Planning

Moment of truth

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› news@sfbg.com

The controversial and long-awaited Eastern Neighborhoods Community Plan — which includes a thicket of thorny planning and financing issues that will largely determine San Francisco’s socioeconomic future — has finally arrived before the Board of Supervisors.

Neither developers nor community activists are happy with the plan approved Aug. 7 by the Planning Commission, which sets zoning, policies, and funding levels for new development in the Mission District, eastern SoMa, Potrero Hill, and the Central Waterfront.

Developers objected to the fee levels and affordable-housing requirements, saying they would discourage growth, but the compromise plan of less than $16 per square foot in development fees (which vary widely, depending on many factors) and a maximum 20 percent affordable-housing requirement have left public needs severely underfunded. San Francisco Planning Department estimates indicate the fee structure will yield only about $150 million for the area’s $400 million in infrastructure needs.

“The plan right now is not balanced in favor of diversity and real neighborhood needs,” said Sup. Tom Ammiano, who plans to introduce a long list of amendments to the plan in conjunction with Sup. Sophie Maxwell and neighborhood groups that include the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition, the South of Market Citizen Action Network (SOMCAN), and the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association.

On the other side of the equation, the Residential Builders Association and other developers say the city will end up with little development activity if they ask for too much, and they’re threatening legal action if the city pushes too hard. “Our members certainly aren’t happy, and the industry isn’t happy,” RBA president Sean Keighran told the Guardian, saying the plan allows for too little development. “Many of our members are meeting with attorneys and considering their options.”

The Board of Supervisors Land Use Committee will begin working through the myriad conflicts Sept. 15 with a series of at least four hearings running through Sept. 23, when the plan could head for the full board. But given the complex political dynamics at play — and the fate of Proposition B, the affordable housing set-aside measure that could help narrow the funding shortfall — key parts of the plan could be delayed until at least January, when the new board is seated, making the stakes of this November’s election even higher.

Political priorities will determine the plan’s emphasis, and the balance of power on the board now seems to favor increasing the amount of affordable housing that will be required in the eastern neighborhoods, home to much of San Francisco’s remaining working class. The supervisors also are leaning toward asking developers to pay more for parks and other infrastructure needs.

Planning Department staffer Steve Wertheim said the goal has been to “make the fees as feasible as possible” for developers and “to find a sweet spot” that will satisfy developers as well as community activists. While he said the commission “was as aggressive as possible with the tools we had available, we would have to subsidize every house if we want [more] affordable housing.”

Planners say they are constrained by city studies indicating that developers won’t build if required to offer more than 20 percent of their housing units below market rates. “As a resident of San Francisco, I would love to see housing cheaper. But we can’t make affordable housing requirements so high that we end up getting no housing at all,” Wertheim said. “We’ve done as much as we can, but the whole city has to commit.”

Indeed, the plan’s funding shortfall raises citywide questions. Tony Kelly, president of Potrero Boosters, said the unspoken assumption in the Eastern Neighborhood Plan is that voters will need to approve Prop. B: “This plan is a big argument for the housing fund.” Either the proposition passes or San Francisco simply becomes steadily less affordable for working families.

Keighran thinks there’s been too much focus on affordable housing. “This one goal should not take priority over the other goals,” Keighran said. “We feel we’re being asked for so many different things from so many different people.”

Yet the activists argue that San Francisco will lose its working class and families if the market alone is allowed to determine what kind of housing is built. The city’s own general plan states that 64 percent of new housing should be affordable. The activists are urging the supervisors to prioritize community needs over developer profits.

“It’s a huge, sprawling plan that has a lot of detail, and the details we wanted to see aren’t there,” said Nick Pagoulatos, coordinator of the MAC. “In terms of the housing, it’s a complete disaster for our housing needs…. The housing we’re seeing is the same old housing we’ve always seen in our neighborhoods, which is mostly market-rate housing.”

Given the amount of light industrial land in the plan area that would be zoned for housing — enough for an estimated 7,500 new units — Pagoulatos said the community has gotten very little. The Planning Department estimates that less than 30 percent of the housing developed under the plan will be considered affordable — less than half of what the city needs — and even getting to that level will require more funding, perhaps by creating new redevelopment districts.

Among other problems in the plan, Pagoulatos said there isn’t nearly enough land set aside for the fully affordable projects that nonprofit entities seek to build with city affordable-housing funds. “If we don’t get that, then we didn’t get anything for all the concessions that we’ve made,” he said.

While the plan now includes modest new affordable housing and community benefits requirements for developers who want to exceed the plan’s height and density limits, activists say the community isn’t getting enough for offering this carrot. They propose to require that 100 percent of the units exceeding current entitlements be affordable.

“Our main concern is there isn’t enough affordable housing in the plan,” said Chris Durazo, community planning director for SOMCAN. “We want the Board of Supervisors to get involved and take this seriously. They need to understand how this community is growing. The families here now should be able to remain here.”

SOMCAN formally appealed the Planning Commission’s approval of the plan’s environmental impact report, which didn’t include detailed traffic studies that must eventually be completed. “We’re appealing it based on them punting the traffic and transportation plan,” Durazo said.

Kelly said that was emblematic of the cursory approach planners have taken toward sizing up and providing for the needs of residents in the affected neighborhoods. “This whole plan is going to move forward with less than half the money for neighborhood improvements they say are necessary,” Kelly said. He notes that the population of the 94107 ZIP code could double under the plan, which makes no provisions for increasing transit services for that higher population or securing new land for parks.

“The gap in affordable housing and the loss of light industrial jobs is matched by a lack of funding for community improvements,” said Kelly, who said his association focuses on that latter issue but is supportive of community groups that focus on housing and jobs.

In fact, there has been an unprecedented level of community organizing and collaboration among groups of all political stripes around this plan, work that is expected to pay off more at the board level than at the commission level.

“Because the board and the commission are two very different political bodies, others may come out that weren’t at the commission hearings,” said Wertheim, noting that developers were well-represented at the commission level. “But the one thing I’ve learned from this whole process is not to be surprised.”

Keighran seemed to sense the changing dynamics. “Planning takes methodical procedural work,” he said. “Politicians are not best suited to doing planning.”

But the activists say this plan should be a reflection of the city’s values, not simply a product of discussions between developers and planners. Yet they understand that politics can cut both ways, particularly during an election season.

“Of course we need more housing, but building $6 million condos isn’t the answer,” said Marc Salomon of the Western SoMa Task Force, which broke away from the Eastern Neighborhoods planning process — a process he criticizes. “It’s not about housing people, it’s about investment. It’s ‘How do we give the developers what they want and give the natives the bare minimum, or just enough that they don’t burn down City Hall?'<0x2009>”

Salomon fears the Eastern Neighborhoods will continue to suffer from political pandering. “The [supervisors] are all looking for their next move,” Salomon said. “The discourse has moved so far to the right that you can’t be against market-rate housing. And what they’re doing is developing market-rate housing to suit developers, and at the same time purging this city of progressives.”

The grateful undead

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER Looking back at Outside Lands and ahead to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and the last lingering Indian summer sighs and huzzahs of the festival express season, I’d say we all have plenty to be grateful for. At Outside Lands, I was thankful for Sharon Jones’ sass, Radiohead’s nu-romantic lyricism (amid two moments when the sound cut out and Thom Yorke’s jesting "OK, who put beer in the plug?"), Beck’s persistent pop groove as fence jumpers leapt the barriers, Regina Spektor’s and Andrew Bird’s old-time songcraft, Los Amigos Invisibles’ and Little Brother’s bounce, and Primus’ pluck. No doubt the bison are grateful for the quiet betwixt gatherings — and we all envy them after those night strolls through the cool, darkened park, passing kids listening to the music echo through the arboreal cathedral.

I could go on about how gratified I am for a somewhat chiller city now that burner getups on Haight Street are discounted and their would-be buyers are happily grilling on the playa. But the most grateful of all has gotta be Sam Adato, who I chatted up last week on the eve of practice with his hard rock band Sticks and Stones. The group has a Sept. 5 show at Slim’s, for which he’s likely grateful, but most of all he’s happy to be alive and not buried beneath some beater. He was on his way to his store, Sam Adato’s Drum Shop, July 31 when, he says, a woman driver running a red light at Ninth Street was hit by another car heading down Folsom. "The impact made her swerve and go directly into my shop," he says. "It had to be quite fast to crash through the storefront." Adato usually gets to the store by 11 a.m. — he missed colliding with the driver by about 15 minutes. "Thank god," he marvels. "I probably would have been dead." His wife rushed over thinking he was in the store when the crash occurred, and their tearful embrace outside was captured by at least one photo-blogger. "Thank god no one was hurt," Adato adds. "Walking on the sidewalk or in the shop — it could have been a bloodbath. Things can be replaced — people can’t."

Adato’s alive, but half the storefront was wiped out, and he estimates that about $10,000 in inventory was destroyed. Now everything is in storage, the store is boarded up, and repairs have begun. Meanwhile he’s been producing a CD for his other band, The Bridge, which opened for Deep Purple at the Warfield last summer. "That’s been keeping me busy, but the ironic thing is Oct. 12 will be my 15-year anniversary — it just might be the grand reopening, 15 years after I first opened," he says wryly. At that time he was at a crossroads. "Rather than audition for touring bands, which is great but it’s hard to make a living and more often than not you’re just a hired gun, I decided to open a drum shop. I had no doubt in my mind it would succeed," he says firmly. "There are no drum shops like it anywhere. A drummer can come in and say they need their drum fixed, and I’ll fix it right there and then."

Until a certain car crash, he was living the drummer’s dream. Though Adato now throws down his sticks in South San Francisco, he actually resided in his SF shop for its first two years. "It was great," he recalls. "Stay up late, get up, take a shower, turn on the lights, open the door, and you’re ready for business, surrounded by drums day and night. Thank god for giving me this life." *

STICKS AND STONES

Fri/5, 9 p.m., $15

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

www.slims-sf.com


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HOWLS IN THE WILDERNESS

CENTRO-MATIC AND SOUTH SAN GABRIEL


Will Johnson unites his two groups on the release of a two-CD set on Misra. With Sleepercar. Wed/3, 8 p.m., $10–$12. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

DESOLATION WILDERNESS


The Olympia, Wash., combo on K Records jangles brightly at the end of a dreamily desolate echo chamber. With Family Trea and Ben Kamen and the Hot New Ringtones. Wed/3, 9 p.m., $6. Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF. www.hemlocktavern.com

MOMMYHEADS


Reunited and it feels like Mommy is home. After the 2007 passing of drummer Jann Kotik, the ‘heads decided to track old and new songs for the revitalized You’re Not a Dream (Bladen County). With Brad Brooks and The Mumlers. Wed/3, 9:30 p.m., $12. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

DAEDELUS


Taz Arnold of Sa-Ra and rapper Paperboy make it onto the LA beat-R&D specialist’s new Love to Make Music To (Ninja Tune). Thurs/3, 7 p.m., free. Apple Store, 1 Stockton, SF. Fri/5, 10 p.m., $5–$10. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

MORTIFIED


You know you like it — the pathos and chuckles of reading oh-so-private love letters and diary entries in public. Fri/5-Sat/6, 8 p.m., $12–$15. Make-Out Room, SF. www.makeoutroom.com

NINE INCH NAILS AND DEERHUNTER


Certainly one of the more unexpected pairings of late: the determinedly independent Trent Reznor meets the persistently raucous Bradford Cox. Fri/5, 7:30 p.m., $39.50–$55. Oracle Arena, Oakl. www.apeconcerts.com

DEATH VESSEL AND DAME SATAN


DV’s heartfelt folk meets its ideal match in SF’s DS, whose Andrew Simmons is planning to drop a haunting solo EP, Tabernacle Word, Pioneer (Ghost Mansion). With Micah Blue Smaldone. Sat/6, 10 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com
ISE LYFE
The über-versatile Oakland MC recently cometh with Prince Cometh (7even89ine). With Bambu and DJ Phatrick, Do D.A.T., Power Struggle, EyeASage, and Emassin. Tues/9, 9:30 p.m., $10–$13. Café Du Nord, 2170 Market, SF. www.cafedunord.com

Take Lowe’s off the table

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EDITORIAL The battle over a proposed Home Depot store on Bayshore Boulevard several years ago dominated politics for a while in two supervisorial districts and became a nasty battle over race, jobs, small business, and community development priorities that spread citywide. In the end, with Sup. Aaron Peskin providing the swing vote, the Board of Supervisors approved the giant chain store.

And then — as giant out-of-town chains will do — Home Depot abruptly pulled the plug last spring. After all the tumult and the shouting, the bitterness and bad feelings, the big-box retailer decided it really didn’t want a store in southeast San Francisco.

Since then Sups. Tom Ammiano (who opposed Home Depot) and Sophie Maxwell (who supported it) have met and worked together to create a development plan that makes sense for the big empty lot on Bayshore. The two supervisors involved community leaders and tried to create a public process that would prevent the kind of fight the neighborhoods faced over Home Depot.

