot just a stone’s throw from the Bay Bridge.

In a recent Bay Guardian editorial, we called for a public process to consider the future use of that waterfront pier. Could it be turned into open space? Removed? Converted to a different use?

Turns out, others have been contemplating the same question. The San Francisco Civil Grand Jury, a volunteer body tasked with investigating civic matters, introduced a new idea when it issued a report on the operations of the Port of San Francisco.

Titled, “The Port of San Francisco: Caught Between Public Trust and Private Dollars,” the Civil Grand Jury report raised a few incisive questions, going so far as to suggest that the Port operates with undue influence from the Mayor’s Office, and that its governing commission ought to be restructured to resolve that. We are going to drill down more on these issues in a different post, after we’ve had a chance to interview a spokesperson from the Port.

But for now, here’s the Civil Grand Jury’s line on Piers 30-32: Why not look into using it as the site of a marine research institute?

From the report:

“Our suggestion is to investigate the possibility of building a Marine Research Institute on the pier. The project lead could be an educational institution such as Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution or Scripps Institute of Oceanography (UC San Diego), a conservation group such as Cousteau Society, Greenpeace, or Ocean Conservancy, or even government based groups such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

“With close proximity to the Gulf of the Farallones, Cordell Bank, and Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuaries to the west and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the east, a San Francisco Bay location presents a unique opportunity for marine and estuary study.

“The Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones Sanctuaries today cover about 1800 square miles, but the proposed addition by NOAA will add an additional 2,000 square miles extending north.

“Funding could be derived not only from the sources mentioned above, but it may be possible to get donations from charitable foundations, such as Ford Foundation or Paul Getty Trust, and supplement large contributions by forming a coalition of the dozens of smaller advocacy and conservation groups—a form of crowd-funding on a large scale.”

A waterfront research institute that could aid scientists in studying the effects of climate change on ocean ecosystems? It couldn’t be farther from the sexy, spaceship-shaped sports arena previously proposed for that waterfront site. But it might not be such a bad idea.

City Attorney throws a monkey wrench into parking-space auction app

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

June 23, 2014

City Attorney throws a monkey wrench into parking-space auction app

An iPhone app that lets users auction off their parking spots might sound like a novel idea, especially in a parking-deprived city like San Francisco. Unfortunately for Paolo Dobrowolny, co-founder and CEO of the MonkeyParking app that does exactly that, the practice is also illegal.

The app violates a key provision of San Francisco’s Police Code, which states that drivers who “enter into a lease, rental agreements or contract of any kind” for public parking spots can face penalties of up to $300, according to City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who has issued a cease-and-desist demand against MonkeyParking.

“Technology has given rise to many laudable innovations in how we live and work – and Monkey Parking is not one of them,” Herrera said in a statement. “It’s illegal, it puts drivers on the hook for $300 fines, and it creates a predatory private market for public parking spaces that San Franciscans will not tolerate.”

That’s not how Dobrowolny sees it. Though he’s still working with his legal team to address Herrera’s concerns, the MonkeyParking CEO said he fundamentally disagrees with Herrera’s stance.

“As a general principle we believe that a new company providing value to people should be regulated and not banned,” Dobrowolny wrote in an email. “Regulation is fundamental in driving innovation, while banning is just stopping it.”

Herrera imposed a July 11 deadline to cease operations in his letter to MonkeyParking, but the app may not even last that long. By violating San Francisco’s Police Code, it’s already landed in hot water when it comes to Apple’s guidelines for app developers, which state: “Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users.” Herrera copied Apple’s legal department onto the letter, so there’s a possibility MonkeyParking could be removed as a result.

The use of parking apps like MonkeyParking also brings up the potentially dangerous matter of cell phone use within a moving vehicle, an issue that wasn’t lost on Herrera. In his letter to Dobrowolny, Herrera wrote that MonkeyParking is “facilitating and encouraging drivers to use cellphones and other wireless communication devices in a manner that distracts them, posing a safety hazard to the public and violating state laws that prohibit using cellphones and such other devices while driving.”

But since the app already appears to be in violation of the local police code and the App Store guidelines, this is simply icing on the cake.

“Worst of all, [MonkeyParking] encourages drivers to use their mobile devices unsafely – to engage in online bidding wars while driving,” Herrera said. “People are free to rent out their own private driveways and garage spaces should they choose to do so. But we will not abide businesses that hold hostage on-street public parking spots for their own private profit.”

MonkeyParking isn’t alone in its apparent violation of city rules. Sweetch and ParkModo are two other iPhone apps that provide allegedly illegal monetization of parking spots in the city, and Herrera’s office is cracking down on them as well.

Sweetch is similar to MonkeyParking, though it charges a flat fee of $5 per parking spot instead of the bidding system. ParkModo, which has yet to officially launch, will reportedly employ drivers for $13 an hour to occupy public parking spots in the Mission, according to Herrera’s statement.

Is the SF District Attorney’s Office biased against cyclists?

Sasha Cuttler

June 20, 2014

Is the SF District Attorney’s Office biased against cyclists?

There’s been much discussion over the last year about whether police and prosecutors in San Francisco are biased against bicyclists. And while the San Francisco Police Department has admitted problems in their investigations of collisions that injure cyclists and pledged to do better (with mixed results), the District Attorney’s Office doesn’t seem have gotten the message.

The cyclist community was appalled last month when District Attorney George Gascon refused to follow SFPD recommendations and file criminal charges against the commercial truck driver who killed cyclist Amelie Le Moullac in August, a high-profile case that highlighted SFPD bias and triggered a series of hearings on the issue at City Hall.

Now, a San Francisco jury has voted overwhelmingly to acquit a cyclist who collided with a pedestrian last year, finding that the collision was clearly accidental and that the cyclist tried to avoid the victim who jaywalked to check the parking meter for her car and then abrupted reversed course and collided with the cyclist.

“The evidence in this case was clear: It was an accident, not a crime,” Deputy Public Defender Tammy Zhu said of her client, 20-year-old John Kewin, who faced up to a year in jail after the DA’s office charged him with reckless driving.

But the jury last week voted 11-1 to acquit Kewin, siding with witnesses who said he tried to avoid the collision over one witness (ironically, a cyclist) who testified that Kewin was riding too fast. So the DA’s office this week decided to drop the charges.

Public Defender’s Office spokesperson Tamara Barak Aparton told us charges should have never been filed in the case: “I don’t think it should have been, it was clearly an accident and not a crime.”

The DA’s Office has refused to file criminal charges against any of the four motorists who killed cyclists in San Francisco in the last year, even in cases where the drivers were making illegal turns across bike lanes and making no efforts to avoid the cyclists.

Does the District Attorney’s Office have a bias against bicyclists? We left messages with two different spokespeople from that office, and we’ll update this post with their replies if and when we hear back.

Free Sunday meters challenge rejected, SFMTA board’s independence questioned

Erica Hanna

June 17, 2014

Free Sunday meters challenge rejected, SFMTA board’s independence questioned

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to reject an environmental appeal of the decision to repeal paying for parking meters on Sundays, which was voted on by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency in April as part of the agency’s annual budget approval.

It was a hotly contested decision, as competing interest groups fought for their slice of Muni’s funding. SFMTA Chairman Tom Nolan told us at the time, “As long as I’ve been on the SFMTA board I’ve never felt more pressure.”

This week’s appeal to the Board of Supervisors focused on one aspect of the overall SFMTA budget: the repeal of paid Sunday meters.

“I appreciate there is frustration,” SFMTA Director Ed Reiskin said to the board. That was an understatement.

The Sunday meters benefit many, the appeal’s filers contended: Less cars circled around looking for parking (because more drivers could actually find spots) meant reduced congestion and safer streets for bicyclists and pedestrians. It’s a sign of the strength of the argument that the appeal was filed by transit advocacy group Livable City (whose executive director is BART board member Tom Radulovich) and Mario Tanev, a very bright policy wonk over at the San Francisco Transit Riders Union.

“The SFMTA’s own data proves the Sunday meters were good for the city,” Cynthia Crews of the League of Pissed Off Voters said to the board. “We need to stop playing chicken with public safety.”

But despite the environmental benefits of paid meters, the appeal was rejected. The reasons are buried in political gobbledygook, but untangling the complex story reveals the mayor’s power, and his missteps.

Firstly, the environmental appeal wasn’t exactly aimed at the meters themselves, but at the SFMTA budget as a whole. That’s because the SFMTA board didn’t vote to repeal Sunday meters directly, but stuffed it into their approved budget, which is exempt from California Environmental Quality Act review. It was like serving up a distasteful Sunday meter fruitcake with the Muni budget holiday meal: You’d better eat the whole dinner, or else you’re not eating at all.

Budgets are statutorily exempt from environmental review (otherwise there’d be an EIR with every major financial decision). So the Sunday meters were approved through a politically tactical move, shielded by the environmental exemption cloak of the budget.

This meant the environmental appeal yesterday targeted not just the meters, but it could effectively challenge the entire SFMTA’s right to environmental review exception for its budgets, supervisors said. They also warned such a challenge may set a precedent for other budgets from other agencies to not be exempt from environmental review, an onerous burden. That was too big of a pill for the board to swallow, which is likely why only two supervisors voted against granting the SFMTA the CEQA exemption: John Avalos and Eric Mar.

Yet most of the political maneuvering wasn’t from the board, but from Mayor Ed Lee, a problem Supervisor David Campos used this review hearing to highlight. “Even if you do or don’t want to see Sunday meter parking, irrespective of the issue,” Campos said, “I think the way this matter was handled by the SFMTA, respectfully, is not something anyone should be happy with.”

He continued: “Let’s be clear: The reason why the SFMTA budget included an item that did not provide for funding from Sunday meters is because the mayor wanted it that way. We have a budget system that is essentially run by decisions made in the Mayor’s Office.”

We posed this idea in our story “Politics over Policy” [4/22], contending that because the SFMTA is appointed by the mayor (meaning, he picks and chooses who is on the board), the board members are therefore politically beholden to the mayor.

Campos drove this point home at the meeting: “I think there’s something to be said when the appointment of one official (on the SFMTA board) is entirely dependent on [the mayor], who can disagree or agree with the decisions you made.”

The night before our last story went to print, SFMTA Board Chariman Tom Nolan told us that was in fact exactly what happened on the Sunday meter issue. The SFMTA board, whose directors vote on resolutions every week, received a phone call from the mayor asking for a specific vote. And he got it.

“Ed Resikin, myself, and a few others in a conference call [with the Mayor’s Office],” Nolan said. He told us the central message of the call was this: The mayor wanted to put a vehicle license fee increase on the city’s November ballot. In order to do that, the mayor contended, car drivers needed to feel like they weren’t being nickled and dimed. Paid Sunday meters had to go.

“That was where they advanced the idea that the mayor wanted to do that,” Nolan told us. “That call was right before the mayor’s State of the City message.”

Nolan is an affable, straightforward person. The budget the SFMTA passed came on the heels of a fiery meeting, filled to the gills with activists from the senior and persons with disabilties communities. They asked for free Muni for those same groups, which would cost less money than the Sunday meters would bring in — many at the meeting said the meters could pay for the free Muni service. The need is dire, as some seniors said they regularly made the choice between groceries and a Muni pass.

Nolan sounded deeply effected by their stories.

“Muni is for everybody, especially those who need it most,” he said. “The testimony was very heartbreaking. It’s expensive to live in this city.”

But in the end, he told us, the mayor felt it was best to kibosh the Sunday meters, which deprived the SFMTA of funding to make Muni free for qualified seniors. We asked Nolan if the mayor had outsized influence on the SFMTA board.

“I think people are aware that we are quasi-independent,” he said. “We are clearly part of the city family. I can assure you that this happens very seldom that we get this pressure from the Mayor’s Office. He’s a very open-minded guy, really, and he has a high tolerance for ambiguity, which I like.”

“But,” you don’t turn him down, he said, because, “he’s the mayor.”

SFMTA Board Director Cheryl Brinkman supported paid Sunday meters. But when justifying her vote to repeal them, she told the packed board meeting the “best political minds” in the Mayor’s Office said it was the right thing to do in order to pass the VLF increase ballot measure.

But in a move that outraged Sup. Scott Wiener and many others, just this month Lee dropped the VLF ballot measure altogether for this year, eventually agreeing to support its placement on the November 2016 ballot.

So to pave the way for success at the ballot box the board rejected free Muni for seniors and lost over $10 million in Muni funding. And in the end, the mayor threw all the justification for his compromises out the window.

Best political minds, indeed.

Board of Supervisors considers environmental appeal of paid Sunday meters

Erica Hanna

June 17, 2014

Board of Supervisors considers environmental appeal of paid Sunday meters

The Board of Supervisors is now hearing an environmental appeal of the SFMTA’s proposed budget, specifically over the decision to make Sunday parking meters free once again. The move by the SFMTA to repeal paid parking meters deprived the agency of $11 million annually. Shortly after the decision was made, Livable City, San Francisco Transit Riders Unions, and a concerned citizen, Mario Tanev, filed for an environmental appeal of the decision.

They contend the paid meters not only reduced congestion, but reduced the amount of time drivers circled for parking and helped businesses. All of this was found in the SFMTA’s own December 2013 study. The decision to appeal the meter decision with environmental review goes before the board of supervisors today.

You can follow live coverage of the meeting by checking out Guardian reporter Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez’s Twitter feed, Twitter.com/FitztheReporter, and by checking out for our update tonight.

SFMTA launches “Google Bus” pilot program map, promises increased enforcement

Erica Hanna

June 10, 2014

SFMTA launches “Google Bus” pilot program map, promises increased enforcement

The Google Bus plan is now rolling forward. Last night [Mon/9] the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency released a map of shuttle stops to be studied in the contentious commuter shuttle pilot program, and proposed new means of cracking down on shuttle scofflaws.

The released map shows a peppering of dots representing what the SFMTA is calling “pilot network zones,” essentialy bus stops to be shared by Muni and commuter shuttles alike. The SFMTA will study those pilot network zones, measure impacts to Muni shuttles, and the zones will soon be marked up with signage denoting them as a commuter shuttle stops.

The site of the first and many subsequent Google Bus protests, Valencia and 24th street, is included among the proposed stops. Many of those protesters highlighted the lack of enforcement around the shuttle stops highlighted by a glaring set of numbers: Since January, San Francisco issued over 13,000 citations against double-parkers in red zones, but only 45 went to commuter shuttles. The shuttles use of those stops were, at the time (and even now) illegal, protesters said.