It was a hopeful sign — until now. Because the owners of the lot — the Goodman family, which once ran Goodman Lumber there — have come forward with a new proposal that’s almost exactly the same as the old one. This time, it’s Lowe’s Home Improvement.

If the supervisors, the mayor, and the community learned anything from the past few years, it’s that big-box chains can’t be trusted and aren’t an appropriate base for community and economic development in San Francisco. The mayor and the supervisors should make it clear now, before we go through another long, ugly battle, that big-box isn’t part of the future of Bayshore Boulevard.

Big chain stores defy all the basic premises of progressive urban planning. They exist and operate on a car-driven suburban model, with large parking lots that attract drivers. They add traffic and pollution to local streets and are inconsistent with the city’s attempts to be a greener, more sustainable community. They pay low wages (in fact, Lowe’s is the subject of a class-action suit in 11 states charging that the chain makes its employees work overtime without pay). The money they make leaves the community immediately, offering little in local economic benefits. And they destroy neighborhood-serving small businesses.

They are, by their nature, monocrop economic entities — when the entire future of an area depends on one so-called anchor store, then the community is vulnerable to decisions made elsewhere. Home Depot could have opened, then been closed after a year. Lowe’s could do the same.

The Eastern Neighborhoods plan envisions a huge new influx of housing into the area, and city planners admit the result will be a loss of blue-collar jobs. So the city can’t let the Bayshore site sit empty for years while some North Carolina–based megaretailer decides the neighborhood’s fate. And the last thing the Bayview, the Mission, and Bernal Heights need is another drawn-out conflict over a home improvement store.

The Mayor’s Office ought to be working with Ammiano and Maxwell to come up with an alternative plan for the area (solar energy? local home improvement stores?) that creates decent jobs, generates tax revenue — and remains true to a sustainable economic and environmental vision for the city. Step one is to take Lowe’s off the table.

Man in the middle

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>>More: For the Guardian’s live coverage of the Democratic National Convention 2008, visit our Politics Blog

› steve@sfbg.com

As the Democratic National Convention was drawing to an explosive close Aug. 28, Barack Obama finally took center stage. In an address to more than 70,000 people, he presented his credentials, his proposals, and his vision. Most in the partisan crowd thought he gave a great speech and left smiling and enthused; some bloggers quickly called it the greatest convention speech ever.

I liked it too — but there were moments when I cringed.

Obama played nicely to the middle, talking about "safe" nuclear energy, tapping natural gas reserves, and ending the war "responsibly." He stayed away from anything that might sound too progressive, while reaching out to Republicans, churchgoers, and conservatives.

He also made a statement that should (and must) shape American politics in the coming years: "All across America something is stirring. What the naysayers don’t understand is this isn’t about me — it’s about you."

Well, if this is really about me and the people I spend time with — those of us in the streets protesting war and the two-party system, people at Burning Man creating art and community — then it appears that electing Obama is just the beginning of the work we need to do.

As Tom Hayden wrote recently in an essay in the Guardian, Obama needs to be pushed by people’s movements to speed his proposed 16-month Iraq withdrawal timeline and pledge not to leave a small, provocative force of soldiers there indefinitely.

After a 5,000 mile, 10-day trip starting and ending at Black Rock City in the Nevada desert with Denver and the convention in between, I’ve decided that Obama is a Man in the Middle.

That creature is essential to both Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention, a figure of great significance — but also great insignificance. Because ultimately, both events are about the movements that surround and define the man.

THE BIG TENT


Nominating Obama was a historic moment, but the experience of spending four days at the convention was more like a cross between attending a big party and watching an infomercial for the Democratic Party. It was days of speeches followed by drinking — both exclusive affairs requiring credentials and connections for the biggest moments.

This year’s convention saw a new constituency come into full bloom. It was called the Big Tent — the literal name for the headquarters of bloggers and progressive activists at the Denver convention, but it also embodied the reality that the vast blogosphere has come of age and now commands the attention of the most powerful elected Democrats.

The tent was in the parking lot of the Alliance Building, where many Denver nonprofits have their offices. It consisted of a simple wood-frame structure two stories high, covered with a tent.

In the tent were free beer, food, massages, smoothies, and Internet access. But there was also the amplified voice of grassroots democracy, something finding an audience not just with millions of citizens on the Internet, but among leaders of the Democratic Party.

New media powerhouses, including Daily Kos, MoveOn, and Digg (a Guardian tenant in San Francisco that sponsors the main stage in the Big Tent) spent the last year working on the Big Tent project. It was a coming together of disparate, ground-level forces on the left into something like a real institution, something with the power to potentially influence the positions and political dialogue of the Democratic Party.

"When we started doing this in 2001, there just wasn’t this kind of movement," MoveOn founder Eli Pariser told me as we rode down the Alliance Building elevator together. "The left wing conspiracy is finally vast."

The Big Tent constituency is a step more engaged with mainstream politics than Burning Man’s Black Rock City, an outsider movement that sent only a smattering of representatives to the convention, including me and my travel mates from San Francisco, musician Kid Beyond and Democratic Party strategist Donnie Fowler, as well as the Philadelphia Experiment’s artistic outreach contingent.

It’s an open question whether either constituency, the Big Tent bloggers and activists or the Black Rock City artists and radicals, are influencing country’s political dialogue enough to reach the Democratic Party’s man in the middle. Obama didn’t mention the decommodification of culture or a major reform of American democracy in his big speech, let alone such progressive bedrock issues as ending capital punishment and the war on drugs, downsizing the military, or the redistribution of wealth.

But those without floor passes to the convention represent, if not a movement, at least a large and varied constituency with many shared values and frustrations, and one with a sense that the American Dream is something that has slipped out of its reach, if it ever really existed at all.

These people represent the other America, the one Obama and the Democratic Party paid little heed to during their many convention speeches, which seemed mostly focused on bashing the Republican Party and assuring heartland voters that they’re a trustworthy replacement. But that’s hardly burning the man.

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Photo by Mirissa Neff

AMERICAN DREAM


It’s been almost a year since Burning Man founder Larry Harvey announced that the art theme for the 2008 event would be "American Dream." I hated it and said so publicly, objecting to such an overt celebration of patriotism, or for setting up a prime opportunity for creative flag burning, neither a seemingly good option.

But I later came to see a bit of method behind Harvey’s madness. After announcing the theme, Harvey told me, "There was a cascade of denunciations and maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. It pricked people where they should be stimulated." He asks critics to read his essay on the Burning Man Web site explaining the theme: "It says that America has lost its way."

But he also said that the disaffected left and other critics of what America has become need to find a vision of America to fight for, something to believe in, whether it’s our Bill of Rights (pictured on Burning Man tickets this year) or some emerging manifestation of the country. "Americans need to find our pride again," Harvey told me. "We can’t face our shame unless we find our pride."

I was still dubious, since I tend toward Tolstoy’s view of patriotism: that it’s a bane to be abolished, not a virtue to be celebrated. Harvey and I have talked a lot of politics as I’ve covered Burning Man over the past four years, and those discussions have sharpened as he has subtly prodded participants to become more political, and as burners have reached out into the world through ventures such as Black Rock Arts Foundation, Burners Without Borders, and Black Rock Solar.

I’ve become friends with many of the event’s key staffers (some, like BWB’s Tom Price, through reporting their stories). This year, one employee (not a board member) I’m particularly close to even gave me one of the few gift tickets they have to hand out each year, ending my five-event run of paying full freight (and then some). I’m also friends with my two travel mates, Kid Beyond, a.k.a. Andrew Chaikin, and Fowler, who handled field organizing for Al Gore in 2000, ran John Kerry’s Michigan campaign four years later, and was attending his sixth presidential convention.

Kid Beyond and I arrived at Black Rock City late Friday night, Aug. 22, and found the playa thick with deep drifts of dust, making it a difficult and tiring bicycle trek into the deep playa where San Francisco artist Peter Hudson and his crew were building Tantalus. But it was worth the ride, particularly if seeking a great take on the American Dream theme.

Like most creations at that early stage of the event, it wasn’t up and running yet, but it would be by Aug. 24, when the event officially began. Still, even in its static state, it was an art piece that already resonated with my exploration of how the counterculture sees the national political culture.

Tantalus looks like a red, white, and blue top hat, with golden arms and bodies around it. And when it spins around, totally powered by the manual labor of visitors working four pumper rail cars, the man — a modern American Tantalus — reaches for the golden apple being dangled just out of his reach and falls back empty-handed.

It’s a telling metaphor for such a big week in American politics.

There were plenty of political junkies on the playa, including two friends who let me crash in their RV for two nights and who left the playa for Denver after a couple of days. Fowler’s sweetie, Heather Stephenson, is with Ideal Bite (their logo is an apple minus one bite) and was on an alternative energy panel with Mayor Gavin Newsom, Denver’s mayor, John W. Hickenlooper, and Gov. Bill Ritter of Colorado.

"The American Dream to me is not having barriers to achievement," Stephenson told me. It is Tantalus getting some apple if he really reaches for it. Fowler said that it is "the freedom to pursue your own dream without interference by government or social interests." But, he added, "the American Dream is more a collective dream than an individual dream."

Bay Area artist Eric Oberthaler, who used to choreograph San Francisco artist Pepe Ozan’s fire operas on the playa, hooked up with the Philadelphia Experiment performers years ago at Burning Man — including Philly resident Glenn Weikert, who directs the dance troupe Archedream. This year they created "Archedream for America," which they performed at Burning Man and the Democratic National Convention. Weikert told me the artistic and collaborative forces that Burning Man is unleashing could play a big role in creating a transformative political shift in America.

"These are two amazing events that are kind of shaping the world right now," Weikert said. "A lot of the ideas and views are similar, but people are working in different realms."

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Tantalus. a Burning Man installation
Photo by Steven T. Jones

MEDIA, 15,002 STRONG


Kid Beyond and I arrived in Denver around 8 a.m., Aug. 25, after a 16-hour drive from Black Rock City, cruising through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado, a couple of which Obama will probably need to win in November if he’s to take the White House.

We headed into the city just as a gorgeous dawn was breaking, arriving with a few hours to spare before our Democratic National Convention press credential would have been redistributed to other journalists, who reportedly numbered more than 15,000. After arriving at my cousin Gina Brooks’ house, we showered, got settled, and jumped on our bikes to pick up our press credentials.

All week, we and others who rented or borrowed the thousands of bicycles made available to visitors used the beautiful and efficient Cherry Creek Bike Trail to get around. It cut through the heart of Denver, passing the convention and performing arts centers, which boasted a great sculpture of a dancing couple, and ran close to the Big Tent in downtown on one side and the convention hall, the Pepsi Center, on the other.

It was a great way to travel and a marked contrast to the long car trip, which felt as if we were firing through tank after tank of gas. Bike travel also proved a smart move — most of the streets around the convention were closed off and patrolled by police in riot gear riding trucks with extended running boards, with military helicopters circling overhead.

The massive Pepsi Center was less than half full a couple hours after the gavel fell to open the convention, but it filled quickly.

The broadcast media had it good, with prime floor space that made it all the more congested for the delegates and others with floor passes. Most journalists were tucked behind the stage or up in the cheap seats, and we couldn’t even get free Internet access in the hall. But journalists could get online in the nearby media tents, which also offered free booze and food.

Even though Hillary Clinton announced she was releasing her delegates to vote for Obama, those I spoke to in San Francisco’s delegation — Laura Spanjian, Mirian Saez, and Clay Doherty — were still planning to vote for Clinton on that Wednesday, although all said they would enthusiastically support Obama after that.

"It’s important for me to respect all the people who voted for her and to honor the historic nature of her candidacy," Spanjian said. "And most of all, to respect her."

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi tried to rally the faithful for the "historic choice between two paths for our country." She belittled the view that John McCain is the most experienced presidential candidate. "John McCain has the experience of being wrong," she said, emphasizing his economic views and his instigation of the "catastrophic" Iraq War.

There were only a smattering of protesters outside the convention center, the most disturbing being anti-abortion activists bearing signs that read, "God hates Obama," "God is your enemy," "The Siege is Here," and one, wielded by a boy who was maybe 12, that read "God hates fags." Family values indeed.

THE ROLL CALL


San Francisco Sup. Chris Daly was giddy when I joined him in the two-thirds full California delegation during the nominating speeches for Obama and Clinton. It was partly because he was finally an official delegate, having been called up from his role as alternate a couple of hours earlier. But an even bigger reason for his joy was that he’s a serious political wonk and just loves the roll call, the only official business of the convention.

"This is the best part of the convention, roll call. It’s cool," Daly, the consummate vote counter, told me as we watched the chair ask each state for their votes. "The speeches are OK, but this is what it’s about."

And pretty soon, this kid in the candy shop was losing his mind as we watched a series of genuinely newsworthy developments in an otherwise scripted convention: California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres was saying "California passes" rather than reporting our votes, states like New Jersey and Arkansas were awarding all their votes to Obama and causing the room to go nuts, and a series of states were yielding to others.

As the chair worked alphabetically through the states, Obama’s home state of Illinois became the second state to pass. Very interesting. Indiana gave 75 of its 85 votes to Obama. Minnesota gave 78 of its 88 votes to Obama, then erupted in a spirited cheer of "Yes we can." Daly and San Francisco delegate London Breed were on their feet, cheering, chanting, and pumped.

With Obama getting close to the number of delegates he needed to win the nomination (there was no tally on the floor and I later learned Obama had 1,550 of the 2,210 votes he needed), New Mexico’s representative announced that the state was "yielding to the land of Lincoln." Anticipation built that Illinois would be the state to put its junior senator over the top.

Then Illinois yielded to New York, and the screens showed Clinton entering the hall and joining the New York delegation. "In the spirit of unity and with the goal of victory," Clinton said, "let us declare right now that Barack Obama is our candidate."

She made the motion to suspend the vote count and have the whole hall nominate Barack Obama by acclamation. Pelosi took the podium and asked the crowd, "Is there a second?" And the room erupted in thousands of seconds to the motion on the floor. She asked all in favor to say "aye," and the room rumbled with ayes. To complete the process, Pelosi said those opposed could say no, but simultaneously gaveled the motion to completion, causing the room to erupt with cheers. I heard not a single nay.

The band broke out into "Love Train" and everyone danced.

NEWSOM’S STAGE


Mayor Gavin Newsom threw a big party Aug. 27, drawing a mix of young hipsters, youngish politicos, and a smattering of corporate types in suits and ties. Although he didn’t get a speaking slot at the convention, Newsom is widely seen as a rising star in the party, far cooler than most elected officials, and maybe even too cool for his own good.

Comedian Sarah Silverman did a funny bit to open the program at the Manifest Hope Gallery (which showcased artwork featuring Obama), then introduced Newsom by saying, "I’m honored to introduce a great public servant and a man I would like to discipline sexually, Gavin Newsom."

Apparently Newsom liked it because he grabbed Silverman and started to grope and nuzzle into her like they were making out, then acted surprised to see the crowd there and took the microphone. It was a strange and uncomfortable moment for those who know about his past sex scandal and recent marriage to Jennifer Siebel, who was watching the spectacle from the wings.

But it clearly showed that Newsom is his own biggest fan, someone who thinks he’s adorable and can do no wrong, which is a dangerous mindset in politics.

Another slightly shameless aspect of the event was how overtly Newsom is trying associate himself with Obama (the party was a salute to the "Obama Generation") after strongly backing Clinton in the primaries. And then, of course, there’s the fact that his party was sponsored by PG&E (a corrupting influence in San Francisco politics) and AT&T (facilitators of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping policy).

I was able to interview Newsom about Clinton before the party. "People can criticize her, but I do think that you’ve never seen a runner-up do so much to support the party’s nominee," Newsom told me. "She’s done as much as she could do, privately as well as publicly."

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Clinton’s dramatic roll call moment
Photo by Mirissa Neff

OBAMA NIGHT


Amid all the excitement, there were scary moments for the progressives. For example, Joe Biden, accepting the vice-presidential nod, urged the nation to more aggressively confront Russia and send more troops into Afghanistan.

During one of the most high-profile points in the convention, halfway between the Gore and Obama speeches, a long line of military leaders (including Gen. Wesley Clark, who got the biggest cheers but didn’t speak) showed up to support Obama’s candidacy. They were followed by so-called average folk, heartland citizens — including two Republicans now backing Obama. One of the guys had a great line, though: "We need a president who puts Barney Smith before Smith Barney," said Barney Smith. "The heartland needs change, and with Barack Obama we’re going to get it," he added.

Of course, these are the concerns of a progressive whose big issues (from ending capital punishment and the war on drugs to creating a socialized medical system and fairly redistributing the nation’s wealth) have been largely ignored by the Democratic Party. I understand that I’m not Obama’s target audience in trying to win this election. And there is no doubt he is a historic candidate.

Bernice King, whose father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech 45 years to the day before Obama’s acceptance speech, echoed her father by triumphantly announcing, "Tonight, freedom rings." She said the selection of Obama as the nominee was "decided not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character. This is one of our nation’s defining moments."

But there is still much work to do in convincing Obama to adopt a more progressive vision once he’s elected. "America needs more than just a great president to realize my father’s dream," said Martin Luther King III, the second King child to speak the final night of the convention. Or as Rep. John Lewis, who was with King during that historic speech, said in his remarks, "Democracy is not a state, but a series of actions."

BACK TO THE BURN


We left Denver around 1:30 a.m. Friday, a few hours after Obama’s speech and the parties that followed, driving through the night and listening first to media reports on Obama’s speech, then to discussions about McCain’s selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The Obama clips sounded forceful and resolute, directly answering in strong terms the main criticisms levied at him. Fowler said the Republicans made a very smart move by choosing a woman, but he was already getting the Democrats’ talking points by cell phone, most of which hammered her inexperience, a tactic that could serve to negate that same criticism of Obama.

We arrived back on the playa at 5:30 p.m. Friday, and a Black Rock Radio announcer said the official population count was 48,000 people, the largest number ever. The city has been steadily growing and creating a web of connections among its citizens.

"That city is connecting to itself faster that anyone knows. And if they can do that, they can connect to the world," Harvey told me earlier this year. "That’s why for three years, I’ve done these sociopolitical themes, so they know they can apply it. Because if it’s just a vacation, we’ve been on vacation long enough."

Yet when I toured the fully-built city, I saw few signs that this political awakening was happening. There weren’t even that many good manifestations of the American Dream theme, except for Tantalus, Bummer (a large wooden Hummer that burned on Saturday night), and an artsy version of the Capitol Dome.

Most of the people who attend Burning Man seem to have progressive values, and some of them are involved in politics, but the event is their vacation. It’s a big party, an escape from reality. It’s not a movement yet, and it’s not even about that Black Rock City effigy, the Man. Hell, this year, many of my friends who are longtime burners left on Saturday before they burned the Man, something most veterans consider an anticlimax.

It’s not about the man in the middle, either; it’s about the community around it. And if the community around Obama wants to expand into a comfortable electoral majority — let alone a movement that can transform this troubled country — it’s going to have to reach the citizens of Black Rock City and outsiders of all stripes, and convince them of the relevance of what happened in Denver and what’s happening in Washington, DC.

Larry Harvey can’t deliver burners to the Democratic Party, or even chide them toward any kind of political action. But the burners and the bloggers are out there, ready to engage — if they can be made to want to navigate the roads between their worlds and the seemingly insular, ineffective, immovable, platitude-heavy world of mainstream politics.

"As hard as it will be, the change we need is coming," Obama said during his speech.

Maybe. But for those who envision a new kind of world, one marked by the cooperation, freedom, and creativity that are at the heart of this temporary city in the desert, there’s a lot of work to be done. And that starts with individual efforts at outreach, like the one being done by a guy, standing alone in the heat and dust, passing out flyers to those leaving Black Rock City on Monday.

"Nevada Needs You!!!" began the small flyer. "In 2004, Nevada was going Blue until the 90 percent Republican northern counties of Elko and Humboldt tilted the state. You fabulous Burners time-share in our state for one week per year. This year, when you go home please don’t leave Nevada Progressives behind! ANY donation to our County Democratic Committee goes a long way; local media is cheap! Thanks!!!"

Change comes not from four days of political speeches or a week in an experimental city in the desert, but from the hard work of those with a vision and the energy to help others see that vision. To realize a progressive agenda for this conservative country is going to take more than just dreaming.

Ed Note: The Guardian would like to thank Kid Beyond, who traveled with Jones and helped contribute to this report.

American Dreamer: The Big Tent’s vast left-wing conspiracy

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Steven T. Jones and Kid Beyond are driving to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, stopping by Burning Man on the way there and back, reporting on the intersection of the counterculture and the national political culture.

By Steven T. Jones

The Big Tent, which is the central hub for bloggers and progressive activists here in Denver, offers more than just free beer, food, massages, smoothies, and Internet access. It offers up the amplified voice of grassroots democracy, something finding an audience not just with millions of citizens on the Internet, but among Democratic Party leaders.

New media powerhouses including Daily Kos, MoveOn, and Digg (a Guardian tenant in San Francisco which sponsors the main stage in the Big Tent) have spent the last year working on the Big Tent project with progressive groups in Denver, many of whom have offices in the Alliance Building, the parking lot of which houses the Big Tent (a simple wood-framed floor, stairs, and decks above it, covered by a tent).

“This is where we have the people on the ground doing the work on progressive causes,” said Katie Fleming with Colorado Common Cause, one Alliance Building tenant. “It’s been a year in the planning. The idea was having a place for blogs to cover the convention,…It’s a way for us to all come together for the progressive line that we carry.”

But it’s really more than that. It’s a coming together disparate, ground-level forces of the left into something like an real institution, something with the power to potentially influence the positions and political dialogue of the Democratic Party.

“When we started doing this in 2001, there just wasn’t this kind of movement,” MoveOn founder Eli Pariser told me as we rode down the Alliance Building elevator together. “The left wing conspiracy is finally vast.”

Reclaiming San Francisco — from cars

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY On Sunday, Aug. 31, the Mayor’s Office and several community groups join forces to bring San Francisco into an international movement to increase physical activity, break down invisible borders, and make scenic space available to all during the city’s first ciclovia.

More than 4.5 miles of streets will be closed to cars that day from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. for Sunday Streets, the first of two ciclovias scheduled this summer. The idea of the ciclovia — which is Spanish for "cycle way" or "bike path" — was conceived in Bogotá, Colombia, during the mid-1990s and has since spread throughout the world.

The concept is to take existing roads — the province of cars — and turn them into temporary paths for walking, jogging, cycling, and other physical activity.

"I think it really helps us re-imagine our city streets as places of safe, non-auto physical activity," said Wade Crowfoot, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s director of global climate change. "From an environmental perspective, it’s time we re-imagine our space and our streets, and to make streets accessible to everyone."

The route extends from Bayview Opera House, up Illinois Street to the Embarcadero, along the waterfront, and across Washington Street into Chinatown. Five activity pods will feature dance classes, yoga, hopscotch, jump rope, and more, and participants are encouraged to explore as much of the route as they can. The Giants’ stadium will be open to pedestrians and bikers who want to run the bases, and event facilitators say they hope this 4.5-mile stretch will grow into something bigger.

"We hope this is just the beginning, and that it succeeds all over the city," said Andy Thornley, program director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

The man largely credited with starting the ciclovia is Gil Penalosa, who implemented the idea as Bogotá’s commissioner of parks and recreation in 1995. Penalosa now runs a nonprofit called Walk and Bike for Life that promotes the ciclovia and other forms of active living.

San Francisco’s event is modest: Bogotá closes off more than 80 miles of looping streets every Sunday and on holidays. More than 1.5 million people turn out each week, according to the Walk and Bike for Life Web site. Ottawa closes more than 30 miles of space on Sundays from May to September, and events have taken place all over Europe in addition to the American continents.

The ciclovia is also part of the car-free movement, an international effort to promote alternatives to car dependence and automobile-based planning.

Besides saving energy and promoting fitness, event planners at ciclovias in Bogotá noticed the events were causing a cultural shift. The Christian Science Monitor reported in an Aug. 18 article that residents from different neighborhoods began interacting as never before. Indian residents of poorer neighborhoods used to halt at the imaginary dividing lines of the more affluent European neighborhoods, and vice versa, but now people mingle freely.

San Francisco organizers hope to use Sunday Streets to create a similar effect here.

"We deliberately chose the route that connects the Bayview to Chinatown, two communities that are historically disconnected," said Susan King, the event’s organizer. "We want people to go to Hunters Point and Chinatown and see what’s out there, with the hope that people will see things they want to come back to."

King also noted that these two neighborhoods lack adequate open space. "We want people in those communities to experience what people who live adjacent to Golden Gate Park and the Presidio get to experience on a regular basis — an opportunity to exercise and not worry about getting hit by cars," King said.

Another international trend that Sunday Streets continues is the reclaiming of waterfront space. Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, said he recently visited Vancouver and experienced its 28 miles of bicycle and pedestrian paths along the water. Paris also has a ciclovia every summer that closes a major expressway and creates a beachfront and promenade along the Seine.

"[The Embarcadero] — that big, dangerous roadway — cuts the city off from the waterfront," Radulovich said. "We want to think about the possibility of reclaiming the water space more successfully for San Franciscans."

One of the few voices of opposition to Sunday Streets came from a group of Pier 39 merchants who worried about the economic impact.

The Board of Supervisors voted Aug. 5 not to delay the event until an economic impact report had been released, but Crowfoot said traffic impact analyses will be done this weekend so that there will be better understanding of the impact of any future events. But many ciclovias have actually increased business because people are more prone to stop and look in stores when they walk by instead of just driving past them.