Carli Paine, the head of the commuter shuttle pilot program at SFMTA, told us now there’ll be increased enforcement.

“Implementation will include placards on the vehicles, signage at the zones that are in the pilot network, and additional enforcement,” she confirmed for us, in an email. The SFMTA also launched a special web form for lodging complaints about the commuter shuttles.

SFMTA surveyed tech companies, citizens, and government to decide which stops to study. Per SFMTA:

In February, the SFMTA collected requests from shuttle service providers and resident suggestions on what stops should be included in the pilot through an interactive website and open houses. We reviewed requests from shuttle service providers and suggestions from residents to develop a pilot network of zones that is a combination of:

Zones requested by shuttle service providers

Zones requested by residents

Alternative zones within a few blocks of requested zone locations

New white zones in locations where demand is high but sharing with Muni would likely disrupt Muni service for inclusion in the pilot network

Zones with Muni service every 10 minutes or less, most zones along Muni’s busiest routes and lines, and flag stops (stops that are in the street, away from the curb) on the bicycle network were not included in the proposed pilot network of shared bus zones.

The website that SFMTA referred to crowdsourced feedback from San Franciscans, an interactive map where anyone could place pinpoints proposing shuttle stops. Some jokers pinned proposed shuttle stops in the San Francisco Bay and the ocean. Some had reasoned arguments against corporate shuttles. “There should be a designed [sic] bus stop for the big corporate buses and not public bus stops,” read one post. Others were more flip, like the push-pin on Alcatraz, reading “Make ’em swim!”

SFMTA’s Proposed Commuter Shuttle Network 140609 by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Above we’ve embedded the commuter shuttle map.

Interestingly, the hotly contested tax that the SFMTA planned to levy against commuter shuttle companies of $1 per stop, per day may be revised.

“The permit and use fee will be updated based on actual project costs and actual stop events proposed as part of the permitting process,” the SFMTA stated in an email announcement of the new commuter shuttle project map. “The SFMTA Board will hold a public hearing to adopt the adjusted fee, if different from earlier calculations.”

The Guardian obtained a cost breakdown of the shuttle program from the SFMTA, and the numbers do seem to be fairly rough.

Cost Breakdown of SFMTA “Google Bus” commuter shuttle pilot program by Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez

Above we’ve embedded the cost estimate of the commuter shuttle program, obtained through a public records request under the Sunshine Ordinance.

The shuttle pilot program proposed to fund 312 hours of work for transit planners and engineers each, annually. Notably, 4,000 hours are slated for a parking control officer, and 520 for a senior parking control officer annually. The two officers together are estimated to cost $300,000 annually. Double that estimate, as the project is slated to run two years.

The SFMTA board will meet to approve any new fees for the program during its July 15 meeting. There will also be a public SFMTA engineering meeting on June 20 (10am, City Hall, Room 416) to discuss changes to the commuter shuttle pilot program.

The map also denotes sidewalk white zones for shuttle use for commuter hours, between 6-10am and 4-8pm.

The shuttle pilot program will officially begin August 1. It’s still an open question what effect, if any, the current lawsuit concerning environmental review of the shuttle stops will have on the program.

Transportation funding faces key test after Mayor Lee flips on VLF increase UPDATED

Sasha Cuttler

June 9, 2014

Transportation funding faces key test after Mayor Lee flips on VLF increase UPDATED

Facing a deadline of tomorrow’s [Tues/10] San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting to introduce measures for the November ballot, advocates for addressing the city’s massive long-term transportation funding gap still hope to introduce an increase in the local vehicle license fee, even though the once-supportive Mayor Ed Lee has gotten cold feet.

While Lee and all 11 of the supervisors support a $500 million general obligation bond that would mostly go toward capital improvements for Muni — a measure almost certain to be approved by its July 22 deadline — the local VLF was originally presented by Lee as a companion measure to fund Muni, street resurfacing, and bike and pedestrian safety improvements.

But when Lee got spooked by a poll in December showing 44 percent voter approval for increasing the VLF and the need to actually do some campaigning for the measure, he withdrew his support and left cycling, streets, and safety all severely underfunded. A report last year by the Mayor’s Transportation Task Force pegged the city’s transportation infrastructure needs at $10.1 billion over 15 years, recommending just $3 billion in new funding to meet that need, including the embattled VLF measure.

“It’s important for us to move forward with the local VLF,” Sup. Scott Wiener, who has taken the lead on ensuring local term transportation funding, told the Guardian. “If this is not the right election, then we have to say which election we will move this forward.”

But so far, Wiener hasn’t gotten a commitment from the Mayor’s Office, with which he says he’s still in active talks. The Mayor’s Office also hasn’t returned Guardian calls on the issue. If Wiener doesn’t get an assurance that the VLF will go before voters, then he says that he’ll push another fall ballot measure that he introduced May 20, which would increase the city General Fund contribution to Muni as the population increases, retroactive to 10 years ago (thus creating an initial increase of more than $20 million annually).

“It would be in lieu of the VLF, not in addition to it,” Wiener said the rival measure, noting that he prefers the local VLF, a stable and equitable funding source that wouldn’t cut into other city priorities. [UPDATE 6/10: Wiener said he received a commitment from Lee to place the VLF increase on the 2016 ballot, so he is dropping his measure to increase Muni funding as the population increases].

Sen. Mark Leno spent about 10 years winning approval for the authorizing state legislation that authorizes San Franciscans to increase the VLF, enduring two governors’ vetoes along the way before getting Gov. Jerry Brown to sign it into law last year.

Wiener notes that the measure would increase the VLF in San Francisco to 2 percent, restoring it its longtime level before Arnold Schwarzenegger used a VLF reduction as a campaign issue to get elected governor, slashing it to 0.65 percent in 2003.

“That action by Gov. Schwarzenegger has deprived California of about $8 billion per year,” Wiener told us. “This is not some newly minted fee, it restores the VLF to what it was going back to the ‘50s.”

San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Director Leah Shahum said she was disappointed that Lee didn’t follow through on his commitment to fund bike and pedestrian safety improvements through the local VLF, but she said there is wide support on the board for the measure.

“Tomorrow is the big day, but we’re hearing real strong support for the measure,” Shahum told us. “I feel strongly there will be eight supervisors committed to introducing the measure.”

That two-thirds vote threshold is part of the legislation that enabled San Francisco to increase its VLF, but Shahum said she believes there is that level of support on the board for doing the VLF increase this year, which the SFBC would actively campaign for.

“The whole idea was these things would go as a package,” Shahum told us. “This is a huge deal for us. Give the voters a chance to vote for safe and smooth streets.”

Lee’s abandonment of the VLF comes in the wake of his SFMTA appointees’ repeal of Sunday parking meters, which Lee said was driven by a desire to win over car-driving voters for his transportation measures. Last month on Bike to Work Day, Lee and other city officials also touted the measures as important for bike project, although Shahum said the general obligation bond does little for cyclists, except for an allocation for renovating Market Street.

“There is not a desigination for bike safety and infrastructure, that was goign to be all in the VLF measure,” Shahum said.

Wiener cited the long road that Leno traveled to give San Franciscans that opportunity as a reason to move forward with increasing the VLF, a progressive tax that charges more for luxury cars than old beaters used by the working class, but Leno was a bit more circumspect about the situation.

“If it taught me anything, it’s patience,” Leno told us about the long road to let San Francisco authorize a higher VLF. “As with anything in the world, timing is everything.”

Leno said support from labor, the business community, and all of City Hall’s top leaders are all necessary to win voter support for increasing the VLF, so it’s crucial that everyone is enthusiastically on board. “I think we may only have one shot, so when we go to the ballot, we need to have our coalition intact.”

Without commenting on the wisdom of delaying the vote this year, Leno said that if that happens, it’s crucial to get everyone to commit to passing it in 2016, a position Wiener also supports.

“There are times when we need to have a long view,” Leno told us. “But one way or the other, we have to get serious about identifying dedicated revenue to invest in Muni or we will all pay a serious price.”

To participate in a public forum on this and related matters, please join us this Thursday evening for “Bikes, Buses, & Budgets: How to create the transportation system San Franciscans needs.” This Bay Guardian community forum, from 6-8pm at the LGBT Center (1800 Market), will feature Wiener; SFBC community organizer Chema Hernandez Gil; Jason Henderson, an urban geography professor at SFSU who writes the Guardian’s monthly Street Fight column; and others, moderated by yours truly. It’ll be fun, informative, and one lucky attendee will leave with a A2B electric bike as part of a free raffle at this free event.

Muni sickout: Q&A with transit union president

Erica Hanna

June 5, 2014

Muni sickout: Q&A with transit union president

It’s fair to say San Francisco is sick of the sickout.

Three days after hundreds of Muni workers called in sick to work, crippling the city’s transit system, City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a legal action against Muni workers’ union to end the pseudo-strike.

Just as Herrera announced his intentions, the Bay Guardian sat down at the Transit Workers Unit local 250-A for an interview with Eric Williams, president of Muni’s worker union.

Here are William’s answers to our questions. Pick up a copy of next week’s paper for a broader story on the Muni sickout and union backlash in San Francisco.

San Francisco Bay Guardian: Thanks for sitting down with me. This is obviously a contentious time for Muni workers. But let’s hear how this all started: What’s the nitty-gritty contract disagreement between the SFMTA and the union?

Eric Williams: We don’t have a problem paying our pension, despite what’s being said. We would like a fair even swap, just like everyone else had. The police, the fire department, every union in this city got a fair swap to help pay their own pension. Right now they want to offer us a bump to pay our own pension, but once we got our CPA to crunch the numbers, it’s all negative.

The city wants you to beleive it’s cost-neutral, but that’s not the case. Our members will be making $1.10 less an hour due to this negotiation.

SFBG So you’ve said before that certain laws and codes have “stacked the deck” in negotiations against the union, in favor of the SFMTA. How does that work?

EW You have to read Prop G [regarding Muni operators’ salaries] and code A8.409 [prohibiting strikes] and say “is this fair?”

We’re struggling, we’re coming into a negoatiaion with our hands tied behind our back. The beauracracy and the spinning of the words and statements is alive in the agency.

It’s unfortunate the public thinks it’s the common workers’ fault on any of these issues. Our members have to take care of our families, our children, paying for college, just like you.

[Proponents of Prop. G said] “Well, it will make everything fair.” Actually, it’s not.

A ten-minute video interview with TWU Local 255-A President Eric Williams, as he explains the motivations behind the sickout.

SFBG Let’s get into that a bit more. So you walk into a negotiation, you bring a proposal. The way most union negotiations work is two parties sit down and present proposals, but the Muni worker/SFMTA negotiation is unique. You have to prove something to the arbitrator. What do you have to prove?

EW Basically, we have to show we’re not going to be costly to the agency. But inflation is going up, how could we not be costly?

We just want restrooms, but those are costly. We want raises, those are costly. We want better parking, that’s costly.

The arbitrator must side with the city if they feel the cost burden will be too high on the city. All SFMTA employees are under the same deal. I’ve been at four tables in the past few months and negotiated two contracts with parties other than the SFMTA. We had to go to mediation, those mediators told us to talk it over again (offering compromise). You take this proposal, you take this one. That’s not the case with the SFMTA negotiations.

SFBG Can Muni workers afford to live in San Francisco?

EW Definitely not. The only members that live inside the city are those who purchased a home 20 or so years ago. The majority of our members live outside the city. That’s what leads to the issue of transportation and parking. If you’re pulling a bus run at 5:30 in the morning, guess what, there’s no bus at 4am to get them there. They need parking. It’s poor or rich in this city, there’s no in between. That’s no secret.

SFBG How far back would you have to go to say a good strong bloc of members lived in the city?

EW At least 20-30 years. Early ’90s, ’80s.

SFBG Let’s talk about the atmosphere with riders out there. We recently saw a BART strike, did you take a read on the reaction? The sickout, which seems similar … people seem to not be siding with the union on this. There’s a lot of animosity.

EW We thought people understood who were in charge of the economics. It’s unfortunate the public may believe it’s the common workers’ fault on the issues.

If you look at the bargaining with BART, yes it caused frustration. Yes it did. But when you see them empathizing with the power, “yes we know this hurts, but we have a family too.” The only thing we can do is ring the bell and say “this is unfair.”

SFBG Do you feel there is a backlash against Muni workers for the sickout?

EW Honestly i couldn’t tell the difference, we’ve been drug over the coals for so long. The frustration you’ve seen the past few days, not brought by the union itself, but by the members, is real.

But in reality our members encounter something different with the everyday riders. The mothers, the fathers, [they have] a different attitude. Of course we have that 10, 20 percent that no matter what we do, who say we’re wrong. But we have to take a stand as well. We’re important here. We take our jobs seriously, and we should be treated as such.

[Those who disagree with us] need to challenge the agency on everything the agency tells them. The system is still not on time, you still don’t have enough employees to drive the buses on the ground. The SFMTA spends all this money but we’re not on time, we don’t have enough people.

Those 10-20 percent [who disagree with the workers] need to read the charter. Any person with common sense, any person with a heart, ask themselves if that process is fair.

SFBG You don’t think part of it is the view that Muni workers make much more than private sector workers?

EW There’ve always been good private sector employers out there. But unions got us weekends, unions got us better working hours, unions got you sick leave. But go out and ask how they feel, what they think the public’s issue with us because we’re making $60,000 a year, and you went to college for four years. Maybe it’s because we’re making a living, and you’re struggling. Well hey, come get a job as a bus driver if it’s that bad out there.

Wanted PR consultant Ryan Chamberlain in FBI custody

Erica Hanna

June 2, 2014

Wanted PR consultant Ryan Chamberlain in FBI custody

San Francisco Police Department Officers took San Francisco political insider and PR consultant Ryan Chamberlain into custody on June 2 in the area around Crissy Field, media outlets are reporting. Chamberlain was targeted by the FBI on June 1 for alleged possession of explosive materials, and became the subject of a nationwide manhunt after federal agents equipped with a Hazmat team raided his apartment in Russian Hill.

Multiple accounts reported Chamberlain cried out “help me!” as San Francisco Police Department officers arrested him.

Before apprehending Chamberlain, SFPD officers were securing the area around San Francisco’s Crissy Field, according to the communications on live radio broadcasts.