Ethics? PG&E, Willie Brown, and Hearst

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What is there in the Hearst DNA that keeps it honoring the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with PG&E in the late 1920s to reverse his long standing pro-public power and anti-PG&E position?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

And so when our Guardian reporter Amanda Witherell flashed the word that ex-mayor Willie Brown is still on the PG&E payroll, I sent the following note to Hearst corporate in New York City (which owns the San Francisco Chronicle):

“PG&E has disclosed a $200,000 payment to Willie Brown for ‘consulting services’ for 2007 in its annual report to the California Public Utilities Commission. Now that Willie is doing a featured top-of-the-page political column each Sunday in the Chronicle, I’m curious if he is doing a Chronicle column while still providing ‘consulting services’ for PG&E?

“If so, does Hearst have an ethics policy that covers this apparent conflict? Would it at minimum require disclosure of PG&E payments to Willie in this year and previous years and what was the nature of these ‘consulting services?’ I would appreciate a comment.”

Chronicle Editor Ward Bushee to his credit called me promptly to respond to my questions. (Let us just say his predecessors adopted a variety of stonewalling techniques to avoid answering such questions from the Guardian.)

As attentive Guardian readers know, there is a long history here between Hearst and PG&E and the Willie/PG&E incident is but the latest example of a geologic outcropping of some shameful Hearst history. Hearst was a powerful influence in pushing the original Hetch Hetchy public power project through Congress and beyond, then reversed his policy in the late 1920s as a condition to get a major loan from a PG&E-controlled bank. The pro-PG&E/anti-public power policy continues to this day and nobody I’ve talked to from Hearst through the years can explain why the policy is still in effect to this day.

There is also a juicy history with then Mayor Willie Brown and Hearst. Willie as mayor helped secretly orchestrate for Hearst the deal that allowed Hearst in 2000 to buy the Chronicle, give away the Examiner to the Fang family, and dissolve the Ex/Chron joint-operating agreement with the approval of the Justice Department. Remember all those horse-trading charges in which then Examiner publisher testified under oath that he had used the Examiner editorial pages as a bargaining chip with Willie. (“The Truth Hurts,” by Tali Woodward and Tim Redmond, Guardian 5/10/2000.)

Chronicle editor Ward Bushee to his credit promptly called me to respond. This was a refreshing change from his predecessors who went to creative lengths to stonewall on such questions. I asked Bushee if he knew about the PG&E payment to Willie and if Hearst considered this a conflict with its ethics policy for Willie to be on the PG&E payroll while, among other things, attacking the progressives who voted for the Clean Energy Act that PG&E is opposing with mighty muscle and many millions.

Bushee did not see a conflict nor think that disclosure of Willie’s clients was necessary. Bushee said that Willie is widely known, is “a man about town,” has a popular column, is subject to “strenuous editing,” but is “a freelance columnist who is free to pursue his business interests as any other person who is not a part of the staff.” He said that, if Willie were on staff, he would be subject to Hearst’s “ethical standards.”

Since this issue is of such journalistic importance, I summarized Bushee’s positions and sent him an email and asked if I had properly and fully reflected his and Hearst’s position. I also asked how he could reconcile his and Hearst’s position with the Ethics Code of the Society of Professional Journalists which states that “journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public’s right to know…should avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived…disclose unavoidable conflicts. (The Guardian and many media use the SPJ code.)

Bushee responded by email by my deadline (missing it by two minutes). He wrote, and I quote in full,

“I’m not going to cover the same ground that we did this morning. However, I will say that since Willie Brown’s column was introduced into the Sunday Chronicle, it has been very well received by readers because it is amusing, topical, controversial and informed. Willie has special connections to the Bay Area. That Wiliie Brown has outside interests and income was well noted when he undertook the column and was no secret to anybody who has followed his career.

“A summary of his political career was published when the column was launched.

“You well know that Willie is one of the most quoted San Franciscans in the Chronicle and other media outlets around the Bay Area. He is a sought-after guest for local, regional, and national TV shows. I’m told that you have been a guest of his radio show with Will Durst. Willie is not a journalist or a member of the news staff of the Chronicle, but his column goes through extensive planning with one of our most experienced journalists and then then same rigorous editing processes as any staff produced article. Our freelance agreements give the newspaper complete control of the content we use including his column. So if you question is that Willie is somehow avoiding ethical scrutiny, that’s not correct.

“Look, Bruce. If we ever found that Willie had knowingly used his column to benefit his clients, we would end the relationship. As with any agreement, trust is implicit.

“The Chronicle news staff always has aggressively—and fairly—covered Willie Brown as a newsmaker. And I have told our editors that I expect nothing less when Willie Brown makes news in the future.

“Besides that, Willie writes a great column. I’m delighted he is in the Sunday Chronicle.”

Well, I am still unable to crack the Hearst corporate fortress that has protected and promoted PG&E all these years and is now protecting and promoting Willie Brown as PG&E’s Secret Agent Man in this critical Clean Energy election. PG&E is conducting the most massive and nasty campaign ever against clean energy and public power, with huge Lies, and Hearst is once again refusing to cover the story, correct the lies, or give any indication it is not going to once again back PG&E all the way. Why?

This enduring Hearst position of more than eight decades raises some of the most tantalizing questions in American journalism: What is there in the Hearst corporate DNA that forces its editors and reporters in San Francisco to keep in effect honoring, against early Hearst history, against all evidence, and against all ethical standards, the shameful deal that William Randolph Hearst made with a PG&E- controlled bank in the 1920s to reverse his pro-Hetch Hetchy/anti-PG&E stand and go forever after with PG&E and against public power? (For details, see previous Guardian articles, Bruce blogs, and the authoritative David Nasaw biography of Hearst called “The Chief.”) Repeating for emphasis:

Why does Hearst allow a key PG&E lobbyist to write a featured political column in its Sunday paper without proper disclosure by either Willie or Hearst? Will the Chronicle today, in August of 2008, with a non-Hearst publisher and non-Hearst editor (meaning Frank Vega and Ward Bushee, both experienced executives who came new to Hearst with solid Gannet credentials) be allowed to cast off this terrible yoke and start covering PG&E, clean energy, public power, and the Raker Act scandal in a professional manner? Will Hearst and the Chronicle cover this critical Obama/Clean Energy election honestly?

Meanwhile, I am waiting anxiously to see what Willie and Hearst will report on the big Newsom party that PG&E is helping pay for at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Newsom is gearing up to run as the “green progressive” candidate for governor, but there is no way in the world he can be Gavin the Green when he fronts for PG&E against the Clean Energy campaign in San Francisco and then lets PG&E stamp its logo on his forehead and derriere before a national political audience in Denver.

Newsom and Willie want to be known as real progressives but alas they are “PG&E progressives” and their opposition to the Clean Energy Act only illustrates the difference in 96 point Tempo
Bold between a real progressive with real green credentials and a PG&E progressive taking money to help with PG&E greenwashing and progressive bashing. Guardian City Editor Steve Jones will be at the Newsom event in Denver and will keep you posted. On guard, much more to come, B3

P.S. 1: The Hearst and Willie horse-trading story is my favorite example of Hearst ethics. (See our “The Truth Hurts” story.) Just a few hours into the Clint Reilly antitrust trial challenging the Hearst monopoly deal, Examiner publisher Tim White admitted, in no uncertain terms, that he had used the paper’s editorial pages as a bargaining chip with then Mayor Willie Brown shortly before Wille’s reelection bid in November of l999. White testified that at the Aug. 30, 1999 lunch with Willie, he suggested that the Examiner would give Willie more positive coverage if he’d get behind Hearst’s plan to take over the Chronicle and create a daily monopoly.

“You were doing a little horse trading of your own, weren’t you?” asked Reilly attorney Joseph M. Alioto.

“I was,” White said calmly.

The day after White’s testimony, Hearst issued a press release saying the company had “reaffirmed its policy that the content of news and editorial pages may not be negotiated or compromised in any way.”

And then came many pious denunciations from Hearst of White’s “horse-trading” with Willie and many solemn promises from Examiner and Chronicle editors that their news and editorial coverage wasn’t for sale. The ethics problem for Hearst was that, despite several news stories critical of Willie, the paper wound up two months after the lunch giving Willie a glowing endorsement for mayor with no reservations or discouraging words whatsoever. Willie had earned the endorsement by working with the ranking local and national Democrats to orchestrate the deal and knock out any official opposition. He even told Hearst that he had called then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and gotten assurances that the U.S. Justice Department would not intervene to stop the deal.

As we put it at the time: “The bottom line: it appears, based on all available evidence, that White was doing exactly what he had been sent out here to do–buy the Chron, shut down the Ex, and create a monopoly–and if he offered to trade positive coverage in the pages of the paper for the political clout it took to make that deal, that was just fine with the people at Hearst headquarters back in New York.”

However, we put some questions to Hearst and found that if such an ethics policy really existed at Hearst, nobody from Hearst could produce it, then or later, either at corporate in New York or at the Examiner in San Francisco. The Hearst spokesperson in New York told us that each Hearst publication had independent editorial policies and that we should contact the Examiner.

We contacted then Editor Phil Bronstein who told us the Examiner had an ethics policy, but that it covered reporters and editors, not publishers. “It certainly doesn’t cover situations like this,” he told us. He promised to fax over a copy but it never arrived. Again: Why don’t Hearst ethics policies apply to Willie and PG&E?

Clubs: More Transfer kerfuffle — Big Top bows out

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While I’m still waiting for a response from owner Greg Bronstein about the supposed “new direction” that his bar the Transfer — our City’s most beloved alternaqueer and ultrahipster dive-hole — is supposedly taking (as I reported earlier), another regular party besides Frisco Disco and Lustre has decided that the next date will be its last there. Everyone’s transferring out! I just got word from promoter Joshua J. that his raucous monthly homo-disco-circus spectacular, Big Top, which is celebrating its one year anniversary at the Transfer on Sunday August 31, will end after that date.

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Joshua is part of a VERY successful Wednesday weekly, Juanita More’s Booty Call, at another of Bronstein’s joints, Bar On Castro, and assures me — despite the odd timing — that he’s folding his Big Top tent so that he can concentrate on his new Friday party with the illustrious Frankie Sharp, called M4M, at Underground SF. And indeed, if the Transfer truly is looking to go all upscale, Underground SF should snatch all its shit and bring it for the alternaqueers and rangy str8s. I don’t like the looks of the flyer below much — seems a little LCD — but hey, I’ll check it out. Especially if there’s a cologne-blast of mojito-squealers big-upping C+C Music Factory unironically at the Transfer.

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This is a golden opportunity, really, for any bar still willing to be open-minded enough to really let something creative happen in this city. Deco, Club Eight, Matador, Buckshot Tavern, Amnesia, or Rickshaw Stop are well-positioned to lap up the new party homeless. You may not make loads of $$, but I’ll write about you more! Legendary.

I really can’t fault Bronstein for wanting to make money off his business — he’s allowed the Transfer to be the most exciting and edgy club in the City for the past three years. I know he’s planning to expand and renovate his slick Jet venue up the street, so maybe he’s freaking about the duckets it’ll take. His usual thing is rather chi-chi, not even always in a tacky way. But it’s just sad. Plus I’m guessing that he was none too polite about the changes (although I really want to hear his side of it before I jump to unjournalistic conclusions): the Frisco Disco kids are absolutely fuming. Read their explosive farewell kiss-kiss MySpace post after the jump — to the tune of “Death of a Disco Dancer” by the Smiths:

The new Muni plan

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OPINION Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to take a look at our public utilities and see if they are still managed and operated in a way that serves the goals we have for them. So it’s a good thing that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is assessing the effectiveness of Muni, 30 years since the last serious review.

The SFMTA’s Transit Effectiveness Project (TEP) has identified the root causes of Muni’s chronic reliability problems; gathered more data about ridership, system speed, and contemporary travel patterns than we have ever had; and, finally, proposed sweeping changes to make Muni faster and more reliable.

Muni’s routes have evolved from the extensive street- and cable-car system of the turn of the century. Back then, car use was minimal and transit service was profitable, so competing operators vied for the franchise to operate on city streets. Winning companies got their preferred streets, and runners-up laid tracks on adjacent streets.

We don’t need buses on adjacent streets anymore. We need core "trunk" lines that run service every few minutes. People need to know where to walk so that they can count on a bus always being there.

That’s one of the main ideas behind the TEP’s route proposals. It would also help deal with the problem of Muni buses being stuck in car traffic. Muni averages just 8 mph system-wide, a very slow speed that equates to higher-than-ever expenses. Speeding up buses by 25 percent is the same as providing 25 percent more service at almost no additional cost. Put another way, if a run that takes 60 minutes can be cut to 45 minutes, over three hours a single bus can cover that run four times instead of just three. The beauty of concentrating service on core lines is that Muni will be able to build "transit-priority" street designs to protect buses from traffic delays — something that is realistic to do on the core rapid transit network, but not on every street that currently has a bus line.

Not coincidentally, these main routes also serve the city’s most transit-dependent populations. The TEP proposes to almost double the service on Mission Street, including expanding the 14-Limited service to all hours of the day. The 9-X from the city’s southeast side will come every four minutes instead of every 10 minutes.

These improvements are only possible because resources are being reallocated from other routes — ones used by fewer riders but, of course, equally cherished. SFMTA’s planners are doing the right thing: putting service where it’s most needed today, not decades ago. And they preserved the philosophy of providing service to within a quarter-mile of every residence.

Some of us will lose a bus line. But we need to stay focused on the bigger picture: for the vast majority of people in the city, this new route plan will provide better, faster service. The kinds of changes recommended in the TEP are truly the only way Muni is actually going to be able to grow ridership significantly.

All of us who believe in public transit should support the proposals.

Dave Snyder

Dave Snyder is the transportation policy director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR).

King me, Fudgie: Spermin’ out with drag’s biggest baller

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Hey, girl, hey: In this week’s Super Ego clubs column, I talk to the reigning king and queen of SF Drag: Fudgie Frottage of this Saturday’s 13th Annual San Francisco Drag King Contest, and Heklina of Trannyshack, whose weekly club is coming to a nuclear close after 12 years as I type this (listen very carefully and you can hear dizzy trannies exploding in the distance….) before her giant Trannyshack Kiss-Off Party on Aug 23 at the Regency Center.


Footage of the century: A youngish Heklina plugs the first Trannyshacks at Fudgie’s legendary DragStrip club, April 14, 1996. Arturo Galster MCs.

Look at me, I’m a starfucker. Below is my extended, unexpurgated, sticky-fingered interview with Fudgie, aka Lu Read, whose hairy roots stretch back to the heyday of SF’s punk rock drag scene. Strap one on and dive in.

SFBG: This is your lucky 13 — are you planning anything, like, spooky? Are there any SF Drag King disaster stories you can share?

Fudgie: Well, our theme this year sets us Kings donating to a sperm bank — that is genetically spooky to many, though most find it hilarious. Drag King disaster stories? Well, last year one of my balls failed to inflate during the opening number “Big Balls,” but the concept got across so it wasn’t a total disaster.

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Yes Nurse! No Nurse! Photos by Larry Utley

SFBG: What in general do you have planned for this glorious, gorious evening?

Fudgie: Hard and throbbing musical productions, firm and penetrating performances, and extraordinary feats of entertaningly unbridled masculine stamina and staying power. Cohost Indra and I have a few surprizes, Electro, the Pop n’ Lock King, SFDK title holder from 2000 is flying in from NY as our special guest. He hasn’t performed here for 8 years and I’m really looking forward to seeing him — he is a fantastic performer!

The Contest is very much like a variety show, we’ve got bands like The Mighty Slim Pickins and TuffnStuff, aerialist burlesque with Kitty Kitty Bang Bang: some Kings lipsynch, some sing live, some choreograph amazing dance routines, of course there’s Fakin’ Aiken, this year’s title holder plus the troupe title holders The Pacmen from Sacramento who are adorable, talented and handsome. Surely Delicio Del Toro, L. Ron Hubby and Seimen Marcus will do something wild and crazy. The contest is like a mash-up of the Miss America Pageant, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Project Runway, Halloween and a Monster Truck Show.

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Fudgie gets fishy

SFBG: An annoying thing for me: Many people I know, even smart ones, don’t know much about the drag king community — drag queens get all the freakin’ press. What do you think about the lack of drag king visibility on the SF scene?

Newsom reappoints the condo commissioner

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Sup. Tom Ammiano had a short but pointed list of questions for Michael Antonini during a Rules Committee meeting of the Board of Supervisors Aug. 7 held to determine whether Antonini should be reappointed to the San Francisco Planning Commission. Gavin Newsom nominated Antonini for reappointment July 8 after the mayor’s office refused to tell the Guardian last month if he planned to do so.

Newsom’s selection of Antonini requires majority support from the board, and its progressive faction, irked by Antonini’s pro-development tenure, took the opportunity to find out how he planned to help the city ensure that 64 percent of all new housing construction was affordable to low-income residents, as San Francisco’s General Plan calls for.

Antonini told the supervisors he felt the city could move closer to that goal by essentially redefining poverty and raising the threshold for what constitutes a low-income earner, currently based on how much people make compared to the area’s median income. If the percentile was raised, developers could describe as “affordable” costlier housing units that are actually expensive and out of reach to a lot of buyers in the city.

“One of the areas that we’re really having a problem with is middle-income families,” Antonini told the committee, “and without in any way diminishing the number of units we build for lower-income groups, I think that we can accomplish that goal more realistically by having that percentile be higher.”

Ammiano also wanted to know why the planning commissioner backed the construction of a new Walgreens at Cesar Chavez and Mission streets just blocks from two other store locations in the supervisor’s district 9.

“Do you really believe that my district is under-served by Walgreens?” Ammiano asked with a smile.

Redevelopment cooked Lennar grant

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Officials with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency admitted yesterday that they cooked a state grant application, by claiming that they needed the funds to fill a $25 million gap in the budget of a project that the City is developing with Lennar at Hunters Point Shipyard.

But what they really wanted the monies for, the agency claimed, was to boost a shrinking community benefit fund that was supposedly to be derived from development profits.

The admission came during a hearing into Lennar’s fiscal health. The hearing was requested by Sup. Chris Daly, following the discovery that the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency had applied for, but been denied, a $25 million grant from the state’s Department of Housing and Community Development to subsidize infrastructure costs.

The June 10 grant application discovery, coupled with Lennar’s June 7 bankruptcy filing at Mare Island, heightened concerns that Lennar was planning to mothball the Shipyard/Candlestick redevelopment project, even though voters had greenlighted an increase in the size of that project, just days earlier, on June 3.

Daly’s mothballing concerns were understandable, given that Stephen Maduli-Williams, SFRA’s Deputy Executive Director of Community and Economic Development had claimed, in a May 23 letter to the state that, “without the requested $25,021,079 Infill grant allocation, our infrastructure project faces a serious risk of being mothballed. The project would face increased costs from work stoppage, remobilization efforts and substantial change orders.”

At yesterday’s hearing, Maduli-Williams repeatedly denied that there was any hole in the project’s budget. Instead, he argued that he had manufactured the hole in an effort to increase funds to the project’s community benefit fund.

“This was one of the resources we felt compelled to apply for, because, if successful, it would be a direct benefit to the Legacy Fund,” Maduli-Williams said, noting that 60 percent of the profits from the development go to Lennar, while only 40 percent to the Redevelopment Agency, who will turn these funds over to the Bayview.

Maduli-Williams noted that had the agency received the grant, “it would, if anything, have been a pass-through to the agency, not Lennar.”

As for the “hole in the project,” that these monies allegedly would have filled, Maduli Willians claimed he invented the hole after being turned down in the first round of applications, in which $1 billion worth of applications were vying for only $240 million in grants.

“Without this hole, we were told, we would not qualify,” Maduli-Williams said. “It’s part of our job to turn over every rock we can to benefit the Bayview.”

“Lennar is not in severe financial difficulty,” he added, observing that pursuant to the deposition and development agreement that Lennar signed, a developer is deemed to be in default, if its net worth falls below $400 million.

“Currently, Lennar has $900 milion in cash and has zero corporate debt,” Maduli-Williams claimed. “Yes, there is money to complete the project.”

Lawsuit challenges high-speed rail project

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Four environmental groups and two cities today filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court challenging the California High Speed Rail Authority’s recent decision to lay track over Pacheco Pass, rather than going with the Altamont Pass option preferred by the plaintiffs.

The lawsuit isn’t likely to directly affect this November’s Proposition 1, the $10 billion bond measure that would allow work to begin on the San Francisco-Anaheim high-speed rail project. Yet the language in the bond measure could be updated to include new fiscal oversight and other provisions if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs Assembly Bill 3034, which this week broke through a logjam in the Assembly and appears likely to win Senate approval next week.

The lawsuit was filed by the Planning and Conservation League, Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund, California Rail Foundation, Bay Rail Alliance, and the cities of Atherton and Menlo Park.
A press release from CRF says, “The environmental and transit groups advocate a well-planned, cost- effective, and environmentally sensitive high-speed rail system in California. They want high-speed trains along the Altamont route, to help commuters from the Central Valley and Sacramento, who currently clog up Interstates 80 and 580. This route would divert millions of regional trips annually to electrified rail, yielding extremely significant air quality, greenhouse gas reduction, and energy savings benefits.”

CHSRA staffers and board members argued that Pacheco was a cheaper, faster route that eliminated the need for a costly and logically difficult bay crossing to reach San Francisco. South Bay political leaders also threatened to oppose the project if Altamont was chosen. Yet CHRSA is also working on a regional rail connection over Altamont that would eventually tie into the high-speed rail system, which is at least a decade away from being operational.

Enviro-metalists

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"There was this fateful moment where we were like, ‘Fuck this shit! Hippie commune? Black metal band? Let’s do this!’<0x2009>" Wolves in the Throne Room drummer Aaron Weaver says, describing the synergistic beginnings of his group’s music and their 10-acre working farm, Calliope.

WITTR is living every nature-loving hessian’s dream. Not content with the icy, masturbatory satanism of Scandinavian death-metal forebears like Mayhem, or with the politics of the dogmatic punk scene from which they spawned, or about to hold hands and coo "Kumbaya," the three-piece from Olympia, Wash., has united a scathing brand of metal with inspired ecological spirituality. Say what?

To enviro-heads concerned with planetary destruction and nuclear apocalypse, and metalists banging their heads to songs about violent destruction and nuclear apocalypse, the connection is obvious.

"If we had to boil our band down to one thing: we’re just so fucking miserable and pissed all the time about the stuff that is going on in the world, just this wholesale war against anything beautiful or good or whole or pure," explains Weaver by phone from his little house across the courtyard from WITTR’s practice space.

Running counter to the activist tendencies of its punk cousins, the traditional metal scene has generally recoiled from politically correct statements. WITTR blends the two, embracing eco-feminism and radical ecology on a spiritually intuitive level rather than an overbearingly didactic one. Their second, latest album, 2007’s Two Hunters (Southern Lord), creates a dynamic continuum — not unlike nature itself — by pointedly channeling the sorrow and deep rage of a planet in crisis. Bookended by buggy chirps of the witching hour and twittering birds, the four tracks slowly creep with a plodding, atmospheric tension, climaxing in speed-of-light picking, drums to move mountains, and the throat-raking terror screams of Weaver’s younger brother and guitarist, Nathan.

Is this how Mother Earth would sound if she could respond in minor chords and time signatures? WITTR’s lyrics too are one with nature. As Two Hunters‘ 18-minute closing saga, "I Will Lay Down My Bones Among the Rocks and Roots," goes, "The wood is filled with the sounds of wildness / The songs of birds fill the forest on this new morning / This will be my new home / Deep within the most sacred grove."

Production-wise, WITTR carries through a similar awareness and intricacy, intent on crafting meticulously layered recordings. "The black metal aesthetic is just what we happen to use, but the main goal is to create soundscapes," Weaver says, noting that a typical song has about 20 guitar tracks. Earth producer Randall Dunn gave Two Hunters a palpable warmth, working primarily in analog at Aleph Studios in Seattle, and the band is planning to collaborate with Dunn again on its third full-length, due in February 2009. On it, touring bassist Will Lindsay will take over as the vocalist and second guitarist from new dad Rick Dahlin.

In a sense, WITTR’s devotion to re-awakening an ancient spirit rooted in their home turf is nothing new. Black metal is steeped in bioregional qualities, whether exuding a chilly clime and calling on Nordic deities or reading tarot cards and summoning the melancholy, intense quiet of the Pacific Northwest’s mossy old-growth forests. "That’s always been the explicit goal, to really express the spirit of this place, which has a very specific feel to it," Weaver says. "It’s a really dreamy kind of energy."

So next time you put on WITTR, remember it’ll sound best if you’re snug within a sacred grove — and make sure you have a lunar calendar and a Jepson Manual on hand. As the outfit argues in its band bio — required reading for fans of Derrick Jensen and Burzum alike — "If you listen to black metal, but you don’t know what phase the moon is in, or what wildflowers are blooming, then you have failed."

WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM

With Ludicra and the Better to See You With

Tues/12, 8 p.m., $15

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

Going green requires cooperation

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EDITORIAL There are some clear and compelling things San Francisco needs to be doing to protect the environment and reduce its carbon footprint, such as converting to renewable electricity sources and promoting alternatives to the automobile. But as the past couple of weeks at City Hall have demonstrated, city officials are letting petty politics interfere with working together to do the right thing.

Obviously, the most important step toward combating climate change is to convert the power portfolio of city residents to renewable energy sources. Nobel laureate Al Gore challenged the entire country to move toward 100 percent renewable power sources within 10 years during a landmark speech July 17.