“More units are coming down we’re getting everyone out of here,” a voice said over the police scanner around 6:20pm. “I got the phone numbers of those FBI agents. We need assistance clearing the parking lot.”

“On-duty EOD units, come up on the air for the Crissy Field situation,” another voice said over the police scanner around 6:30, referencing the department’s explosive ordinance disposal unit.

Phillip Hirsch, a bystander, took this footage of Chamberlain’s arrest.

.@SFPD at scene of potentially arresting #RyanChamberlain: “Got the phone numbers of those FBI agents..need assistance clearing parking lot”

— Joe Fitz Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) June 3, 2014

SFPD units are confirming each others’ locations via radio now, securing perimeter of blocked off Crissy Field area. #RyanChamberlain

— Joe Fitz Rodriguez (@FitzTheReporter) June 3, 2014

Despite releasing a note on iCloud that was widely interpreted as a suicide note, Chamberlain appeared to resurface on Twitter earlier this afternoon in a post rejecting the FBI’s allegations against him as untrue.

His friends, many of whom are well-connected political insiders who work on election campaigns in San Francisco, were taking to social media to cast doubt on federal authorities’ case against him.

Political consultant Johnny K. Wang, who described himself as a friend of Chamberlain’s and said he’s known him for years, expressed doubt that he was capable of domestic terrorism.

“I truly believe that once the [FBI’s] cards are shown, they’ll have nothing,” Wang said. “I would like to see what they have. If there were actual bomb making materials, then yeah, that’s something. It better be a bags of fertilizer or something. He’s a well-connected, well-loved guy in the community. If [the FBI] just ruined his life … I’m pretty sure the FBI will be made to pay for this. They’re going to be made to pay for this. It’s unacceptable. I want to see some real bomb making materials. I want to see a car that’s rigged to explode. Because otherwise, it’s just accusations.”

Now that Chamberlain is in custody, maybe the FBI will offer some answers.

Photo: Fugitive #RyanChamberlain arrested near Beach Hut Cafe at Crissy Field. Cried out, “Help me.” pic.twitter.com/VB1aT2LsEg

— Lilian Kim (@liliankim7) June 3, 2014

“Area in San Francisco where fugitive Bomb suspect was captured!#KTVU! pic.twitter.com/VhISzsPCfX

— Dave Clark (@dclarkktvu) June 3, 2014

Cash backwards

Erica Hanna

May 28, 2014

news@sfbg.com

San Francisco is moving into the heart of city budget season, with the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee holding detailed budget hearings over the next month to modify the $5.9 billion budget that Mayor Ed Lee introduced on May 1. Lee’s budget had a $66.7 million shortfall in the General Fund for the coming year, which he needs to close with a revised budget by June 1, as well as a $133.4 million budget hole the following fiscal year.

We at the Bay Guardian are here to help, because this is a mismanaged city that has some severely misplaced fiscal priorities right now. Although San Francisco’s booming economy means this will be a far less painful budget season than previous years, the city still has a structural budget deficit and lingering damage from the administration of Gavin Newsom, who slashed services and raised a variety of fees to address big budget deficits without raising taxes.

The moment is now, when we have more revenues than expected — and more money than we’re likely to have again for awhile given boom-bust business cycles and our over-dependence on the volatile tech sector — to finally create a city budget that sees to the needs of all San Franciscans.

WHAT WE SHOULD BE FUNDING

Medical Examiner’s Office Families now have to wait at least six months to find out how their loved ones died in San Francisco, which is new, preventable, and unacceptable. Short staffing and slow turnaround times have led the National Association of Medical Examiners to downgrade this office’s accreditation from “full” to “provisional.” The city budget should provide the staffing needed to process autopsies and medical reports as quickly as the examiners and laboratories can perform them and help give grieving families the closure they’re being denied for budgetary reasons.

Infographic: Click here for the full page inforaphic (also in this week’s print edition) of Cash backwards.

Public health In a recently issued report, nurses at San Francisco General Hospital represented by SEIU Local 1021 publicly warned of dangerously low staffing levels. “Our patients frequently do not receive the level of care required by state law, hospital policies, or modern safety standards,” they wrote. The concerns are especially worrisome in the Emergency Department, where core staffing of 22 nurses per shift dropped to 17 in recent months, or sometimes down to 11. “As a result, an average of 11 the Emergency Room’s 26 beds are closed while the Hospital goes on diversion,” turning away ambulances. “Over the year, our trauma center, SFGH, uses 3 percent more beds than budgeted—which indicates a dangerous lack of ‘surge capacity’ to absorb extra patients in the event of a natural disaster.” The report noted that vacant positions are technically budgeted in, but lingered filled.

911 dispatchers California law mandates that 90 percent of 911 calls be answered in 10 seconds or less; in San Francisco, that number often drops to 60 percent or lower. In early April, 911 dispatchers gathered at the city’s Department of Emergency Management to say that chronic understaffing is forcing dispatchers to put distressed San Franciscans on hold, or to force new callers to wait longer than 10 seconds before answering. “When a mother calls 911 because her baby isn’t breathing, 10 seconds matter. San Francisco 911 dispatch department is understaffed and needs to be improved,” say dispatcher Sean Dryden, calling for the city to put more resources into the system.

Activating surplus property Last week, the California State Assembly passed legislation that would give affordable housing developers the right of first refusal for “surplus” lands owned by local governments, thereby strengthening an existing priority for use. San Francisco has at least 42 surplus properties that could conceivably be converted into affordable housing projects, if resources were dedicated toward facilitating such partnerships and prioritizing this important need. “There is very little land available for affordable housing development,” says Assemblymember Phil Ting, who authored the legislation, which is now headed to the Senate for final approval. “These precious properties should become homes for working people.”

Homeless services In the past 10 years, San Francisco has lost about one-third of its homeless shelter beds, while about half of the city’s drop-in center capacity was also slashed, longtime advocate Jennifer Friedenbach, director of the Coalition on Homelessness, told us in a recent interview (see “San Francisco’s Untouchables,” March 24, 2014). The city can and should do more to provide a safety net for those in the precarious position of sleeping on the streets. And on a related note, city contracts for providing short-term stabilization beds for the homeless should not be awarded to slumlords who have been cited so many times for Health Code violations that they’re being sued by the City Attorney’s Office. Surely city agencies can find landlords who don’t endanger their tenants’ health and wellbeing through chronic neglect of their properties.

Pedestrian safety San Francisco spends $15 million annually on pedestrian injuries, according to the Department of Public Health, and 20 pedestrians were killed by vehicles on the streets of San Francisco in 2013 (including 6-year-old Sofia Liu on New Year’s Eve). Investments in safe streets for pedestrians saves the city money, and saves lives — but all of that counts on making the right investments. WalkFirst, the city’s pedestrian safety program, identified San Francisco’s most dangerous intersections, main in the Tenderloin and downtown, where there is a crucial need for safety modifications. Though the mayor pledged $50 million over five years to improve those intersections, that money depends on November transit ballot measures (including the vehicle license fee increase he’s now waffling on even placing on the ballot). If they fail, only $17 million will be available for pedestrian safety work. But even that amount barely scratches the surface: WalkFirst identified $240 million worth of street improvements needed to make San Francisco safe for walking.

Bike infrastructure The city has made strides in recent years to build out its bike infrastructure, but it still has miles of roadway left unsafe for bicyclists. The city identified many intersections and roadways in need of better bike infrastructure in its 2009 Bicycle Plan. Five years later, many of the identified “near term” projects still need big improvements: the Broadway tunnel; Golden Gate Avenue and Turk corridors; Division and 13th Street corridors; and “The Hairball” between Cesar Chavez and Potrero. Some of these improvements would cost the city $1 million or more, but others would cost as little as $100,000. Even the low-cost bike improvements languished since 2009, a clear failure.

A higher minimum wage In 2012, when San Francisco’s minimum wage was $10.24 per hour and rents were lower than they are today, the Department of Public Health published a map showing how many minimum-wage jobs a toiling soul would have to work in order to afford a market-rate two-bedroom apartment in a given neighborhood. To live in SoMa? 7.4 jobs. The Sunset? 3.8 jobs. The Mayor’s Office opposes increasing the city’s minimum wage to $15 on the grounds that it would increase the costs of city contracts with nonprofit organizations to provide various city services. It’s bad enough that the city has privatized essential public services, but to make the argument that the workers who provide these services aren’t even entitled to a living wage is obscene.

Crucial infrastructure The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is desperately trying to come up with $625 million to replace 19-mile-long Mountain Tunnel, a critical conduit for city water from Hetch Hetchy that is in danger of imminent collapse, which would be devastating to residents of San Francisco and other Bay Area jurisdictions that rely on it. And that just one of many items on the long list of capital improvement projects — from failing sewer lines near our bayfront to overdue transportation infrastructure improvements — that get funded each year based on politically influenced budget decisions rather than what the city actually needs to be functional and forward-thinking.

Affordable housing When voters approved creation of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2012, Mayor Lee and his allies in the business and development communities congratulated themselves on finally addressing affordable housing. The only problem was the city contribution of $20 million per year, eventually rising to $50 million annually, was a drop in the bucket compared to the actual need for subsidized housing construction. The city’s Housing Element calls for 60 percent of new housing to be below market rate to meet the needs of city resident, yet less than 20 percent of housing in the pipeline is affordable. Even the mayor’s grand promise to have a third of new housing built by 2020 be affordable turned out to be a lie, with the San Francisco Public Press recently reporting that he’s counting rehabilitation of existing public housing units. Sup. John Avalos is now working on devoting more city funding in this budget to affordable housing and we hope the full board supports his efforts.

MISSPENT PUBLIC DOLLARS

Business tax cuts The Mid-Market Tax Exclusion Zone — more commonly known as the Twitter tax break after the company whose threat to leave the city extorted millions of dollars from city coffers — is just one of series of business tax breaks aimed at the booming technology industry by Mayor Ed Lee and his allies. Not only did they also get stock options excluded from taxation (repealing a law signed by tech-friendly ex-Mayor Gavin Newsom), but they also subtly crafted 2012’s Proposition B, the complicated business tax reform measure approved by voters, to give the tech sector a substantial tax cut with little public discussion about that provision.

Central Subway We at the Bay Guardian are huge fans of public transit, and we generally believe this is all money well spent. That said, the Central Subway is a costly boondoggle whose false promises and high cost per rider we’ll all be covering for years to come. That money could have been better on a variety of other transit projects that would improve service to Chinatown and other hard to access parts of the city. And the cost overruns in the project — which have been hidden from public view by sneaky and unethical according tricks, as the SF Weekly reported this spring — are likely to continuing sapping resources from Muni and the SFMTA for a generation to come.

Repeal of Sunday metering It made no sense for Mayor Ed Lee to insist that the SFMTA repeal having to pay for parking meters on Sunday, a program that the agency found was causing more turnover and thus more parking availability and less traffic congestion in busy commercial corridors. Drivers, businesses, and Muni riders all benefited from the paid meters. That repeal will cost taxpayers about $11 million per year while transit riders are paying Muni fares that are being increased to $2.25 and the SFMTA is claiming to have no money to provide free transit service to senior and those with disabilities. This decision amounted to a $11 million annual expenditure with negative environmental impacts that were never studied — a violation of the California Environmental Quality Act, as the Board of Supervisors should rule when they hear that appeal this summer. This is money that could be better spent.

Nonprofit Inc. The city spends millions of dollars every year on hundreds of contracts with nonprofit organizations, much of which goes to politically connected groups in a sort of political patronage system. For example, Randy Shaw and his Tenderloin Housing Clinic have dozens of contracts with the city to perform a variety of services, all while he writes glowing puff pieces on Mayor Lee for his Beyond Chron blog. Shaw even recently got a $20,000 city contract to help find tenants for commercial spaces in the Tenderloin — as if that’s actually a problem in a booming city with an overheating economy. The city’s contracts should be thoroughly reviewed by an independent party — in addition to the Board of Supervisors — to weed out the political patronage.

Promoting tourism San Francisco takes in almost $300 million per year on its transient occupancy tax, then it turns around and spends a significant portion of that promoting tourism by funding the San Francisco Travel Association (including its high-paid President Joe D’Alessandro), the Moscone Convention Center and its current expansion plans, and a variety of other tourism outreach efforts. The private sector that receives the biggest benefits from tourism (tourists spend $25 million a day in the city, according to the SFTA) should be funding more of the city’s tourist promotion and the hotel taxes should be treated as a general revenue source to improve Muni, roads, and other services that tourists also use.

Subsidies for automobiles Even in this transit-first city, where the SFMTA claims to be trying to reduce the percentage of total trips taken by car from about 60 percent now down to 50 percent, city policies subsidize automobiles (as well as the Google buses and other private shuttles). Drivers get free parking on public streets throughout the city, particularly on the west side. Most housing development projects are still required to provide on-site parking, which increases the cost of housing even for residents who don’t drive, despite some early progressive reforms that try to de-link parking from housing. And motorists contribute far more than other residents to wear-and-tear on our roads, adding to the Department of Public Works budget — with the very worst offender being those massive Google buses, whose impacts on the city budget are far more than the $1 per stop they’re now paying. There are tricky legal restrictions around making drivers pay for their impacts, but there are ways of doing so if the political will is there.

Hiring bad construction contractors According to an audit published by the City Controller’s Office, San Francisco has budgeted more than $25 billion for its capital improvement plan in the next 10 years — but doesn’t bother to check whether a contractor has done a good job in the past before passing out lucrative contracts. “City departments do not adequately assess contractor performance and do not consider past performance in the construction contract award process,” the audit found. “Although 70 percent of surveyed city construction staff have at least occasionally encountered city contractors that they considered poor performers, the City’s Administrative Code does not require departments to assess the performance of construction contractors, and past performance is not considered.” The result? “Project delays, substandard work, and higher likelihood of claims and litigation.” Oh, and that great flushing sound as tax dollars are whooshed away.

Subsidizing events for the wealthy Can anyone fathom why San Francisco used taxpayer dollars to fund Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s super-rich boy America’s Cup last year? Ellison pulled in a $96.2 million salary in 2012, and is worth billions. Yet Mayor Lee put up general fund money to the tune of $20 million for the billionaire’s yacht race, according to a report by the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst. What was the city supposed to get out of it? A major tax revenue windfall, for starters, but that turned out to be a myth. San Francisco lost $6 million in general funds, and Larry Ellison won the cup, and our money. City taxpayers also subsidize the symphony, the opera, blue-blood gatherings in City Hall, and other events their wealthy attendees should be paying for themselves.