But days later, when Gore appeared at the Netroots Nation convention in Austin, Texas, to repeat the challenge to the assembled bloggers, fellow guest speaker Mayor Gavin Newsom came out against the San Francisco Clean Energy Act, which would set even more modest goals for conversion to green power sources.

Newsom’s reason, as Sarah Phelan and Janna Brancolini explain in this week’s Green City column, is fear of provisions in the legislation that call for studying — just studying — public power options for achieving these goals. Considering Newsom has repeatedly told the Guardian that he supports public power, it’s disgraceful that he’s so beholden to Pacific Gas and Electric and so mindlessly adversarial toward the Board of Supervisors that he would oppose setting high green power standards.

But Newsom isn’t the only one playing this game. Board president Aaron Peskin is trying to scuttle Sunday Streets, which would temporarily close six miles of roadway to cars as part of an international trend to promote carfree spaces, simply because it was Newsom who proposed it (see "Pedal power," 7/23/08).

True, Newsom is a newcomer to the carfree movement — having spent years blocking proposed street closures in Golden Gate Park — but his conversion was warmly embraced by progressive groups such as Livable City and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and should have been supported by Peskin and other supervisors.

Meanwhile, the city is doing little to fight the ongoing court injunction against bicycle projects even as required environmental work on the Bicycle Plan falls behind schedule. In connection with a July 21 hearing on that delay, both Planning Director John Rahaim and City Attorney Dennis Herrera have called for reform to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and for changes in how the city interprets traffic impacts under the act.

"It’s truly ironic that an activity that is inherently environmentally friendly is being challenged under an environmental law," Rahaim said of bicycling as he testified before the Land Use Committee. He’s right. City officials should aggressively move forward with the local reforms under consideration and push the bureaucracy to keep the Bike Plan on the fast track.

Meanwhile, our state legislators should work to amend CEQA to exempt pedestrian and bicycle improvements from costly and time-consuming environmental impact reports and our federal representatives should start laying the groundwork now to ensure next year’s big transportation bill reauthorization promotes alternatives to the automobile.

As a gesture of cooperation and goodwill, Newsom should come out and support Sup. Chris Daly’s latest proposal to close Market Street to automobiles, which would greatly speed up public transit, improve pedestrian safety, and create an attractive bicycle boulevard in the heart of the city.

The idea was first pitched by former mayor Willie Brown and has already been studied and vetted by the city bureaucracy. This could be the first big cooperative project between the board and the Mayor’s Office, a team effort against the forces of the status quo. And if it is successful, just imagine what they could take on after that.

What the candidates need to tell us

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EDITORIAL The traditional kick-off date for fall campaigns is Labor Day, but in San Francisco, the candidates for supervisor have been in full campaign mode for months now, and some of the races are beginning to take shape. As political groups start making endorsements, it’s worth looking at what’s at stake here — and what the candidates ought to be talking about.

For starters, it’s going to be a crowded fall ballot, and there’s the potential for a broad progressive coalition to come together around a clear agenda for the future. Among the proposals headed for the ballot are an affordable housing plan, a green energy and public power measure, two new tax plans that focus on bringing in revenue from the wealthy, and a huge bond act to rebuild San Francisco General Hospital. All of the progressive candidates should be backing those measures and working together for their passage.

But the candidates also need to offer long-term solutions to the serious problems facing San Francisco. This is a city under enormous pressure, and unless some dramatic policy changes take place, San Francisco will continue its rapid slide toward becoming a city of and for the very rich.

A few items that ought to be on every progressive candidate’s platform:

•<\!s>The city’s energy future. The fall ballot measure, the Clean Energy Act, will lay the groundwork for a sustainable local energy policy, although the supervisors will have to aggressively push the key element: creating a city-run electric utility. As long as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. controls the local grid, San Francisco will never meet its environmental goals. Rates will remain high, conservation will be an afterthought, and PG&E will resist any type of renewable program it doesn’t control. The candidates need to make clear that they’re committed to a full-scale public power system and tell us how they will move the goals of the Clean Energy Act forward.

•<\!s>The housing crisis. San Francisco’s housing policy today is utter insanity. If it continues, the city in 10 years will look nothing like it does now. The middle class will be gone. Families with kids will be a vanishing species. Tens of thousands of people who work in this city — and keep its economy going — will be forced to live far away. Fancy new towers filled with millionaires will destroy entire neighborhoods and displace the city’s remaining blue-collar jobs.

The affordable housing ballot measure is a good first step, but much more is needed. Solutions aren’t easy, but they start with one premise: the city doesn’t need any more housing for the rich. Affordable-housing programs that set aside, say, 20 percent of new units for non-millionaires are a losing game because they accept as reality the prospect of a city where 80 percent of the residents are millionaires.

San Francisco needs a comprehensive policy that forces the city to meet its General Plan goals, which call for 64 percent of all new housing to be available at below-market rates. We need to hear how the candidates would make that happen.

**The structural budget deficit. San Francisco is a wealthy city, but there’s never enough money in the budget for the level of services residents want and need. With the exception of the rare boom years, the city has always had a revenue shortfall. Sup. Aaron Peskin’s two tax measures could bring in another $50 million per year — no chump change by any means. But the city needs about $200 million more per year to make the numbers balance. The candidates need to talk about where that will come from.

**The Muni meltdown. You can’t have a transit-first policy without effective transit, and Muni’s in trouble. Budget cuts are a big part of the problem, but the city needs a modern transit program — and that’s barely even on the drawing board. How are the candidates going to fix one of the city’s most important services? Will the candidates support the long-overdue completion of the city’s bicycle network and other bold efforts to decrease reliance on the automobile?

**The war on fun. As the city gets richer, it gets more uptight. Street fairs are under attack. Clubs are facing police crackdowns. Permit fees and red tape are making it almost impossible to hold events in Golden Gate Park. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has a ballot measure to make some of the permitting easier, but what are the candidates going to do to end the Gavin Newsom–era attack on arts and entertainment?

There’s much more: The police aren’t solving homicides. Small businesses feel utterly ignored by City Hall. The Planning Department is run by developers. The list goes on. And the next Board of Supervisors will need to address all those issues. Over the next few months, the candidates that want the progressive vote need to give us some clear explanations of where they stand.

Bicyclists told to blame CEQA, not the city

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Bicyclists expressed their outrage, politicians offered their support, and bureaucrats said they’d do what they could to speed up the slow-moving environmental work on the city’s Bicycle Plan, which a judge says the city must complete before making any bicycle system improvements.
But for those seeking near-term relief to a stalemate expected to last at least another year found little solace during yesterday’s Land Use Committee hearing on the latest Bike Plan delays. Instead, they were offered a culprit: the California Environmental Quality Act.
The 38-year-old law was the basis for the legal challenge that led to a court injunction against new bike projects, and all involved with the plan note how perverse it is for the state’s premier environmental law to be holding up efforts to promote bicycling, an unqualified environmental good.
“It’s truly ironic that an activity that is inherently environmentally friendly is being challenged under an environmental law,” Planning Director John Rahaim, who moved here from Seattle last year, said at the hearing.

High speed rail on track

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› steve@sfbg.com

It’s crunch time for high speed rail in California, a project 12 years in the planning that will finally go before voters in November, following a controversial July 9 vote in San Francisco on the system’s Bay Area alignment and ongoing political struggles in Sacramento.

As envisioned by project proponents, riders would be able to board the sleek blue-and-gold trains in San Francisco’s remodeled Transbay Terminal and travel at speeds of up to 220 mph down the Peninsula, cutting over Pacheco Pass into the Central Valley, and arriving at Union Station in Los Angeles two hours and 38 minutes later — or continuing on to Anaheim and arriving 20 minutes after that.

The $9.95 billion bond measure, Proposition 1, would cover about a third of the costs for this initial phase (the plan would eventually extend the tracks to run from Sacramento to San Diego), with the balance borne almost equally by the federal government and private investors. With around 100 million passenger trips per year, and LA-SF tickets projected to cost around $60, fiscal studies show the project will more than pay for itself in less than 20 years, then generate about $1 billion a year in profits.

Perhaps most important in these times of heightened environmental concern, the system is now proposed to run entirely on renewable energy sources and would use about one–third of the energy of air travel and one-fifth that of driving, eliminating 18 billion pounds of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing California’s oil dependence by 22 million barrels per year.

Yet there are still obstacles that could derail high speed rail, which was set in motion in 1996 by then–state senator Quentin Kopp, a San Franciscan and retired judge who chairs the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA).

Critics of the CHSRA’s unanimous vote choosing Pacheco Pass over Altamont Pass are threatening to sue and now have about 30 days to do so. Union Pacific Railroad has complicated the right-of-way acquisition process by claiming it won’t allow the project on its property. And Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his allies have been inconsistent in their support for the project (see "Silver bullet train," 04/17/07).

On top of that, legislation to update the six-year-old language of the bond measure, Assembly Bill 3034, appeared at Guardian press time to have fallen short of winning needed support on the Senate floor before the July 15 deadline set by Secretary of State Debra Bowen. And there was a renewed effort by Republican legislators to try to push the bond measure back to 2010.

Yet for all the challenges the project continues to face, the recent hearings in San Francisco demonstrated that there is a consensus emerging among some of the most powerful political players in the state that California is finally ready to catch up to Europe and Asia and start building the first high speed rail system in the United States.

CHSRA met in San Francisco July 8-9 to take public comment and finalize its last critical decision before the November bond measure — selecting the train’s route through the Bay Area and making the legal and environmental findings to support that decision. The stakes were high as the board weighed whether to select Pacheco Pass or Altamont Pass as the route from the Bay Area to Central Valley.

CHSRA staff and consultants, along with most Bay Area politicians and civic groups, favored Pacheco Pass, which is the faster and cheaper option, and one that doesn’t require a logistically difficult crossing of the San Francisco Bay to reach the Peninsula.

Most environmental groups favored Altamont Pass, which avoids ecologically sensitive Henry Coe State Park and areas where activists feared the rail line might induce urban sprawl or threaten agricultural viability. The conflict seemed intractable just a few months ago, with South Bay politicians threatening to oppose the project if it used Altamont and organizations, including the Sierra Club, threatening litigation if Pacheco was chosen.

But it appears that project proponents have allayed many of the environmentalists’ concerns by eliminating a proposed rail station in Los Banos or Avenal and including strong preservation policies in the project.

"We have worked with as many of these individuals as we could to accommodate their concerns," CHSRA executive director Mehdi Morshed said at the hearing, noting that they’ve done all they could to make changes and still have a sound project. "We can’t deal with the dogma. Some people say you must do this or else, and we can’t deal with that."

After years of studying the options, Morshed said the choice is clear.

"Pacheco is the appropriate corridor for fast intercity rail service," Morshed told the CHSRA board. "Somewhere along the line, we have to decide we’ve studied enough and move on, and this is one of those circumstances."

Most of the dozens of people who spoke at the hearing agreed, including Tim Frank, who represented the Sierra Club of California and praised CHSRA staff for addressing most of the group’s concerns.

"The opportunity to get people out of cars and out of airplanes and get them into steel wheels running on steel track is very important," Frank said, noting that the project was essential to meeting the state’s goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Yet others are still threatening litigation, among them Oakland attorney Stuart Flashman, who addressed the hearing on behalf of clients that include the Planning and Conservation League, the California Rail Foundation, and the Mountain Lion Foundation. He made a number of technical points about the project’s environmental impact reports, such as the use of alignment corridors rather than more specific routes.

"We find your report completely inadequate," Daniel McNamara, project director for the California Rail Foundation (a train users group), told CHSRA.

After the vote didn’t go his way, Flashman told the Guardian that the coalition he represents will meet soon to decide what’s next. They have 30 days from when the notice of decision was entered July 9 to sue unless the Attorney General’s Office waives the statute of limitations. "We’re going to be considering what to do now, but litigation is certainly on the table," Flashman said.

Whether filed by this group or another entity, the CHSRA has been working closely with Deputy Attorney General Christine Sproul to create a project that will withstand a legal challenge.

"We wanted to make sure that if and when there is a lawsuit — and there probably will be a lawsuit — that we are capable of defending it," Morshed told the board, noting how Sproul was brought in because of her expertise in environmental law.

Before the authority voted, Sproul explained that the environmental documents are for the overall program to build the project and are therefore not as detailed as the specific project studies that will be performed after CHSRA secures specific property to build on.

"Today, before you is really a broad policy choice," she said.

Sproul also said that the project is likely to proceed even if a lawsuit is filed, noting that getting an injunction to stop the project would require the litigants to secure a bond against losses to the state as it pursues this high-dollar project, "which could be millions."

But recent CHSRA actions have appeased many of the would-be plaintiffs and created a project that was effusively praised by stakeholders.

Mayor Gavin Newsom said San Francisco is "very supportive" of the project and will work to make it a reality. "We stand behind your efforts to bring high speed rail to the state of California," Newsom told CHSRA, later adding, "We need to connect the state to itself."

Newsom said San Francisco International Airport officials support the project. While it might seem to be a competitor, Newsom said high speed rail will take some of the pressure off SFO, which would otherwise experience congestion at problematic levels by 2020. Current plans call for a high speed rail station at SFO, as well as one near Palo Alto.

"We recognize that we need to have competitive modes of transportation," Newsom said. "Our airport is very supportive of this effort, and that’s very important."

Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin echoed the point, noting that he began his political career as an activist opposed to filling in more of the bay, something an airport expansion would probably require. He told the authority that his board has unanimously endorsed the project.

Jim Lazarus, vice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, also announced that group’s support for the project, telling the authority that Californians have long been ready for high speed rail: "I think the public is ahead of the politicians in Sacramento on this one."

Many of the speakers spoke knowledgably about high speed rail.

"I’ve ridden on the Japanese Shinkansen and I can’t wait to ride on the first high speed rail system in the United States," said Dean Chu, a commissioner with the Bay Area’s Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

"I’ve been building high speed rail systems for 15 years in Asia and Europe, and I just want to say, ‘It’s about time’," said Robert Doty, the rail operations manager for Caltrain, who has worked in Germany, England, Taiwan, and China.

Echoing that sentiment was Eugene K. Skoropowski, who also worked on high speed rail projects in Europe before taking his current job as managing director for the Capital Corridor Joint Powers Authority: "It’s about time we bring our American firms that have expertise (on building high speed rail systems) back home to work here."

Enthusiastic supporters of the project urged the authority the move quickly.

"We feel a great deal of urgency over this project," said Emily Rusch, a San Francisco–based advocate with the California Public Interest Research Group.

"Everyone I talk to is very excited about the idea," said San Francisco resident Mary Renner. "It’s embarrassing that we’re so far behind the rest of the world, and I just want to tell you the public is supportive of this project."

"Our priority is to get this thing built and get it built quickly," said Dave Snyder, transportation policy director for the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. "Let’s get rolling on high speed rail."

The final step in getting high speed rail ready for the November ballot was to be AB 3034, which sought to update the language and financial oversight provisions of Prop. 1, whose language was written for the election of 2004 before changes in the project.

"I feel good and I’ll feel better when AB 3034 is in appropriate condition," Kopp said after the vote on the Bay Area alignment.

Kopp was critical of Sen. Leland Yee for amending the bill to guarantee the bond money went to the San Francisco to Anaheim section, something Yee said he did to protect San Francisco’s interests but that Kopp felt hurt the measure’s statewide chances. Yet that tiff was overshadowed by the bill’s apparent and unexpected failure in the Senate.

Sen. Mike Machado (D-Stockton) was unhappy with the Pacheco choice and decided to oppose the project, meaning that proponents needed three Republican votes to win the two-thirds needed for passage and only Sen. Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) was willing to cross party lines, Capitol sources told the Guardian.

Secretary of State Debra Bowen had set a deadline of July 15 for substituting the new language in Prop. 1, so at Guardian press time it appeared the old language would remain in place, which Kopp said was acceptable and probably wouldn’t hurt the project.

Meanwhile, a project opponent, Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), sought to kill Prop. 1 by doing what’s known as a "gut and amend" to an unrelated bill, SB 298 by Senate Minority Leader Dave Codgill (R-Modesto), in an attempt to push the bond measure back to 2010.

If he can find the two-thirds vote in both houses — which most sources consider unlikely — it would be the fourth time the bond measure has been delayed. So barring any unusual political deals, the high speed bond measure is still up in November.

If a majority of voters approve Prop. 1, the CHSRA would begin negotiating rights-of-way and working on final technical studies. Construction could begin as early as 2010, although completion could take up to 10 years.

In the meantime, CHSRA unanimously voted to work with regional rail agencies such as BART to create a rail system over Altamont. As Morshed said, "We need to immediately start working on the Altamont corridor and find a solution to that."

Red ink stains green rhetoric

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY Environmentalists are pondering the state’s seemingly schizophrenic approach to fighting climate change after a recent state report encouraging increased use of mass transit came out at the same time that the governor’s budget proposal denies the state’s public transportation fund more than $1 billion.

The California Air Resource Board’s June 26 Draft Scoping Plan to combat global warming, released pursuant to Assembly Bill 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, is at least the second major report this year to recommend expanding public transit. But the governor’s latest spending plan redirects that sizeable chunk of money — gasoline tax revenue that voters who approved Prop. 42 in 2002 directed toward transportation projects and agencies — to help reduce the state’s $17 billion budget deficit.

"There’s a lot of misallocation of resources going on," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of the San Francisco nonprofit Livable Cities. "The governor on the one hand wants to say, ‘You should all ride mass transit.’ But on the other hand, he is taking away [transit] support from the state budget."

The governor’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, said the budget proposal spares transit from cuts faced by other programs during these tough economic times.

"Funding for public transportation stays level in the governor’s budget proposal. That’s in the face of a $17 billion deficit. The fact that it remains level is better than a lot of cuts we’ve had to make," McLear said. "We wish we could increase it, because it certainly is something the governor believes in. But again, the state is facing a $17 billion shortfall. We can only spend the money that we have. There will have to be some tough decisions to be made."

The CARB plan calls for California to lead by example by encouraging state employees to take advantage of public transportation during their commutes. It notes that transportation accounts for 38 percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, most of which comes from cars and trucks, and that curbing these emissions is critical to reaching California’s goal of reducing total emissions by 30 percent over the next 12 years.

"Overall I think this is headed in the right direction. For better or worse, this really does put California ahead of any other state if we fully implement this plan. Of course, having a good plan does not guarantee that it will be implemented, but this is a very serious attempt," said Gabriel Metcalf, executive director of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, of the state’s global warming plan.

Yet he also said that reaching the plan’s ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gases means people will have to drive less and use transit more, and that local governments will need to stop approving urban sprawl projects.

"The easy answer that most Americans would rather have is to keep driving just as much as always, but have alternative fuels. And that just is not going to work. AB 32 has a major land use change component. Is it enough? No, it is not. But it is at least an acknowledgment of what we have to do," Metcalf said. "Overall I’m pretty impressed, but they’re not proposing enough land use change and they’re not proposing transit funding increases. They are still unwilling to face facts about the role of the automobile and climate change."

Yet instead of increasing funds for mass transit, the governor has redirected billions of public transportation dollars into the general fund, maintaining status quo transit funding in the face of increased gasoline prices and the new climate change mandate. At the same time, billions of dollars have been allocated to highway expansion programs, exacerbating the global warming problem.

"Anybody’s budget should be a reflection of their values, whether it’s an individual or an agency," said Carli Paine, transportation program director for the Transportation and Land Use Coalition. "The state is saying, ‘We value public transportation as a climate friendly choice.’ Yet when it comes to expressing those values in the budget, we say, ‘It doesn’t matter that much,’ so we’re actually undermining those original statements."

The governor’s revised state budget allocated $306 million to the State Transit Assistance Program, the state’s source of funding for mass transit operating costs such as maintenance, drivers, fuel, and mechanics.

This is the same amount that was allocated last year, even though transit ridership is the highest it has been in more than 50 years, according to a June report by the American Public Transportation Association. And factor in that crude oil is about $140 per barrel now compared to about $73 per barrel this time in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration, a federal agency. "The budget is kicking transit in the teeth when it needs it [money] the most," Radulovich said.

The $306 million allocated to the State Transit Assistance Program comes from funds generated by Prop. 42, the voter-approved gasoline tax measure. But Paine said the STAP should also be entitled to what is called "spillover" money. Spillover refers to additional funds generated when the price of gas rises faster than inflation on other goods, leading to unusually high revenue from the tax.

The governor’s budget predicts $1.77 billion in spillover for the 2008–09 fiscal year, but he decided to put the money toward shrinking the deficit instead of funding public transportation. The current fiscal year was the first time since the proposition passed that the spillover did not go toward public transportation.

Radulovich said he believes the state is hesitant to fund mass transit — even though it recognizes the importance of reducing the number of cars on the road — because building more roads and freeways leads to more expansion and urban sprawl.

"Sprawl makes a lot of people a lot of money," he said, including oil companies, car companies, homebuilders, construction firms, and trucking companies. "These are political questions, not policy questions. The policy answers in many ways are very clear. The question is whether there is the political will to deal with it, and that’s what we’re going to find out."

Radulovich said this reality is why many California business groups support outward expansion and put pressure on the government to fund highways over mass transit. The Bay Area Council, for example, pushed aggressively for highway expansion during the last budget cycle.

Paine said she believes political pressure also comes from structural flaws in the state’s budget system.

"It’s the legacy of Prop. 13, which really froze the income our state received from [property] taxes," she said. "Public entities that are committed to social services, such as education, are still receiving property taxes at levels that are decades behind what they used to be." This puts a strain on the state’s general fund, and money has to be diverted from the mass transit account to relieve the burden generated by California’s low income tax levels, Paine explained.

Paine said a new budget proposal has been submitted to the California legislature that would restore hundreds of millions of dollars to the mass transit account for the 2008-09 fiscal year by generating additional revenue for the general fund. She said that since 2000, more than $3 billion of mass transit money has been redirected to the general fund, and the number will exceed $4 billion if the governor’s current proposal goes through.

"This isn’t just a problem this year — it’s a chronic problem. And public transportation is chronically being leaned on for relief," she said. "It’s just not a sustainable system."

TRANSIT FUNDING 101

Carli Paine of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition explained the finer points of California’s complicated system for funding — or not funding — improvements to the public transit system. Transit’s main account is called the State Transit Assistance Program. This money is flexible, but is mostly used for transit operations (maintenance, operations, fuel, mechanics, drivers, and so forth). Sometimes, though, it is used for capital projects (such as buying new tracks or replacement cars).

The STAP is the largest portion of the public transportation account, and the funding is critical. As Paine put it, "If you can’t even operate the system that you have, it doesn’t help much to have money to lay new tracks." The STAP is therefore often the focus of discussions about transit funding.

Prop. 42, which directs California’s gas tax to transportation projects, funds the STAP, although not all Prop. 42 money goes there. For example, 25 percent of Prop. 42 revenue goes to a special account for transit capital projects.

Prop. 1B is another big source of transit funding. It is the 2006 measure that allowed California to sell $19.9 billion worth of bonds to fund transportation programs. Only about $4 billion of that was allocated to public transportation, with the lion’s share of the money going toward new freeway projects.

This is where things get a little complicated.

California originally had a sales tax on all goods except gasoline. In the 1970s, voters passed Prop. 42, which decided that it would be more equitable to reduce the sales tax rate by a fraction of a percentage point, but expand the sales tax to include gasoline.

This was expected to be revenue-neutral for the state, so it wouldn’t cost people more. That was true unless gas prices rose quicker than the cost of all goods, which it eventually did.

Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan argued that it was important to return the extra revenue to public transportation because when gas prices rise, more people use public transit. As a result, this "spillover" has been set aside for transit expansion.

Last year was the first year in which the spillover was diverted to the general fund instead of being given to the STAP. It was redirected to help close the state deficit, and the 2008–09 budget proposes doing the same thing this fiscal year. (Janna Brancolini)

Newsom slaps down the Paul Reveres

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By John Bardis

Mayor Newsom has proposed some disturbing legislation. He wants whistleblower citizens to pay a $500 filing fee to exercise the right to request the Planning Commission to hold a public hearing on proposed construction projects that might violate the Planning Code.

What a shameful example of misguided legislation in San Francisco. It’s akin to the Mayor of Boston in 1775 requiring Paul Revere to pay a fee before he could ride to sound the alarm that “The British are coming!”

Instead of encouraging citizen participation in our democracy, the mayor is promoting a plutocracy. While residents in wealthier neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and Sea Cliff will be able to afford this proposed fee increase, its imposition discriminates against citizens living in the less affluent neighborhoods.

A Request for Discretionary Review is a cornerstone of the planning process. Residents can exercise their right to request a public hearing on a proposed construction project that might violate the city’s Planning Code or Master Plan.

Years ago, there was no fee for filing a Request for Discretionary Review. In those days, civic leaders welcomed volunteers who gave freely of their time to provide an invaluable service for our city by monitoring proposed construction projects to ensure they complied with the law — and blowing the whistle on developers violating the law.

Back then, all costs associated with processing a Request for Discretionary Review were logically and rightfully included as part of the fee charged for the filing of building-permit applications. City officials recognized that, since the submission of a questionable building permit application triggered the Request for Discretionary Review, it was only reasonable that the burden of all costs associated with the processing the request should fall on the developer.

This is not the case today. The city began requiring citizens to pay a fee for filing a Request for Discretionary Review, which presently is a ridiculous $300. And now Mayor Newsom has proposed to add insult to injury by increasing this fee by 67.5% to an absurd $500.

The mayor’s proposal penalizes less affluent citizens and neighborhoods by restricting their right to protest questionable developments by raising the financial hurdle for citizen participation. It discourages all citizens from participating actively in the city’s planning process by sending a punishing financial signal that their participation is not wanted.

On June 19, 2008 the Planning Department and Planning Commission ignored public protests over this fee increase and voted to recommend that the Board of Supervisors approve it.