Treasure Island San Francisco purchased contaminated Treasure Island for $105 million in 2009, spent millions more on planning and contracting work to prepare for private developers to build about 6,000 homes on the island, agreed to stake an additional $700 million in bond money against future property taxes, and then basically gave the whole thing away to politically connected developers to build up the island with towers that will rise up 60 stories, developer who will take their customary 15-20 percent profits on what they put into the deal. All of this on a island that current climate change projections show will be underwater by the end of the century, requiring acres of landfill and buffering against the elements to avoid this fate, even though San Francisco is under state mandate to remove bay fill and live in more harmony with the natural world. Is this really a good idea? Rainy day fund Why is the Mayor’s Office proposing to stick $125 million into the Budget Stabilization Fund, aka the Rainy Day Fund, when city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund is falling woefully short of building the below-market-rate housing that San Franciscans right now. With this city displacing its more diverse populations and becoming steadily more affluent, which will forever change its socioeconomic and political dynamics, it’s raining now — raining the will of the wealthy, a downpour that is flooding the rest of us out of the city of St. Francis.

Does carsharing really reduce overall driving?

Sasha Cuttler

May 23, 2014

Does carsharing really reduce overall driving?

At the Share conference that I covered for this week’s Guardian, there were wildly divergent claims for how many vehicles carsharing companies such as City Car Share, Zipcar, and Getaround take off the road. I was also a little skeptical of claims that carsharing dramatically reduces overall driving and greenhouse gas emissions, so I decided to take a deeper look at the issue.

“For every car that is shared, we take seven cars off the road,” Board of Supervisors President David Chiu said during his presentation. The next day Getaround founder and spokesperson Jessica Scorpio cited a study claiming that 32 cars get taken off the road for every shared vehicle.

Luckily, one of the country’s top researchers in this area is right in our backyard. UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Susan Shaheen heads the school’s Transportation Sustainability Research Center and has been doing peer-reviewed studies on car-sharing for almost 20 years.

Her research, which is consistent with the body of academic research on carsharing from around the world, has found that each shared car takes between nine and 13 other cars off the road, figures that she says are amazingly consistent around the world. That big reduction is because households that have cars tend to get rid of at least one of them when they sign up for carsharing, while car-free households that want access to a car will choose (as Shaheen says is the case for about 25 percent of the people in each group, which adds up to 90,000-130,000 fewer cars on the road nationwide).

But Shaheen told us that she’s highly skeptical of the study showing 32 cars being taken off the road, an industry-sponsored study that was far less rigorous than her work, and whose authors intially wouldn’t share their work with her when she requested it. “It appears to be some kind of idealized number,” Shaheen told me. “I take this stuff pretty seriously.

The part about up to 13 cars being taken off the road has always made sense to me, and it’s certainly a benefit to cities have fewer overall cars on the road, particularly as they use parking spaces on public roads. But I was more skeptical of the claim that overall vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is reduced by carsharing.

Shaheen’s biggest study (“Impact of Carsharing on Vehicle Holdings,” a 2009 study she did with Elliot Martin and Jeffrey Lidicker) found overall VMT was reduced by 27 percent, even though her study frankly admits that about 60 percent of carsharing customers come from car-free households.

How can that be? Doesn’t it seem like driving would increase when you give more people access to something as expensive as an automobile, particularly in a small, congested city like San Francisco that has such a variety of other good transportation options? Shaheen does admit that one study focused specifically on San Francisco did indeed find that overall VMT does increase among carsharing customers in their first year using the service.

But the studies by Shaheen and other researchers show that VMT among carsharing customers drops in subsequent years, often quite dramatically, as people figure out that it’s not really so hard to get around by public transit, bike, or on foot. “When people use carsharing, they use it less and less and less,” Shaheen told us.

And when it comes to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, Shaheen said her studies and those of other researchers — including the 2010 “Greenhouse Gas Emission Impacts of Carsharing in North America,” who she and Martin did for the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University — found dramatic reductions.

“This study contributes to mounting evidence that carsharing is lowering GHG emissions

by providing people with automotive access on an as-needed basis,” the study concludes, with the reduction in VMT compounded by the fact that carsharing encourages people to get rid of older, more polluting cars and instead drive new, more efficient vehicles.

Still, despite all of that evidence, Shaheen admits that it’s tough to say carsharing causes less overall driving in the city of San Francisco, although she thinks it’s likely that it does. Not only is her survey based on self-reported data, but it’s also based on national aggregations that can’t be unpacked to comment on specific locales.

And her study predated rapid and drastic changes on the streets of San Francisco over the last five years, where bike lanes and ridership have been expanded, bikesharing has been introduced (another area that Shaheen has studied in detail), Muni has had its ups and downs, the population has increased, parking costs have increased and morphed, and Lyft and other ridesharing companies have filled the streets with a new category of cars (that latter development is the subject of her latest research project that is now underway).

“Things are changing really rapidly,” she told us.

Each of those variables affect whether someone chooses to drive a car, and they can be constantly shifting. For example, driving might become a far less attractive option as automobile congestion increases, particularly if the city expands the capacity for cyclists and Muni riders.

Shaheen is also looking forward to technological advances in data collection, allowing her to use less self-reported data, something she is already able to do with Bay Area BikeShare: “With bike sharing, they are so transparent. They share all the data, it’s like a party for me.”

So as carsharing and ridesharing companies seeks to bolster their claims to being an unqualified benefit for society, those companies should be willing to share detailed usage data with Shaheen and other independent researchers, which will help us all move beyond the hype to make informed public policy decisions.

“This is important,” Shaheen told us. “I take this very seriously because I want these to be numbers that policymakers can use.”

Gettin’ festy

Steven T. Jones

May 20, 2014

esilvers@sfbg.com

LEFT OF THE DIAL Earlier this month, Oakland singer-songwriter Ash Reiter was at Hipnic, an annual three-day music festival in Big Sur thrown by promoters folkYEAH!, featuring Cass McCombs, the Fresh & Onlys, the Mother Hips, Nicki Bluhm & the Gramblers, and plenty of other Bay Area folky faves. Held at the Fernwood Resort and campgrounds, with families gathering under the shade of redwoods, it’s one of the cozier, more homegrown summer festivals in the greater Bay Area — there’s nary a Coachella-esque VIP section in sight — but a three-day pass still comes in at a cool $240.

Looking around, Reiter saw how the ticket price had shaped the crowd.

“There was obviously some great music, but that kind of boutique festival thing is so expensive that a lot of the audience seemed like older, well-off folks, parents — I mean, those are the people who can afford to go to these things,” she recalls. “I’m sure a lot of the bands playing wouldn’t be able to go to that festival, if they weren’t playing.”

It was that kind of thinking that sparked the idea for Hickey Fest, a three-day festival now in its second year and named for its location in Standish Hickey State Park in Mendocino County, “where the South Fork of the Eel River shimmers against the backdrop of the majestic redwoods,” according to the fest’s flyers. Born of the desire to curate a “musical experience outside of just your average festival, a chance for musicians to actually hang out and talk to each other and get to know each other that’s not just in a loud rock club,” Reiter launched Hickey Fest over Memorial Day weekend last year, with a lineup of friend-bands like Warm Soda, Farallons, Cool Ghouls, and Michael Musika. The goal: A festival her musician friends would actually enjoy, in an atmosphere that wouldn’t be “as overwhelming as a BottleRock or an Outside Lands.” She estimates some 500 to 600 people attended in total.

This year’s festival, which runs June 20-22 in the same location, includes another local-love lineup, including Papercuts, Sonny and the Sunsets, Black Cobra Vipers, and more. A $60 ticket gets you three days of music and camping. “I wanted it to be about community, about putting the fun back in music,” says Reiter, who will also perform. “So I did intentionally try to make it as cheap as possible.”

It’s a sentiment rarely heard from music promoters, especially as the days get longer and the work-ditching gets ubiquitous and the college kids are all turned loose for the summer. Festival season is upon us, Bay Area, and make no mistake: It’s a great way to see touring bands from all over the country. It’s a great platform for local bands, who get the chance to play bigger stages and reach new audiences. And as a music fan, it’s a great way to spend a shit-ton of money.

FIELD OF DREAMS

In the summer of 1969, when Woodstock was changing the meaning of “music festival” on the East Coast via Jimi solos and free, mud-covered love, plans were taking shape for a San Francisco festival that, had it actually taken place, would have been legendary: The Wild West Festival, scheduled for Aug. 22-24, was designed as a three-day party, with regular (ticketed) concerts each night in Kezar Stadium, while other bands performed free music all day, each day, in Golden Gate Park.

Bill Graham and other SF rock scene movers and shakers worked collaboratively on organizing the festival, which — had it happened — would have seen Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana, Country Joe and the Fish, the Steve Miller Band, and half a dozen other iconic bands of the decade all taking the stage within 72 hours.

Why’d it fall apart? According to most versions of the story, too many of those involved wanted the whole damn thing to be free. Graham, among others, countered that, while the free music utopia was a nice idea, lights, a sound system, and other basic accoutrements of a music festival did in fact cost American dollars. The plans collapsed amid in-fighting, and the infamous Altamont free music festival was planned as a sort of make-up for December of that year — an organizational disaster of an event that came to be known for the death of Meredith Hunter, among other violence, signaling the end of a certain starry-eyed era.

So yeah, money has always been a sticky part of live music festivals. But the industry has boomed in a particularly mind-boggling way over the last decade; never before have ticket prices served as such a clear barrier to entry for your average, middle-class music fan. Forget Hipnic: In the days after Outside Lands sold out, enterprising San Franciscans began plonking their three-day festival passes onto the “for sale” section of Craigslist at upwards of $1,000 each.

The alternative? The “screw that corporate shit, let’s do our own thing” attitude, which is, of course, exactly the kind of attitude that’s birthed the bumper crop of smaller summer festivals that have sprung up in the Bay Area over the past few years, like Phono del Sol (July 12, an indie-leaning daylong affair in SF’s Potrero del Sol Park, started by hip-kid music blog The Bay Bridged in 2010, tickets: $25-$30) and Burger Boogaloo (a cheekily irreverent punk, surf, and rockabilly fest over July 4 weekend in Oakland’s Mosswood Park — weekend pass: $50). Both pair bigger, buzzy acts with national reach like Wye Oak (Phono del Sol) or Thee Oh Sees and the great Ronnie Spector (Burger Boogaloo) with a slew of local openers.

“I’ve played a few festivals, and when it’s a really big thing, you realize there are just so many other huge bands that people would rather see,” says Mikey Maramag, better known as the folk-tronica brains behind SF’s Blackbird Blackbird. He’ll be sharing a bill with Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Nick Waterhouse, White Fence, A Million Billion Dying Suns, and others at Phono del Sol — which, judging by last year’s attendance, could draw some 5,000 to 6,000 people.

“I think at smaller festivals you have more people who take the time to really listen, appreciate the music more, really big fans,” he says. “There are fewer artists on this bill [than at large festivals] but they’re all great ones — I’m especially excited to see Wye Oak.”

Maramag will be debuting some songs from his new album, Tangerine Sky, out June 3; the show will serve as a welcome-home from a quick national tour to promote it.

Then there are the even more modest summer offerings, like SF Popfest, which takes place over four days (May 22-25) at various small venues in the city. It’s not exactly a traditional festival — you’re not likely to find slideshows online of the “BEST POPFEST FASHION!!1!” the way we’ve unfortunately become accustomed to from Coachella — but for the small contingent of super passionate ’90s indie-pop fans in the Bay Area (hi!), this is one not to miss.

“I’ve been getting a lot of calls from people who think it’s a very different kind of festival than it is. App people. This one guy had some kind of offer about a parking app for festivals, I think? Which would really not make any sense at all,” says Josh Yule, guitarist for SF jangle-pop maestros Cruel Summer, who received the mantle of SF Popfest organizer from his predecessor in the mid-aughts (older history of the festival is a little hazy, as it’s always been primarily organized by musicians for musicians — for fun and, says Yule, absolutely no profit whatsoever). There was talk of getting some beer sponsors at some point, but he decided against it. “We have friends working the door at most of these things. I was a punk kid in high school, I guess, I tend to stay away from things that would make this go in a more corporate direction.”

This year’s fest is centered around reunions of bands who’ve been broken up for a while, like cult-favorite Sacramento popsters Rocketship, who haven’t played together in at least a decade; the band will be at the Rickshaw Stop Fri/23 for a Slumberland Records showcase. Dressy Bessy, Dreamdate, the Mantles, Terry Malts, and plenty others will all make appearances throughout the fest, as well as a few newer bands, like the female-fronted Stockton garagey-punk band Monster Treasure.

“Obviously it’s not gonna be thousands of people, it’s not going to be outside — it’s going to be 100 to 200 like-minded individuals who all enjoy the same thing, and they all get it,” says Yule. “We got these bands back together to play and they’re all excited about it even though there’s no [financial] guarantee…It’s that community that I’ve always been involved in and sometimes I feel like it’s not around anymore. So it’s nice to go ‘Oh wait, there it is. It’s still there, and it’s still strong.'”

CROWD SURFING

For local bands just starting to make a name for themselves, of course, there’s nothing like a larger and yes, very corporate festival for reaching new audiences. Take the locals stage at LIVE 105’s BFD, the all-day radio-rock party celebrating its 20th year June 1 at the Shoreline: Curated by the station’s music director, Aaron Axelsen — aka the DJ who’s launched 1,000 careers, thanks to his Sunday night locals-only show, Soundcheck, as well as booking up-and-comers for Popscene — the locals stage at BFD has a pretty good track record for launching bands onto the next big thing. The French Cassettes, one of SF’s current indie-pop darlings, sure hope that holds true for them.

“Aaron Axelsen has been really generous to us. I think we’re all clear that none of this would be happening without him,” says singer-guitarist Scott Huerta. The band will be playing songs from its newest album, out on cassette (duh) at the end of May. “But we’re super excited just to be in there. Hopefully we make some new fans. I know I used to find out about new bands by going to BFD and just passing by that stage. It’s by all the food vendors, so as long as people are hungry, we’ll be good. Don’t eat before you come.”

For the Tumbleweed Wanderers, an Oakland-based soul-folk-rock band that’s been hustling back and forth across the country for the past year, hitting the stage at Outside Lands (Aug. 8-10) — that festival everyone loves to hate and hates to love — will be the culmination of years of playing around the festival, quite literally.

“In 2011, we busked outside, and I think that’s the year [our keyboard player] Patrick almost got arrested?” says Rob Fidel, singer-guitarist, with a laugh. “Then the next year we got asked to play Dr. Flotsam’s Hell Brew Review, which is this thing in the park just outside Outside Lands, and we did that for an hour and a half every day for free. And then busked outside. I like to say we played Outside Lands more than any other band that year.

“But to be on the other side of that all of a sudden is awesome,” he says, noting that the band will be playing some tunes from a new record set for release later this year. “It was the same when we played the Fillmore for the first time — we used to busk outside of there and the venue would get super pissed, and now, oh look, that same guy’s carrying our amps…but I think the experience of working our way up like that has kinda taught us you’re gonna see the same people on the way up as on the way down. And we’ve worked really hard these past few years. It’s nice to feel like we’ve earned it.”

It’s only a slight exaggeration to say there are roughly 1,000 other music festivals happening throughout the Bay Area this summer — at the Guardian, our inboxes have been filling up with press releases and show announcements since February; check out the roundup below for a mere smattering of what’s going on. And, ticket price hand-wringing aside, you don’t need to be rich to rock out: Stern Grove’s free Sunday lineups, with heavy hitters like Smokey Robinson, Andrew Bird, Rufus Wainwright, and the Zombies, are among the best we’ve seen. In the East Bay, the Art+Soul Festival is always a source of up-and-comers in hip-hop, funk, and more — this year for the whopping price of $15.

So, yeah, we never got that Janis and Sly and Jefferson Airplane show. So be it. As a music fan in the Bay Area, there’s no better time than summer to smack yourself, remember that you’re super lucky to live here, grab a sweater (because layers), and get out to hear some music. Call it your own damn three-month-long Wild West Festival. We’ll see you in the bathroom line.

May

SF Popfest, May 22-25, locations vary throughout SF, www.sfpopfest.com

Audio on the Bay, Craneway Pavilion, Richmond, May 23-25, www.insomniac.com

BottleRock Napa Valley, Napa, May 30-June 1, www.bottlerocknapavalley.com

June

LIVE 105’s BFD, June 1, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, www.live105.cbslocal.com

Not Dead Yet Fest, June 7, Thee Parkside, SF, www.notdeadyetfest.com

OMINODAY Music Festival, June 7, McLaren Park, SF, www.ominoday.weebly.com

The San Francisco Jazz Festival, June 11-22, locations vary. www.sfjazz.org

Reggae in the Hills, Calaveras County Fairgrounds, June 13-15, www.reggaeinthehills.com

Hickey Fest, June 20-22, Leggett, www.hickeyfest.wordpress.com

San Francisco Free Folk Festival, June 21-22, Presidio Middle School, SF, www.sffolkfest.org

Berkeley World Music Festival, June 22, People’s Park, Berk., www.berkeleyworldmusic.org

July

High Sierra Music Festival, July 3-6, Quincy, www.highsierramusic.com

Burger Boogaloo, July 5-6, Mosswood Park, Oak., www.burgerboogaloo.com

Phono del Sol, July 12, Potrero del Sol Park, SF, www.phonodelsol.com

Northern Nights, July 18-20, Mendocino/Humboldt, www.northernnights.org

August

Art + Soul Oakland, Aug. 2-3, City Center, Oak., www.artandsouloakland.com

Outside Lands, Aug. 8-10, Golden Gate Park, SF, www.sfoutsidelands.com

First City Festival, Aug. 23-24, Monterey, www.firstcityfestival.com

Throughout the summer: Stern Grove Festival, Sundays, www.sterngrove.org; People in Plazas, dates vary, throughout downtown SF, www.peopleinplazas.org.

No real answers at question time

Michael Redmond

May 20, 2014

NO REAL ANSWERS AT QUESTION TIME

At last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Mayor Ed Lee showed up for Question Time, that scintillating moment when the city’s top-ranking official reads off a written response to a pre-submitted question. Despite knowing in advance that District 1 Sup. Eric Mar would ask him how much he was considering raising the minimum wage, Lee still didn’t fully answer.

“Mayor Lee, San Francisco is now the city with the fastest-growing gap between rich and poor … Some labor groups in the City have proposed to increase the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour,” Mar noted, referencing a ballot initiative led by Service Employees International Union Local 1021 to ask voters to approve that increase. “Can you share what level you are currently considering increasing the minimum wage to and how you plan on mitigating impacts on small businesses and nonprofits?”

But Lee did not respond by naming a concrete dollar amount, instead saying he hoped all stakeholders could “work together” to arrive at a mutually agreeable figure. “I am, along with Sup. [Jane] Kim and others, working closely with labor unions, advocates, business leaders, and nonprofit representatives to craft one consensus measure that we can put on the ballot this November,” Lee said. “I am completely committed to increasing it this year, and I hope we can all work together to support one consensus measure.”

OAKLAND FAST FOOD WORKERS JOIN INTERNATIONAL STRIKE

Hundreds of Bay Area fast food workers joined in protests against McDonald’s and other chains that exploit low-paid workers as part of a day of action that spanned 150 US cities and 33 countries across the world.

In Oakland, a march targeted a McDonald’s on East 12th Street and a Burger King at 13th and Broadway, among other locations. KFC worker Jose Martinez helped organize a similar march in Oakland last year. Since then, he said, his bosses have shown little inclination to help workers.

“Nothing has changed,” Martinez said. “I’ve been working there four years, and I haven’t had a raise — $8.25 is nothing, I can’t live on that.”

Martinez is a student, and says the pay isn’t enough to cover basic needs while he focuses on his studies.

Meanwhile, other workers rely on fast food restaurant jobs to support their families.

“I haven’t had a raise in three years,” a McDonald’s worker who identified herself as Markeisha told us just after she went out on strike from an Oakland McDonald’s in December. Markeisha said she’s the sole provider for her two children.

Fast food workers also contend they are a vulnerable workforce. Wage theft, low salaries, slashed hours, and punitive measures for speaking out are among the grievances they allege against chains including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell.

“One thing we found when talking to fast food workers was wage theft issues were high,” Service Employees International Union Local 1021 Political Director Chris Daly told the Guardian. “When you’re making $8-11 an hour, a couple shifts can be the difference between paying the rent or not.”

APPEAL FILED IN SUNDAY METER DEBATE

Transit advocacy groups filed an appeal May 14, challenging a controversial vote by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors last month to end paid Sunday meters.

The appeal argues that the paid Sunday meters program was highly beneficial, and charges that the decision to terminate it was made without adequate review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

It was filed by transit groups Livable City, The San Francisco Transit Riders Union, and an individual, Mario Tanev. It will now go to the Board of Supervisors, for a vote to approve or deny review under CEQA.

“The enforcement of parking meters on Sunday in San Francisco has been doing exactly what it was designed to do,” the appeal argues, “reduce traffic congestion, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase parking availability, and increase revenues in the City and County of San Francisco.”

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told the Guardian, “We’ll take a look at the appeal, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment at this time.”

The Sunday meters program brought in $11 million, more than enough to cover proposed programs such as free Muni for seniors and disabilities.

At the meeting where the program was shot down, many seniors told the SFMTA board that the rising cost of living in San Francisco, combined with declining federal assistance and retirement funds, are making it tough to afford basic needs such as transportation on Muni.

CHIU ACCUSES CAMPOS OF STARTING A WAR ON TECH

Speaking to an audience of tech enthusiasts at last week’s Share conference, Board of Supervisors President and California Assembly candidate David Chiu aggressively courted votes — by accusing his opponent, Sup. David Campos, of declaring war on the tech sector.

“They are calling for a war on you, even though they don’t realize you are addressing our income inequality,” Chiu said of Campos and his progressive allies.

Chiu was the only elected official invited to address this $795-per-person conference on the “sharing economy,” the term adopted by companies that facilitate peer-to-peer online economic transactions.

Before the session began, meanwhile, a Chiu campaign worker stood outside the conference entrance to hand out photocopies of an anonymous May 11 hit piece, titled “3 Things Every Tech Worker Should Know About Supervisors David Campos.”

Also speaking at that session was venture capitalist Ron Conway, a key investor supporting many of these companies and a financial backer of Mayor Ed Lee. Conway’s spouse, Gayle, chairs an independent expenditure committee that funded a mailer attacking Campos for voting against the ouster of Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi in October of 2012. At that time, Mirkarimi faced possible removal for official misconduct, following charges of domestic abuse stemming from an incident in which Mirkarimi grabbed his wife Eliana Lopez’s arm and left a bruise. The mailer features a photo depicting the mother of a murder victim killed by a domestic abuser. The vote, legally speaking, was held to decide whether the charges rose to the level of official misconduct.

“For someone who says he tries to bring people together, David Chiu is trying to scare people into thinking there’s a war going on. I don’t know where that comes from,” Campos said in response. “The idea that we have a war on the techies and the tech industry is ridiculous.”

Instead, he said he and progressive allies have been trying to address the eviction and displacement crisis that is connected to the tax breaks and other special treatment that Chiu, Mayor Lee, and supporters delivered to tech companies.

“Asking that they pay their fair share doesn’t mean we’re against them,” Campos said. He added: “It seems that David Chiu and Ron Conway are joined at the hip.”

Free Sunday meter plan challenged with environmental review

Erica Hanna

May 14, 2014

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Free Sunday meter plan challenged with environmental review

Transit advocacy groups filed an appeal today challenging a controversial vote by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s Board of Directors to end paid Sunday meters last month.

The appeal contests paid Sunday meters were a benefit to many, and the decision to terminate the program was made without adequate review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

The appeal was filed by transit groups Livable City, The San Francisco Transit Riders Union, and an individual, Mario Tanev. The appeal will now go to the Board of Supervisors, for a vote to approve or deny review under CEQA.

SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told the Guardian, “We’ll take a look at the appeal, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment at this time.” The SFMTA had only just recieved notice of the appeal.

Proponents of paid Sunday meters also spoke at the SFMTA board meeting, shortly before the paid meters were struck down.

“Your own studies show meters are beneficial to shoppers and businesses,” Tanev said during public comment. “You could have used this money to support seniors and people with disabilities who clearly need it.”

And the need from those groups was clear, as over 200 seniors and people with disabilities came to the meeting to advocate for free Muni. The SFMTA board denied the request for free Muni for seniors and disabilities just before voting to approve a budget that included rescinding the paid Sunday meters.

The Sunday meters program brought in $11 million, more than enough money to pay for all of the proposed free Muni programs, as many at the SFMTA meeting pointed out.

Shortly after the vote, SFMTA Board of Directors Chairman Tom Nolan told the Guardian he felt pushed from all sides.

“I’ve been on the SFMTA board for years, and I’ve never felt more pressure,” he said. “This is the hardest budget in the eight years I’ve been on the board.”

At the meeting, many seniors noted the rising cost of living in San Francisco, combined with declining federal assistance and retirement funds, are forcing hard choices on seniors. Many spoke of forgoing doctor’s trips because they could not afford Muni, or of forgoing food in order to afford Muni trips.

“Muni is for everybody, especially those who need it most,” Nolan said. “The testimony was very heartbreaking.”

Embedded below is the CEQA appeal filed against the free Sunday meter decision.

CEQA Appeal – SFMTA Sunday Meter Enforcement by FitztheReporter

Carmageddon cometh

Michael Redmond

May 7, 2014

news@sfbg.com

STREET FIGHT

San Francisco — already overwhelmed with private automobiles — faces a grim future of gridlock unless there is a radical change in how we think about city streets, parking, and regional transportation.

The facts are clear. Every day there are 1.7 million private car trips to, from, or within the city, according to the city’s transportation plan. Coupled with almost 10,000 vehicles registered per square mile, San Francisco today has one of the densest concentrations of cars on the planet, more than any peer city in the United States. In the business-as-usual scenario, the streets are forecast to absorb another half-million car trips. By 2040 there will be 2.2 million car trips on the exact same street grid we have today.

This is madness and it is dysfunctional for everyone. If you think Muni is unreliable now, it will be useless in 2040 as it stalls in the morass of 2.2 million car trips jammed onto city streets. Pedestrian injuries and deaths will rise with another 160 cars hitting pedestrians annually, simply due to oversaturation of automobiles. Cyclists might be able to weave around the stalled traffic, but it will be an ugly scene that fouls the air. Motorists will be stuck in their own gridlock, evermore impatient, distracted, honking, lurching through blocked intersections, sneaking through yellow lights, blocking crosswalks, double parking, and irritated with fellow drivers and everyone around. No one will be happy

This does not have to be. The city’s transportation agency hopes to reduce car trips from 1.7 to 1.6 million by 2018, a modest goal but barely holding the line. Reducing existing car trips by 100,000 while also adding thousands upon thousands of housing units and jobs, most coming with more parking, will quickly undo this humble ambition. The city can do more and the data shows us that there are many opportunities.

Consider that 68 percent of car trips within San Francisco are less than three miles. That’s 650,000 car trips per day that are generally pretty short — with a bicycle it’s less than a half-hour ride on relatively even terrain. If the city were able to get half of those car trips to switch to bicycle trips, it would be well on its way to averting carmageddon.

A more ambitious goal, increasing cycling to 20 percent of all trips, is the official city policy adopted by the Board of Supervisors. That’s 500,000-600,000 trips by bicycle every day, most of which can take place within that three-mile range, especially if cleverly arranged “wiggles” (level routes circumventing steeper hills) are laid out on the most logical corridors. But to carry that many cyclists, real space has to be allocated for them.

Out at San Francisco State University, where I teach a new Bicycle Geographies course that aims to increase cycling to the campus, there is tremendous opportunity to shift these kinds of short trips to bicycling. For students, faculty, and staff, bicycling is compatible with rapid transit, particularly for the “last mile” segments, such as between BART and SF State.

Bicycling is also a way to relieve local bus and light rail transit crowding — the 28 bus line on 19th Avenue, for example, is often jam packed and the city has only modest goals to improve that key line. Unlike transit or highways, bicycles do not require costly, long-term capital investment or operating funds and so can be deployed much more quickly.

It will be decades and cost hundreds of millions to improve the M-line, only now in the planning phase. We can lay down cycletracks much more quickly. Bicycling is also among the most equitable forms of urban transportation because it is affordable and accessible to almost everyone. This is obviously relevant to working-class students at SF State.