At its meeting on Tuesday, July 15th, the Board of Supervisors will take up the mayor’s misguided proposal. The mayor and our city officials should encourage rather than discourage and penalize San Franciscans – our citizen volunteer “Paul Reveres” who sound the alarm about possible code violations that make possible the lawful implementation of San Francisco’s Planning Code.

The Board of Supervisors should reject the 67.5% fee increase – if not the entire fee altogether! The Board should amend the legislation to recover any such costs associated with the filing of a Request for Discretionary Review by making an appropriate increase the fees charged for building permit applications.

John Bardis is a former San Francisco Supervisor and former President of the Coalition San Francisco Neighborhoods..

High speed rail moves forward

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smallrail.jpg

The California High Speed Rail Authority, during a meeting this morning in San Francisco, voted unanimously to set the Bay Area route through the Pacheco Pass and up the peninsula into the Transbay Terminal and to approve the related environmental documents. The action ends a three-year controversy over whether to bring the proposed high-speed rail line over Pacheco Pass, a cheaper and easier option favored by most Bay Area politicians and government agencies, or over the Altamont Pass, an option favored by groups such as the Planning and Conservation League and California Rail Foundation, which are threatening a lawsuit over today’s decision. The CHSRA board also voted unanimously today to pursue creation of a separate, regional rail line over Altamont that would connect into the high speed rail system.
Meanwhile, there are battles in Sacramento over Assembly Bill 3034, which would update the language and financial oversight provisions of Proposition 1, the $10 billion high speed rail bond measure on the November ballot, replacing current language that was written six years ago when the measure was first approved for the ballot before it was repeatedly pushed back by the Legislature. That bill, which needs a two-thirds vote of both legislative houses, is being heard tomorrow by the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Once built, the high speed trains would travel at up to 220 mph and make the trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles Union Station in about two and a half hours, mostly likely running entirely on renewable energy sources without the huge greenhouse gas output from either driving or flying. For a lengthy discussion of the project, its complicated politics, today’s vote, and the dramas surrounding AB 3034 and Senator Leland Yee, read next week’s Guardian.

The gruesome twosome

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HORROR SEQUEL If you know Monsturd, you love Monsturd. If you don’t know the 2003 horror comedy by San Francisco filmmakers Rick Popko and Dan West, imagine a tiny town menaced by a mad scientist-created shit monster, with clueless cops, a no-nonsense FBI agent, and a climax that unfolds around a chili cook-off.

Doesn’t appeal? Don’t read on. But fans of homespun exploito-stravaganzas will want to know that Popko and West have finally finished Monsturd‘s sequel (the making of which I chronicled in "Blood Brothers," [05/30/06]). It’s called Retardead, and it returns to that same tiny town soon after the events of Monsturd. This time, the stakes are both higher (zombies!) and lower (zombies spawned from special education students!), and there’s way more of everything: gore, off-color jokes, cursing, and totally random moments, like an LSD freak-out scene, an exploding helicopter, second-unit footage contributed by horror fans across the country, a saucy appearance by dance theatre troupe the Living Dead Girlz, and a cameo by Jello Biafra.

Popko and West, who reprise their Monsturd roles as goofy deputies, realize they’ve created something rather crazy — and with all the technical problems they encountered in Retardead‘s post-production (from editing on outdated software to the disasters they overcame while working on the film’s first batch of DVDs), are now a little crazy themselves.

"The movie’s cursed — I think it’s karma because of the title," Popko theorized. "The karma gods are like, we’re gonna let you have this movie, but it’s gonna cost you in terms of pain and suffering all the way through till the very end. Monsturd took us two years, and we thought that was forever. And here we are five years after starting Retardead, and we’re finally seeing the end of the tunnel."

Though the movie is completed, "we’re still kind of shell-shocked," West said. "We still have the premiere to go through, and we don’t trust this thing. If it can fuck with us, it will fuck with us. It’s like the Frankenstein monster that has its own life, and we’re its bitch."

For better or worse, the monster is at last ready to terrorize audiences. West is excited: "The movie’s good. I love the movie. It’s weird, it’s 10 times better than Monsturd — cinematically, it’s much better. The special effects are just insane. We love the weird factor of this one. We were able to get our sense of humor and get a lot of non sequiturs in there. We love that stuff."

"I love how different it is," Popko agreed. "Dan and I are big fans of the horror genre, and the comedy genre, and there are a million friggin’ zombie movies out there. We didn’t want to fall into that trap of just being another zombie flick. So the thing I’m most proud of with Retardead is that this is gonna be a different experience. Yes, it is a zombie movie, but it’s like no other zombie movie that has ever been made before."

After the premiere — at which they’ll pass out barf bags in homage to their idol, Herchell Gordon Lewis, who did the same for 1963’s Blood Feast — the duo hopes to self-distribute their film over the Internet. They are also already planning a third collaboration, "a movie about making a sequel," West revealed, which will likely include pirates, Satanists, space vampires, "a werewolf thing," and more Biafra.

In the meantime, the pair hopes to greet a raucous crowd this weekend at the Victoria Theatre. "Ideally we’d like to see audiences going wild and crazy at a few of these key scenes that we’ve got in there that will hopefully surprise and shock people," Popko said.

"Specifically, that vomit scene," West chimed in, and the codirectors chuckled with delighted pride.

RETARDEAD

Fri/11–Sat/12, 7 and 9:30 p.m.; Sun/13, 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., $10

Victoria Theatre

2961 16th St., SF

(415) 863-7576

www.victoriatheatre.org, www.4321films.com

How Quickly they forget

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› sarah@sfbg.com

When former Sup. Ed Jew resigned in January 2008, he did so amid allegations that he wasn’t living in the Sunset District when he ran in the 2006 District 4 race, and that he had tried to extort thousands of dollars from the owners of Quickly, a bubble drink chain that has 13 franchises in San Francisco and thousands of stores worldwide.

Although Jew is headed to federal court Nov. 10 on charges of bribery, mail fraud, and extortion — including trying to extort $80,000 from Quickly’s owners for help obtaining city permits — Quickly still hasn’t secured those trouble-triggering permits.

The Small Business Protection Act, which San Francisco voters passed in November 2006, requires chain stores with more than 11 franchises to apply for conditional use permits before opening new outlets, to allow small businesses the opportunity to voice concerns they may have about chain store competition.

"But Quickly thinks they can flout the law," Sup. Jake McGoldrick claimed June 17, when he called for a Land Use Committee hearing into why a Quickly store at 331 Clement Street has been operating without a conditional use permit for a year.

City Planner Scott Sanchez told the Guardian that Quickly owners appealed a notice of violation that the Planning Department issued last summer. Sanchez said the 331 Clement store’s argument was that it was not a Quickly, "even though the store had the Quickly name, its colors, its beverages, and was listed on its Web site." He noted that Quickly eventually withdrew its appeal and opted in March to file a conditional use application instead.

Sanchez also explained that, thanks to a grandfather provision in the Small Business Act, only four of the San Francisco stores listed on Quickly’s Web site require such permits because the other nine opened before the act passed.

With hearings on those four stores scheduled in August, city zoning administrator Lawrence Badiner recalls that it was Jew, not the Planning Department, that first asked about the Quickly stores shortly after he was elected in November 2006.

"I said, ‘It sounds as if they are in violation,’<0x2009>" Badiner recalled. "I’d never heard of Quickly. But when we looked into it, I said, ‘Jesus, yes, it does seem to be a violation of the planning code.’<0x2009>"

"Jew then did with that what he did," Badiner added. "We had no clue that he was in contact with them and proposing to help them. But when a supervisor asks about something, we keep them informed. But we had no clue, until it hit the papers, that he was doing anything with money."

Badiner says it will cost Quickly $1,000 to $2,000 per store to come into compliance. After the Jew allegations hit, Badiner said his department continued to hold discussions with Quickly’s business owners.

"I don’t think we talked about Sup. Jew," Badiner said. "We were trying to be scrupulously fair. Some said we acted too slowly; some say we persecuted them. But we just tried to go through the process."

Jew’s lawyer, Stuart Hanlon, accuses the Quickly stores "of having always been in violation."

"And they are still doing it," Hanlon told the Guardian. "They have one in [board president Aaron] Peskin’s district that Peskin has done zero about. I don’t know how they do it, but they seem to get by without getting the permits."

"What Ed did or didn’t do is a subject of a court case. But why is Quickly allowed to be here in violation of statutes? How are they doing it?" Hanlon asked. "They are clearly a chain store that gets supplied by and delivered to by a main store, and more of them have opened up since Ed had this problem."

Peskin replied to Hanlon’s comment by telling us that "Stuart Hanlon can go fuck himself. The guy shouldn’t be using my name as he does, and if he and his client had any idea how law worked, Ed would not be in a deep pile of trouble. The Planning Department is fully aware of all the violations of Quicklys throughout San Francisco, including my district. The fact that the Planning Department is not doing their job with speed and alacrity has nothing to do with us lawmakers."

When we called the Quickly franchise, a woman gave us a nonworking fax number for the 331 Clement store. When we asked to speak to the relevant Quickly owners, she told us, "Stores are individually owned, so we are not sure about that."

Fighting for the right to party

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› steve@sfbg.com

It’s become increasingly difficult and expensive to stage street fairs, concerts, or other parties in San Francisco, a trend chronicled by the Guardian over the past two years (see "Death of fun," 05/23/06 and "Death of fun, the sequel," 04/25/07). But event and nightlife promoters have responded with a proposed ballot measure that would write the right to party into the city’s charter.

The "Promoting and Sustaining Music and Culture in San Francisco" charter amendment would acknowledge the importance of special events to the city’s character, streamline the process for obtaining city permits, and require the nine-plus city departments that promoters must deal with to submit reports outlining how their policies and fee structures will need to be altered to comply with the new mandate for fun.

The measure was developed by the Save SF Culture Coalition, whose members include the Entertainment Commission, Black Rock City LLC (which stages Burning Man as well as events here in town), the Late Night Coalition, and the Outdoor Events Coalition (a group formed last year to counter city policies and neighbor complaints that threatened to scuttle the North Beach Jazz Festival, How Weird Street Faire, concerts in Golden Gate Park, and other events). The measure is sponsored by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and has picked up four other supervisors as cosponsors, so it needs just one more vote for the Board of Supervisors to place it on the November ballot.

"It was long overdue that the city produce a master plan and vision that promotes a sustainable environment for music, culture, and entertainment throughout the city," Mirkarimi said.

In fact, event promoters say they’ve been hit by a quadruple whammy that threatens their livelihoods and the vibrant nature of the city: rising fees charged by city departments looking to close budget gaps, increased concern over alcohol consumption and other liability issues, more conflicts over noise in increasingly dense neighborhoods such as SoMa, and the ability of a handful of complaining neighbors to create event-killing permit conditions. And those last two problems are only likely to get worse as the city grows.

"We want the city to create a sustainability policy that will save our outdoor events in the face of all the development that is going on," said John Wood, a member of the Late Night Coalition and a promoter who also serves on the San Francisco Love Fest board of directors. "We need to be able to say, ‘This is city policy and you’re not following it.’"

Promoter and club owner Terrance Alan was an original member of the Entertainment Commission, which was formed in 2003 in part to resolve complaints over noise and manage relations between nightclubs and their neighbors. But he said the agency has little staff and no leverage over other city departments involved in permitting, which includes the Planning, Building, Port, Police, Fire, Health, and Recreation and Park commissions and departments, as well as the Municipal Transportation Authority and Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT), the body that approves street-closure permits.

"We have been completely unsuccessful at getting their attention," Alan said. But this new measure, he said, would "set the stage for ongoing discussions that need to be happening."

Or as Wood put it, "It would give us ammunition in the future battles we’re going to have. It’s not going to make those battles go away."

Recreation and Park Department spokesperson Rose Dennis said her agency must deal with many competing concerns, ranging from budgetary issues to being responsive to complaints raised by citizens. "We understand that it might feel heavy-handed, but we have a duty to do so because we have to balance a number of concerns," Dennis said. "[Event promoters] have a bottom line, and we have a bottom line. We have a lot of people to serve."

Yet she said the department will comply with the measure and adjust its policies, fees, and procedures as needed if the measure is approved by voters.

At a June 27 Board of Supervisors Rules Committee hearing, there was lots of support for the measure and no real opposition. "We’re concerned about the future of arts and culture in San Francisco," Steven Raspa, who does special events for Black Rock City, said at the hearing.

All three committee members voiced support for the measure, but because it needed some minor changes, a final vote was pushed back to July 9. Proponents characterize the measure as trying to bring some balance to a situation in which the loudest wheels — those of NIMBYs complaining about noise or party detritus — keep getting greased.

"The bureaucracy is hearing from these neighborhood groups all the time," Wood said. "We feel that we are the majority and we need to demonstrate that politically."

Amanda Witherell contributed to this report.

To read the measure or learn more, visit www.savesfculture.com

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