SF State has a memorandum of understanding with the city that obliges the university to reduce drive-alone automobile trips to campus, and the campus will not build any more car parking. With 4 percent of commute trips to SF State by bicycle (and only 2 percent among faculty) there is potential to increase the mode-share of bicycling as a path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and auto trips.

The spatial proximity to Daly City and Balboa Park BART stations, as well as the Excelsior and Sunset, all under three miles from campus, means that the bicycle is well-suited to be a substitute for many short-range automobile trips and help the campus meet its goals. Yet what my students have found this semester is that it is all but impossible to bike safely to and from SF State, and the southwestern quadrant of San Francisco is largely left out of current bicycle planning in the city.

Taking multiple bicycle field trips over the past few months, we surveyed the opportunities for making safe routes to campus and envisioned what it would take to increase cycling to 20 percent of trips to and from SF State. Starting with the Balboa Park station, which is next to a deplorable tangle of freeway ramps, we ask what it would look like if fully-separated cycletracks were built on Geneva or Ocean avenues. These could connect City College and the Excelsior, and by way of a westward and southward jog, to a bicycle boulevard on Holloway Avenue, enabling a safe and convenient, 1.7-mile, 15-minute bike ride to SF State. Expanding the nascent Bay Area Bike Share to connect SF State and Balboa Park BART would create even more opportunity for cycling.

To the south of SF State, Daly City BART is a 1.4-mile, 10-minute bike ride that is daunting and poorly signed. It could be made safe and inviting with bicycle boulevards on streets parallel to traffic-clogged 19th Avenue and Junipero Serra. Borrowing from signature bicycle and pedestrian bridges in Pleasant Hill and Berkeley, perhaps there is an opportunity to build a bridge across Brotherhood Way toward the BART station, leveling an otherwise steep climb that discourages cycling.

To the north of campus, describing the designated 20th Avenue bicycle route as “a bit of a challenge” is an understatement. Cyclists must thread a cluttered shopping mall parking lot and overbuilt wide streets, and then confront a median blockading the way across Sloat Boulevard. While the megaproject to improve the M-line could include a cycletrack on this stretch of 19th Avenue, we should not wait a generation to increase cycling between SF State and the Sunset. The 20th Avenue route can be made welcoming now, with a fully-separated cycletrack and fixes on the Sloat intersection.

SF State, probably one of the most diverse campuses in the nation, has highly motivated students seeking real solutions to the huge problems society faces. The students are coming of age under extreme pressure of economic inequity and ecological duress, but they also see ways out of the mess created by the wasteful car culture and its linkages to ecological and social problems. They want to act now, and unlike past generations, they are shunning driving and many of them desire to reside in livable cities that offer choices for how they get around.

But what we have found this semester is that the campus is extremely isolated, difficult to access by bicycle, and walled-off by car sewers. Older, uninviting bicycle lanes are fragmented, disjointed, and seem to be an afterthought. With imagination, ingenuity, and political will, this can be remedied with bicycle improvements that cost far less than adding more car lanes and parking to the campus or surrounding area. And this would go much further at improving quality of life for neighbors who now have to put up with campus-generated traffic. Keeping the status quo, which means even more car trips but within the same space, is a dead end.

TRANSBAY DREAMS

Speaking of dead ends, San Francisco seems to specialize in dead-end train projects. The Central Subway, which is experiencing cost overruns and possible mismanagement, is one of these dead ends. There is no current option to have trains exiting to Geary or onto Columbus and possibly running on Lombard into the Marina, and that is a shame. Having the subway exit to the surface is probably the only way to make this project worthwhile.

There’s another dead end train project at the Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco. Yet unlike the Central Subway quagmire, I am impressed with the scale and possibilities for the Transbay Terminal project and there is opportunity to fix this dead end. Going back to the city’s business-as-usual traffic forecast, in 2040 car trips into the city from the Bay Bridge would increase 18 percent, and by 21 percent from San Mateo County. Aside from scratching my head wondering where exactly all of these cars are supposed to go, we simply need to stop this onslaught before the city becomes too dumb to move.

BART cannot solve it alone, as it will probably approach half a million riders per day by 2016, placing many downtown stations at or near capacity. BART also does not run all the way down the peninsula. Sometimes there are back-of-the envelope proposals to build a second BART tunnel under the bay, but this idea should be weighed against another idea. Rather than build a second BART tunnel to Oakland, how about a joint Amtrak California/Caltrain tunnel under the bay, and creating a true Grand Central Station of the West at Transbay? Let’s punch through the dead end currently planned for the east end of the Transbay Terminal “train box” and truly connect Northern California by rail.

This does not need to be high-speed rail, but rather the conventional, off-the-shelf electric rail already planned for Caltrain, of the variety that operates in the Northeastern US and much of Europe — efficient, high capacity trains that can travel 100-120 mile per hour comfortably and safely. In conjunction with a new transbay rail tunnel, the Capitol Corridor should be electrified and right of way captured from the freight railroads. One could take an electrified “baby bullet” from San Jose, through San Francisco, and continue to the East Bay and Sacramento. As Caltrain is electrified to the south, let’s also electrify the Altamonte Commuter Express trains, bring them across a rebuilt Dumbarton Bridge, and run high-frequency rail service into the new Transbay Terminal.

Understanding that this will take time to build, in the short term the Bay Bridge should be reconfigured to have bus-only lanes (and a bicycle lane on the bottom deck of the west span) and a greatly expanded AC Transit service that can relieve the looming BART crowding to the East Bay.

How to pay for these transbay dreams? A transbay rail project could get funding from Amtrak and other federal sources, requiring our congressional delegation to work for it. The state gasoline tax or eventual carbon taxes, and revenue from tolling Bay Area freeways, should be in the mix. The 101 and 280 should be tolled as well as the Caldecott Tunnel and I-80 in the East Bay, with revenue directed at electric rail in the long term and regional buses short term. And while people are talking about reforming Proposition 13 to end the artificially low property taxes on commercial land, let’s remember that transit — whether Muni, BART, or Caltrain — brings massive value to commercial property owners. They should be realistically expecting to pay in. In short, there are possibilities and ways to do this.

Here’s one small additional idea for raising seed money: In the wake of the Google bus controversy, the SFCTA, SFMTA, SF Planning Department, and City Attorney’s Office should assemble a crack team of California Environmental Quality Act experts and send them (on Caltrain and bike share!) down to comment on every large-scale suburban office project proposed in Silicon Valley. For example, Mountain View, where Google has its campus, is effectively displacing part of its transportation and housing responsibility to San Francisco.

As part of the CEQA mitigation for these suburban office projects, San Francisco ought to be demanding that Google/ Mountain View contribute to paying for the Transbay Terminal and electrifying Caltrain (a separate fund would be directed to affordable housing as mitigation for displacement). This is a similar line of reasoning to the May 1 lawsuit against the Google bus pilot, but it draws in those responsible for the poor planning in suburban sprawl. Regardless, the city ought to take a look at a CEQA mitigation angle for addressing the impacts these suburban decisions are having on the city.

PRAYING FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

One last point about transit finance: I sure hope Mayor Ed Lee, his political advisors, and all those religious ministers who complained about paying for metered parking on Sundays (see “Politics over policy,” April 22) have a plan to advocate for the November ballot proposals to help finance Muni.

They sold out sustainable transit advocates, their biggest ally on the November ballot initiatives, and have offered no rational explanation for their strategy, just an emotional hunch that somehow some people can’t cope with Sunday metering, and that making it free again will convince them to support increased public transit funding.

I imagine there is a well-thought-out campaign strategy, whereby every Sunday between now and November, the mayor is visiting all the churches in the city, and cajoling the ministers to use their pulpits to enthusiastically preach the merits of increasing the vehicle license fee (as well as approving a related general obligation bond).

After all, the VLF is a progressive tax — the more expensive your car, the more you pay. The older and cheaper your car, the less you pay. And bringing in $73 million annually would contribute to making God’s green earth cleaner, and help transport God’s children safely to work and on their errands. Praise the Lord and free parking on Sunday! Amen.

Street Fight is a monthly column by Jason Henderson, a geography professor at SF State and the author of Street Fight: The Politics of Mobility in San Francisco.

Film Listings: May 7 – 13, 2014

Michael Redmond

May 6, 2014

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Sara Maria Vizcarrondo. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

SF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 57th San Francisco International Film Festival runs through Thu/8. Screening venues include the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post, SF. For tickets (most shows $15) and complete schedule, visit festival.sffs.org.

OPENING

Belle See “Skin Deep.” (1:45) Albany, Embarcadero.

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return Computer-animated musical which does not look to resemble 1985’s spooky-great Return to Oz. Case in point: Dorothy is voiced by Glee‘s Lea Michele. (1:28) Presidio.

Neighbors Seth Rogen and Zac Efron star in this comedy about a family with a newborn forced to live next door to a frat house. (1:37) Four Star, Presidio.

Now: In the Wings on a World Stage In 2011, a production of Richard III starring Kevin Spacey played SF’s Curran Theatre; it was but one stop on a dreamy world tour (London, Istanbul, Beijing, Sydney, Doha, Brooklyn, and Epidaurus, Greece) for an American and British company and crew directed by Brit Sam Mendes, who guided Spacey to an Oscar (and earned one himself) for 1999’s American Beauty. This backstage doc — fully endorsed by Spacey and co., so don’t expect any juicy spats or diva routines — follows this rambling troupe around the world as they work through one of Shakespeare’s most iconic history plays. Initially, some of the younger actors feel intimidated (and some of the Americans feel nervous about interpreting the Bard alongside Brits, despite the fact that superstar Spacey is spearheading the whole thing), but gradually the group becomes close-knit. Pretty scenery aside, most of the travel stuff is featherweight (“The culture [in Istanbul] is just crazy!” is one typically shallow insight), but watching the show from the inside out offers an intriguing look at the dramatic process. Still, as Mendes and others point out, “the thrill of theater is the fact that it’s live” and “ephemeral” — qualities not captured by this rather conventional doc. If you’re an aspiring actor, however, Now is probably essential viewing nonetheless. (1:33) Roxie. (Eddy)

Young and Beautiful The titular attributes may be obvious surface ones, but they’re pretty much all we can take for granted in the character of Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a 17-year-old Parisian first met on a summer beach vacation with her family. With younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat) as confidante, she methodically if haltingly sets out to shed her virginity, choosing as the lucky deflowerer a nice, very handsome German tourist (Lucas Prisor). The experience seems to leave her ambivalent, however, and a certain cool psychological opacity lingers after the clan goes home, and Isabelle returns to school while commencing a secret life so outré and baffling we would dearly love to understand her motivations. (Suffice it to say that the obvious reasons, love and/or need of money and/or sex, do not appear applicable in her case.) Is she rebelling? If so, against what? Probably not her easygoing mother and stepfather, played by Geraldine Pailhas and Frederic Pierrot. Reminiscent of Belle de Jour (1967) not just in premise but in dispassionate treatment of it, François Ozon’s latest sports his usual crisp directorial authority and eye for telling detail. But it’s built around a cipher, requiring an 11th-hour appearance by his past muse Charlotte Rampling in order to suddenly snap into focus — even as Isabelle remains something of a blur. (1:35) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

ONGOING

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 The best thing about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — the sequel to the 2012 reboot that nobody really wanted in the first place — is the achingly cute chemistry between real-life couple Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker/Spider-Man) and Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy, whose fate is no spoiler to anyone who is familiar with the Spider-Man canon). Can’t deny it; those two are adorbs. But since Spider-Man is supposed to be an action movie, not a romantic comedy, it spends most of its time setting up foes for the webslinger (Jamie Foxx as a nerd zapped into the power-mad Electro; Dane DeHaan as bratty rich kid Harry Osborn), as well as rehashing the mysterious deaths of Peter’s parents, and underlining for approximately the zillionth time the disconnect between the media’s perception of Spider-Man (he’s a menace! He interferes with police work!) and the ecstatic love the people of New York have for the guy — understandable, since he’s in the business of saving their butts on a regular basis. This isn’t a crappy movie by any means; it’s entertaining enough, and the 3D swooping-between-skyscrapers FX have gotten quite dazzling. But there’s still a heavy air of “This again?” that hangs over the whole thing. Doesn’t Marvel have enough dough from the Avengers movies to let Spidey take an extended vacation? (2:20) Balboa, Marina (showing the original version and a version with Chinese subtitles), Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Bears (1:26) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Brick Mansions (1:30) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel’s most wholesome hero returns in this latest film in the Avengers series, and while it doesn’t deviate from the expected formula (it’s not a spoiler to say that yes, the world is saved yet again), it manages to incorporate a surprisingly timely plot about the dangers of government surveillance. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), hunkiest 95-year-old ever, is still figuring out his place in the 21st century after his post-World War II deep freeze. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has him running random rescue missions with the help of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), but SHIELD is working on a top-secret project that will allow it to predict crimes before they occur. It isn’t long before Cap’s distrust of the weapon — he may be old-fashioned, but he ain’t stupid — uncovers a sinister plot led by a familiar enemy, with Steve’s former BFF Bucky doing its bidding as the science-experiment-turned-assassin Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, and series regular Cobie Smulders are fine in supporting roles, and Johansson finally gets more to do than punch and pose, but the likable Evans ably carries the movie — he may not have the charisma of Robert Downey Jr., but he brings wit and depth to a role that would otherwise be defined mainly by biceps and CG-heavy fights. Oh, and you know the drill by now: superfans will want to stick around for two additional scenes tucked into the end credits. (2:16) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Divergent Based on the blockbuster dystopian-future YA novel by Veronica Roth (the first in a trilogy), Divergent is set in a future city-state version of Chicago in which society is divided into five character-based, color-coded factions: Erudite, Amity, Candor, Abnegation, and Dauntless. Like her peers, Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley), the film’s Abnegation-born teenage heroine, must choose a permanent faction — with the help of a standardized aptitude test that forgoes penciling in bubbles in favor of virtual reality psychic manipulation. When the test fails to triangulate her sole innate personality trait, she learns that she belongs to a secret, endangered sixth category: Divergent, an astonishing set of people who are not only capable of, say, acts of selflessness but can also produce intelligent thought, or manifest bravery in the face of danger. Forced to hide her aberrant nature in a society whose leaders (Kate Winslet) are prone to statements like “The future belongs to those who know where they belong,” and seemingly bored among Abnegation’s hive of gray cardigan-wearing worker bees, Beatrice chooses Dauntless, a dashing gang of black-clad, alterna-rock music video extras who jump on and off moving trains and live in a warehouse-chic compound whose dining hall recalls the patio at Zeitgeist. Fittingly, a surly, tattooed young man named Four (Theo James) leads Beatrice, now Tris, and her fellow initiates through a harsh proving regimen that, if they fail, will cast them into an impoverished underclass. Director Neil Burger (2006’s The Illusionist, 2011’s Limitless) and the behemoth marketing force behind Divergent are clearly hoping to stir up the kind of madness stoked by the Twilight and Hunger Games series, but while there are bones a-plenty to pick with those franchises, Divergent may have them beat for pure daffiness of premise and diameter of plot holes — and that’s after screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor’s major suturing of the source material’s lacunae. The daffiness doesn’t translate into imaginative world-building, and while a couple of scenes convey the visceral thrills of life in Dauntless, the tension between Tris and Four is awkwardly ratcheted up, and the film’s shift into a mode of crisis is equally jolting without generating much heat. (2:20) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Draft Day (2:00) SF Center.

Fading Gigolo Ah, the charm of a well-aged, seasoned perv &ldots; nope, we don’t dare touch the Woody Allen/Dylan Farrow abuse allegations — though those recent headlines flit around the edges of this generally benevolent, almost strangely innocuous charmer, written by and directed John Turturro, who also stars as the curiously blank-faced tabula rasa of a title character. The delights of Mrs. Robinsons have been rhapsodized on film, through the lens of worshipful younger men — less so, their male counterparts, as viewed by other hetero men. The danger of bromance surging into the homoerotic is likely too dire for most, yet somehow bookstore boss Murray (Allen) sees the mysterious, submerged sex appeal in his loyal employee Fioravante (Turturro) and taps him to get involved in a ménage à trois with a society dermatologist (Sharon Stone). The soft-spoken Fioravante turns out to be a smash in the sack with the doc, transforming the opportunistic Murray into a wildly successful pimp as his employee takes on the audacious Selima (Sofia Vergara) and the prim Jewish Orthodox widow Avigal (Vanessa Paradis). The latter character seems to have come straight from another place and time — much like this film, which turns Brooklyn into a something resembling a leaf-strewn European village and recalls odes to revolutionary sexuality in the ’60s. The movie’s lightly absurd comedy is embedded in the fact that Turturro writes himself into the role of the seducer, the pleaser, while wrapped in the skin of pleasant if everyday-looking Joe, although Paradis, a revelation as a deeply repressed devout mother slowly awakening to her body, points to more serious pleasures, lingering below the surface of all of us. (1:30) Albany, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Finding Vivian Maier Much like In the Realms of the Unreal, the 2004 doc about Henry Darger, Finding Vivian Maier explores the lonely life of a gifted artist whose talents were discovered posthumously. In this case, however, the filmmaker — John Maloof, who co-directs with Charlie Siskel — is responsible for Maier’s rise to fame. A practiced flea-market hunter, he picked up a carton of negatives at a 2007 auction; they turned out to be striking examples of early street photography. He was so taken with the work (snapped by a woman so obscure she was un-Google-able) that he began posting images online. Unexpectedly, they became a viral sensation, and Maloof became determined to learn more about the camerawoman. Turns out Vivian Maier was a career nanny in the Chicago area, with plenty of former employers to share their memories. She was an intensely private person who some remembered as delightfully adventurous and others remembered as eccentric, mentally unstable, or even cruel; she was a hoarder who was distrustful of men, and she spoke with a maybe-fake French accent. And she was obsessed with taking photographs that she never showed to anyone; the hundreds of thousands now in Maloof’s collection (along with 8mm and 16mm films) offer the only insight into her creative mind. “She had a great eye, a sense of humor, and a sense of tragedy,” remarks acclaimed photographer Mary Ellen Mark. “But there’s a piece of the puzzle missing.” The film’s central question — why was Maier so secretive about her hobby? — may never be answered. But as the film also suggests, that mystery adds another layer of fascination to her keenly observed photos. (1:23) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

For No Good Reason For No Good Reason is a jungle gym of a movie: loud, active all over, one tumble after another. Made over 15 years with the close collaboration of its subject, the artist Ralph Steadman, the film is obviously a work of love, an ode to this man, and his life’s work. There is archival footage of Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson (each gave the other’s art a relief and elucidation) mixed with Steadman showing Thompson’s unofficial weirdo heir, Johnny Depp, around Steadman’s home and studio, talking and telling stories all the while. There’s constant music, too, from an odd variety of rock ‘n’ roll artists, and the effect is rather exhausting, if slight and genial. For No Good Reason switches between the timelines as egged on by Steadman’s storytelling, and given further life in animating his illustrations. Sometimes the film stops in its “narrative” tracks, as it were, to show Steadman splat out the start of a painting — they all seem to start with ink thrown at a canvas — then spend 10 minutes watching him build the painting, which may be the most fascinating bits captured by director Charlie Paul, who’s otherwise content to toe the hagiography line of one of his artistic heroes. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Ryland Walker Knight)

Friended to Death Everybody’s got one: that Facebook friend obsessed with turning every single waking moment into social-media fodder. Self-centered parking-enforcement officer Michael (Ryan Hansen of Veronica Mars) updates his status dozens of times a day, not realizing he’s just as obnoxious online as he is in real life. When he’s suddenly fired and his best friend (Zach McGowan) dumps him, Michael enlists dog-obsessed mama’s boy Emile (James Immekus) to help him fake his death, unaware that he’s being stalked by a mysterious woman (co-writer and director Sarah Smick) who is actively plotting his downfall for reasons of her own. Michael’s attention-grabbing scheme goes predictably awry in this sitcom-ish film, which advances the valid theory that spending too much time online will render a person incredibly shallow and narcissistic. The humor is hit-and-miss, though co-writer Ian Michaels, as Michael’s meathead nemesis, has a funny running joke involving his character’s affection for calling people “bro” with a celebrity twist, as in, “Chill out, Broseph Gordon-Levitt!” (1:34) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden Extensive archival footage and home movies (plus one short, narrative film) enhance this absorbing doc from San Francisco-based Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller (2005’s Ballets Russes). It tells the tale of a double murder that occurred in the early 1930s on Floreana — the most remote of the already scarcely-populated Galapagos Islands. A top-notch cast (Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Connie Nielsen, Josh Radnour) gives voice to the letters and diary entries of the players in this stranger-than-fiction story, which involved an array of Europeans who’d moved away from civilization in search of utopian simplicity — most intriguingly, a maybe-fake Baroness and her two young lovers — and realized too late that paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Goldfine and Geller add further detail to the historic drama by visiting the present-day Galapagos, speaking with residents about the lingering mystery and offering a glimpse of what life on the isolated islands is like today. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

The German Doctor Argentine writer-director Lucía Puenzo (2007’s XXY) adapts her novel Wakolda for this drama imagining a post-World War II chapter in the life of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. It’s 1960, and there’s a new doctor residing in Bariloche, Argentina — a stunningly picturesque town in the Andean foothills that seems to harbor an awful lot of Germans. Polite, well-dressed “Helmut” (Alex Brendemühl) befriends innkeepers Eva (Natalia Oreiro) and Enzo (Diego Peretti), taking a special interest in their 12-year-old daughter Lilith (Florencia Bado), whose petite frame (cruel classmates call her “dwarf”) awakens his let’s-experiment impulses. He gets even more attached when he finds out a pregnant Eva is carrying twins. Meanwhile, Israeli agents are moving in, having just snagged Mengele’s fellow war criminal Eichmann in Buenos Aires, and Lilith’s family soon catches on to their new friend’s true identity. Measured, multi-lingual performances — Brendemühl is both suave and menacing as the “Angel of Death,” forever penciling in his grotesque medical sketchbook — and the contrast between The German Doctor‘s dark themes and the Patagonian beauty of its setting bring haunting nuance to Puenzo’s twisted-history tale. (1:33) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

The Grand Budapest Hotel Is this the first Wes Anderson movie to feature a shootout? It’s definitely the first Anderson flick to include a severed head. That’s not to say The Grand Budapest Hotel, “inspired by” the works of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, represents too much of a shift for the director — his intricate approach to art direction is still very much in place, as are the deadpan line deliveries and a cast stuffed with Anderson regulars. But there’s a slightly more serious vibe here, a welcome change from 2012’s tooth-achingly twee Moonrise Kingdom. Thank Ralph Fiennes’ performance as liberally perfumed concierge extraordinaire M. Gustave, which mixes a shot of melancholy into the whimsy, and newcomer Tony Revolori as Zero, his loyal lobby boy, who provides gravitas despite only being a teenager. (Being played by F. Murray Abraham as an older adult probably helps in that department.) Hotel‘s early 20th century Europe setting proves an ideal canvas for Anderson’s love of detail — the titular creation rivals Stanley Kubrick’s rendering of the Overlook Hotel — and his supporting cast, as always, looks to be enjoying the hell out of being a part of Anderson’s universe, with Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Adrien Brody having particularly oversized fun. Is this the best Wes Anderson movie since 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums? Yes. (1:40) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

A Haunted House 2 (1:26) SF Center.

Heaven is for Real (1:40) Metreon.

Ilo Ilo Set in 1997 Singapore at the onset of the country’s recession, Ilo Ilo focuses on one family, who could be any family: father Teck (Chen Tianwen), who’s been let go from his sales position and is working various hourly jobs, hoping his wife doesn’t find out; pregnant Hwee Leng (a dynamic Yeo Yann Yann), a secretary who’s been the “bad cop” in the relationship so long she’s kind of grown into the role; and bratty Jiale (Koh Jia Ler), a 10-year-old terror who disobeys at home and gets into fights at school. Into this swirl of domestic tension comes Teresa (Angeli Bayani), a housekeeper-nanny who’s left her own family behind in the Philippines in search of a better way of life. It’s hell at first — “Auntie Terry” is no Mary Poppins, but she has the patience of a saint, putting up with Jiale’s antics and Hwee Leng’s ice-queen routine. Slowly, however, she builds a rapport with her young charge, but since Ilo Ilo is firmly interested in realism, there’s no quick fix to the problems that lie beneath the family strife, despite the kid’s obsession with lottery numbers. A remarkably assured debut film from 29-year-old director Anthony Chen, Ilo Ilo picked up the Camera D’Or at Cannes, in addition to multiple other fest prizes. The accolades are well-earned — rarely has a film so effectively and subtly captured the day-to-day frustrations of middle-class financial uncertainty. (1:40) Four Star. (Eddy)

Locke This virtual solo show stars Tom Hardy as Ivan Locke, a 40-ish construction manager driving to London on the eve of “the biggest cement pour” ever attempted in Europe. But he’s driving away from that, to the shrill indignation of superiors who expect his reliable on-site supervision, and the increasingly drunken panic of the flunky (voice of Andrew Scott) he’s deputized to take his place. The reason for this unprecedented dereliction of responsibility is that Ivan is committed to another responsibility, to “take care of my fuckup.” As we gradually realize during his 85-minute drive, that means showing up for the premature birth of the baby he’s sired by a fragile, rather hysterical-sounding woman (Olivia Colman) in the brief sole detour from marital infidelity he’s ever taken. Doing so may well end his career, as well as his long-standing marriage to the mother of his sons. But our protagonist is determined at any cost not to become his own late father (with whom he has imaginary conversations), a wastrel who never made good on his obligations to family or anyone else. Shot repeatedly in real time with multiple cameras over 12 nights, then assembled from 16 full-length takes, Steven Knight’s Locke is a striking experiment that never quite escapes an air of theatrical stunt. In retrospect you realize most of its tension derives not from the core emotional crises, but from narrative red herrings — primarily our terror that anyone multitasking this recklessly behind the wheel is an accident waiting to happen. But the chameleonic Hardy, playing a rather square, middle-class, essentially humorless type unlike any he’s done before, makes this effortfully “decent” man so compelling you can’t look away. If there’s anything this actor can’t do, he hasn’t tried it yet. (1:35) Clay. (Harvey)

The Lunchbox Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is a self-possessed housewife and a great cook, whose husband confuses her for another piece of furniture. She tries to arouse his affections with elaborate lunches she makes and sends through the city’s lunchbox delivery service. Like marriage in India, lunchbox delivery has a failure rate of zero, which is what makes aberrations seem like magical occurrences. So when widow Saajan (Irrfan Khan) receives her adoring food, he humbly receives the magical lunches like a revival of the senses. Once Ila realizes her lunchbox is feeding the wrong man she writes a note and Saajan replies — tersely, like a man who hasn’t held a conversation in a decade — and the impossible circumstances lend their exchanges a romance that challenges her emotional fidelity and his retreat from society. She confides her husband is cheating. He confides his sympathy for men of lower castes. It’s a May/December affair if it’s an affair at all — but the chemistry we expect the actors to have in the same room is what fuels our urge to see it; that’s a rare and haunting dynamic. Newcomer Kaur is perfect as Ila, a beauty unmarked by her rigorous distaff; her soft features and exhausted expression lend a richness to the troubles she can’t share with her similarly stoic mother (Lillete Dubey). Everyone is sacrificing something and poverty seeps into every crack, every life, without exception — their inner lives are their richness. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Vizcarrondo)

The M Word TV station KZAM bills itself as LA’s “last independent TV station.” So why are two henchmen from “corporate” visiting the station to cut the fat? There are some contradictions in Henry Jaglom’s newest comedy of escalating emotions and descending intelligence, but one thing you can say is he’s still going — Jaglom’s been working in indie film since the ’70s and operates unhindered by age or what The M Word refers to as “bleeding viewership.” His “naturalistic” dialogue is an acquired taste and his characters are the expressive sort who transform conversations into arguments conquerable with screaming. Jaglom’s co-conspirator and real-life partner, Tanna Frederick, stars as Moxie, the actress turned documentarian trying to understand her mother (Frances Fisher) by filming her menopausal tumult. She invites a hottie henchman (Michael Imperioli) to her house to pitch the product of her process: a doc about menopause to blow the doors off the subject and open the station to an untapped niche market. When layoffs begin, Moxie uses her newly inflated activist-ego to rally the employees in a sit-in to save their jobs. This is when you really feel Jaglom’s presence. It’s never clear if he’s celebrating his characters’ successes or laughing that such absurd attempts could gain traction. Why should Moxie’s achievements be predictable on paper and confounding in action? Call it misanthropy, call it distrust — but don’t call it comedy, because funny it ain’t. (2:00) Roxie. (Vizcarrondo)

Noah Darren Aronofsky’s Biblical epic begins with a brief recap of prior Genesis events — creation is detailed a bit more in clever fashion later on — leading up to mankind’s messing up such that God wants to wipe the slate clean and start over. That means getting Noah (Russell Crowe), wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), and their three sons and one adopted daughter (Emma Watson) to build an ark that can save them and two of every animal species from the imminent slate-wiping Great Flood. (The rest of humanity, having sinned too much, can just feed the fishes.) They get some help from fallen angels turned into Ray Harryhausen-type giant rock creatures voiced by Nick Nolte and others. There’s an admirable brute force and some startling imagery to this uneven, somber, Iceland-shot tale “inspired” by the Good Book (which, needless to say, has endured more than its share of revisions over the centuries). Purists may quibble over some choices, including the device of turning minor Biblical figure Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) into a royal-stowaway villain, and political conservatives have already squawked a bit over Aronofsky’s not-so-subtle message of eco-consciousness, with Noah being bade to “replenish the Earth” that man has hitherto rendered barren. But for the most part this is a respectable, forceful interpretation that should stir useful discussion amongst believers and non believers alike. Its biggest problem is that after the impressively harrowing flood itself, we’re trapped on the ark dealing with the lesser crises of a pregnancy, a discontented middle son (Logan Lerman), and that stowaway’s plotting — ponderous intrigues that might have been leavened if the director had allowed us to hang out with the animals a little, rather than sedating the whole menagerie for the entire voyage. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Oculus Tim (Brenton Thwaites) and Kaylie (Karen Gillan) are grown siblings with a horrible shared past: When they were children, their parents (Rory Cochrane, Katee Sankhoff) moved them all into a nice suburban house, decorating it with, among other things, a 300-year-old mirror. But that antique seemed to have an increasingly disturbing effect on dad, then mom too, to ultimately homicidal, offspring-orphaning effect. Over a decade later, Tim is released from a juvenile mental lockup, ready to live a normal life after years of therapy have cleaned him of the supernatural delusions he think landed him there in the first place. Imagine his dismay when Kaylie announces she has spent the meantime researching aforementioned “evil mirror” — which turns out to have had a very gruesome history of mysteriously connected deaths — and painstakingly re-acquiring it. She means to destroy it so it can never wreak havoc, and has set up an elaborate room of camcorders and other equipment in which to “prove” its malevolence first, with Tim her very reluctant helper. Needless to say, this experiment (which he initially goes along with only in order to debunk the whole thing for good) turns out to be a very, very bad idea. The mirror is clever — demonically clever. It can warp time and perspective so our protagonists don’t know whether what they’re experiencing is real or not. Expanding on his 2006 short film (which was made before his excellent, little-seen 2011 horror feature Absentia), Mike Flanagan’s tense, atmospheric movie isn’t quite as scary as you might wish, partly because the villain (the spirit behind the mirror) isn’t particularly well-imagined in generic look or murky motivation. But it is the rare new horror flick that is genuinely intricate and surprising plot-wise — no small thing in the current landscape of endless remakes and rehashes. (1:44) Metreon. (Harvey)

Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch has subverted genre films before — you don’t have to dig deep to find fierce defenders of 1995 Western Dead Man — but his latest, Only Lovers Left Alive, is poised to be his biggest commercial hit to date. That’s not merely because it’s a vampire film, though this concession to trendiness will certainly work in its favor, as will the casting of high-profile Avengers (2012) star Tom Hiddleston. But this is still a Jarmusch vampire movie, and though it may be more accessible than some of the director’s more existential entries, it’s still wonderfully weird, witty, and — natch — drenched in cool. The opening credits deploy a gothic, blood red font across a night sky — a winking nod to the aesthetics of Hammer classics like Horror of Dracula (1958). Then, the camera begins to rotate, filming a record as it plays, and symbolizing the eternal life of the two figures who’ve entered the frame: gloomy Adam (Hiddleston, rocking a bedhead version of Loki’s dark ‘do), who lurks in a crumbling Detroit mansion, and exuberant Eve (Tilda Swinton, so pale she seems to glow), who dwells amid piles of books in Tangier. These two live apart, partially due to the hassle of traveling when one can’t be in the sun (red-eye flights are a must). Yet they remain entangled in spirit, a phenomenon referenced amid much talk of what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance,” and when at last they reunite, it’s glorious. Unlike those old Hammer films, there’s no stake-wielding Van Helsing type pursuing these creatures of the night; if there’s a villain, it’s actual and emotional vampire Ava (Mia Wasikowska), Eve’s bad-penny sibling, who swoops in for a most unwelcome visit. But Only Lovers Left Alive‘s biggest antagonist is simply the outside world, with its epidemics of dull minds and blood-borne diseases. The delight Jarmusch takes in tweaking the vampire mythos is just as enjoyable as his interest in exploring the agony, ecstasy, and uneventful lulls of immortality. (2:03) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Other Woman Cameron Diaz gets top billing — and the title role — in The Other Woman, but Leslie Mann is the real stealth weapon here: the other comedian who bravely dares to go into unseemly crazy-bitch, scatological-Bridesmaids territory, with shrill histrionics, whining, and shrieks hitting registers that threaten to make most men’s heads explode. Coming on like Lucille Ball on crystal, Mann teeters out in the limb in kitten heels — and your enjoyment of The Other Woman depends on whether you love that balancing act or loathe it. Diaz and Mann’s reluctant-then-mutual girl crush is at the heart of this proudly chick flick directed by Nick Cassavetes, who tends to beat his own indie path apart from his involvement in one of the biggest lady draws of all time, The Notebook (2004). The chick magnet and cause for so much chaos is Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a sketchy entrepreneur who skims wife Kate’s (Mann) business ideas and toys with power-bitch lawyer Carly (Diaz), as well as his other other woman, perfect-10 Amber (Kate Upton). Coster-Waldau throws himself into the hysteria, as if it were the sole lifeline out of dour King’s Landing, but this is the Mann and Diaz Show, with a smarter-than-average screenplay by Melissa Stack and revenge served up like a self-righteous side dish at a Real Housewives buffet line. And just to show you how far we haven’t come, like those benighted housewives, those assembled aren’t so feminist that they won’t stoop to deliver a bitchy joke at the expense of Upton’s character. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

The Quiet Ones (1:38) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

The Raid 2 One need not have seen 2011’s The Raid: Redemption to appreciate this latest collaboration between Welsh director Gareth Evans and Indonesian actor, martial artist, and fight choreographer Iko Uwais — it’s recommended, of course, but the sequel stands alone on its own merits. Overstuffed with gloriously brutal, cleverly choreographed fight scenes, The Raid 2 — sometimes written with the subtitle “Berendal,” which means “thugs” — picks up immediately after the events of the first film. Quick recap of part one: a special-forces team invades an apartment tower controlled by gangsters. Among the cops is idealistic Rama (Uwais). Seemingly bulletproof and fleet of fists and feet, Rama battles his way floor-by-floor, encountering machete-toting heavies and wild-eyed maniacs; he also soon realizes he’s working for a police department that’s as corrupt as the gangster crew. The Raid‘s gritty, unadorned approach resonated with thrillseeking audiences weary of CG overload. A second Raid film was inevitable, especially since Evans — who became interested in Indonesian martial arts, or pencak silat, while working on 2007 doc The Mystic Art of Indonesia — already had its story in mind: Rama goes undercover within a criminal organization, a ploy that necessitates he do a prison stint to gain the trust of a local kingpin. Naturally, not much goes according to plan, and much blood is shed along the way, as multiple power-crazed villains set their sinister plans into motion. With expanded locations and ever-more daring (yet bone-breakingly realistic) fight scenes aplenty — including a brawl inside a moving vehicle, and a muddy, bloody prison-yard riot — The Raid 2 more than delivers. Easily the action film of the year so far, with no contenders likely to topple it in the coming months. (2:19) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Railway Man The lackluster title — OK, it’s better than that of director Jonathan Teplitzky’s last movie, 2011’s Burning Man, which confused sad Burners everywhere — masks a sensitive and artful adaptation of Eric Lomax’s book, based on a true story, about an English survivor of WWII atrocities. As Railway Man unfolds, we find Eric (Colin Firth), a stammering, attractive eccentric, oddly obsessed with railway schedules, as he meets his sweet soul mate Patti (Nicole Kidman) in vaguely mid-century England. Their romance, however, takes a steep, downward spiral when Patti discovers her new husband’s quirks overlay a deeply damaged spirit, one with scars that never really healed. As Eric grows more isolated, his best friend Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard) reveals some of their experiences as POWs forced to toil on the seemingly impossible-to-build Thai-Burma Railway by Japanese forces. The brutality of the situation comes home when the young Eric (played by Jeremy Irvine of 2011’s War Horse) takes the rap for building a radio and undergoes a period of torture. The horror seems rectifiable when Finlay discovers that the most memorable torturer Nagase (played at various ages by Tanroh Ishida and Hiroyuki Sanada) is still alive and, outrageously, leading tours of the area. Revenge is sweet, as so many other movies looking at this era have told us, but Railway Man strives for a deeper, more difficult message while telling its story with the care and attention to detail that points away from the weedy jungle of a traumatic past — and toward some kind of true north where reconciliation lies. (1:53) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Rio 2 (1:41) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Super Duper Alice Cooper Almost 10 years ago, a sprawling music doc entitled Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey kick-started the careers of Canadian filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen. Since 2005, the duo has worked on films about Rush, Iron Maiden, and Motorhead; they’ve also collaborated on a doc about Satan and will soon take on a project about “a very important heavy metal band who shall temporarily remain nameless.” Their current feature adds a third co-director, Reginald Harkema, for the colorful story of Alice Cooper, née Vincent Furnier, who’s as famous for songs like 1972’s “School’s Out” as he is for his horror-meets-vaudeville stage shtick. Though Super Duper Alice Cooper retraces tales that will be familiar to anyone who’s read Cooper’s autobiographies or seen his Behind the Music episode, the directors tried to make the film as visually dynamic as possible, tapping old footage and animation and avoiding any talking heads; they also end the tale with Cooper’s mid-1980s triumph over addiction, thereby avoiding going into his latter-day conservative political beliefs. Still, this is the guy who more or less invented shock rock — any doc about him can’t help but be highly enjoyable, even if it follows a familiar, stage blood-splattered path. (1:38) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Transcendence Darn those high-tech romantics, hiding out and planning global takeover in their shadowy Berkeley Craftsmen and hippie-dippie leafy grottos. That’s one not-so-great notion emanating from this timely thriller, helmed by a first-time director (and veteran cinematographer) Wally Pfister and writer Jack Paglen. In line with the dreamy, brainy idealism of its protagonists — and the fully loaded promises of artificial intelligence — Transcendence starts with a grand idea teeming with torn-from-the-tech-headlines relevancy, only to spiral off course, seemingly far out of the control of its makers. Ray Kurzweil-like scientist Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is in the midst of refining his work on artificial intelligence when Luddite terrorists shoot him, using a bullet coated with radioactive material, after a lecture on the UC Berkeley campus. That tragedy allows Will and devoted wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) a chance to put his ideas into action and to attempt to preserve that beautiful mind, with the help of friend and kindred researcher Max (Paul Bettany). Yet once his intelligence gets online, out to a Burning Man-like tabula rasa desert, and in the cloud, quite literally, there apparently are no limits in sight. Transcendence‘s stoppers, however, are all too human, including technical flubs that betray its newbie filmmaker’s limitations; script slip-ups that, for instance, highlight a rather dated fear of “Y2K”; and a narrative that ends up reading a bit too much like a technophobic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (1:59) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Under the Skin At the moment, Scarlett Johansson is playing a superhero in the world’s top blockbuster. Her concurrent role in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin — the tale of an alien who comes to earth to capture men, but goes rogue once her curiosity about the human world gets the better of her — could not be more different in story or scope. Her character’s camouflage (dark wig, thickly-applied lipstick) was carefully calibrated to make her unrecognizable, since Glazer (2000’s Sexy Beast) filmed the alien’s “pick-up” scenes — in which Johansson’s unnamed character cruises around Glasgow in a nondescript van, prowling for prey — using hidden cameras and real people who had no idea they were interacting with a movie star. The film takes liberties with its source material (Michel Farber’s novel), with “feeding” scenes that are far more abstract than as written in the book, allowing for one of the film’s most striking visual motifs. After the alien seduces a victim, he’s lured into what looks like a run-down house. The setting changes into a dark room that seems to represent an otherworldly void, with composer Mica Levi’s spine-tingling score exponentially enhancing the dread. What happens next? It’s never fully explained, but it doesn’t need to be. When the alien begins to mistakenly believe that her fleshy, temporary form is her own, she abandons her predatory quest — but her ill-advised exploration of humanity leads her into another dark place. A chilling, visceral climax caps one of the most innovative sci-fi movies in recent memory. (1:47) Roxie, SF Center, Vogue. (Eddy)

Walking with the Enemy Movie history abounds with dramas about the obvious dangers and complicated delights of passing during World War II — Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa (1990) and Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book (2006) come immediately to mind. But despite the inherent interest in this story (based on a real person, Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum), Walking with the Enemy doesn’t hold its own next to those efforts. Elek (Jonas Armstrong), the handsome, intrepid son of a rabbi, is working in Budapest doing what any red-blooded young man of any era might, joking with his boss and flirting with the adorable Hannah (Hannah Tointon). When Hungary’s relations with the Nazis sour, the country’s Jewish citizens are gradually packed off and subjected to deadly crackdowns instigated by Adolf Eichmann, and Hungary’s Regent Horthy (Ben Kingsley) seems powerless to do very much, apart from allowing the neutral Swiss consulate to issue a stream of documents claiming the city’s Jewish denizens as its own. When two SS officers come calling in the Jewish quarter, attack Hannah, and are ultimately killed, fluent German speaker Elek and his friends snatch at the desperate measure of donning their uniforms to spy on their oppressors and save as many Jews as they can. What may have made for a fascinating tale, however, is reduced to broad strokes, awkward choices like onscreen IDs, and comically simplistic characterization, making Walking feel more like a TV movie or an educational film than anything with real power. (2:08) SF Center. (Chun) *

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