Police

The mayor’s horrible deal

David Talbot
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0
The mayor’s horrible deal

EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom put the supervisors in a terrible position — and showed the worst kind of political arrogance — when he held $43 million worth of critical services hostage to his desire to continue packing commissions with political hacks. The deal he presented to the board was shameful, and the supervisors should have rejected it. And now they should pass legislation to make this sort of logrolling illegal.

The mayor’s original budget plan included sharp cuts to a wide range of services. The supervisors’ Budget Committee found a way to add back more than $40 million in funding for things like psychiatric beds at SF General Hospital, violence-prevention programs, and public financing for the next mayor’s race.

But under the City Charter, the mayor can simply refuse to spend that money — and that’s what Newsom said he would do. That is, unless the board would agree to reject two proposed charter amendments to reform the Municipal Transportation Agency and the Recreation and Park Commission.

Let’s remember: the MTA and Rec-Park measures have nothing to do with the budget. The board wanted to overhaul those departments (and give the board some appointments) because they’re a mess; the Rec-Park Commission, appointed entirely by the mayor, is a rubber-stamp agency that votes with nearly 100 percent unanimity on every issue. The MTA has served as a slush fund for the police department at a time when bus lines are cut and fares keep going up.

Newsom told board members that he could, indeed, restore the funding they wanted; the money was there. But he wouldn’t. In other words, he would allow desperately ill people to be turned away from SF General for lack of a bed — if the board didn’t stand down on its reforms. And by a 6-5 margin, with Board President David Chiu providing the critical vote for the mayor’s agenda, the board went along with the deal.

Even worse: Chiu and his colleagues gave up their charter amendments. But the mayor didn’t give up his: a Newsom measure that would prevent elected officials (like Chiu) from serving on the Democratic County Central Committee is still on the ballot.

Five of the progressives on the board hung tough, and Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Chris Daly, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi deserve credit for refusing to accept a bad, embarrassing deal.

But in the end, the board got rolled. The mayor played tough and a majority of the supervisors folded. If a supervisor proposes trading one piece of legislation for another, it would violate state law. That doesn’t apply to the mayor — but it should. The board should immediately pass legislation outlawing vote trading for all local elected officials, including the chief executive. Let’s see if Newsom wants to veto that.

The mayor’s horrible deal

David Talbot
-
0

The Supervisors should pass legislation outlawing vote trading for all local elected officials, including Newsom

EDITORIAL Mayor Gavin Newsom put the supervisors in a terrible position — and showed the worst kind of political arrogance — when he held $43 million worth of critical services hostage to his desire to continue packing commissions with political hacks. The deal he presented to the board was shameful, and the supervisors should have rejected it. And now they should pass legislation to make this sort of logrolling illegal.

The mayor’s original budget plan included sharp cuts to a wide range of services. The supervisors’ Budget Committee found a way to add back more than $40 million in funding for things like psychiatric beds at SF General Hospital, violence-prevention programs, and public financing for the next mayor’s race.

But under the City Charter, the mayor can simply refuse to spend that money — and that’s what Newsom said he would do. That is, unless the board would agree to reject two proposed charter amendments to reform the Municipal Transportation Agency and the Recreation and Park Commission.

Let’s remember: the MTA and Rec-Park measures have nothing to do with the budget. The board wanted to overhaul those departments (and give the board some appointments) because they’re a mess; the Rec-Park Commission, appointed entirely by the mayor, is a rubber-stamp agency that votes with nearly 100 percent unanimity on every issue. The MTA has served as a slush fund for the police department at a time when bus lines are cut and fares keep going up.

Newsom told board members that he could, indeed, restore the funding they wanted; the money was there. But he wouldn’t. In other words, he would allow desperately ill people to be turned away from SF General for lack of a bed — if the board didn’t stand down on its reforms. And by a 6-5 margin, with Board President David Chiu providing the critical vote for the mayor’s agenda, the board went along with the deal.

Even worse: Chiu and his colleagues gave up their charter amendments. But the mayor didn’t give up his: a Newsom measure that would prevent elected officials (like Chiu) from serving on the Democratic County Central Committee is still on the ballot.

Five of the progressives on the board hung tough, and Sups. John Avalos, David Campos, Chris Daly, Eric Mar, and Ross Mirkarimi deserve credit for refusing to accept a bad, embarrassing deal.

But in the end, the board got rolled. The mayor played tough and a majority of the supervisors folded. If a supervisor proposes trading one piece of legislation for another, it would violate state law. That doesn’t apply to the mayor — but it should. The board should immediately pass legislation outlawing vote trading for all local elected officials, including the chief executive. Let’s see if Newsom wants to veto that.

Arrests made as hotel workers and their supporters target Hyatt

Sasha Cuttler
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5

Images by Ramsey El-Qare, who contributed to this report.

An ongoing labor conflict between the hospitality workers union Unite-Here Local 2 and the Hyatt Corporation boiled over into the streets yesterday (7/22) with a union-organized protest and civil disobedience outside the Grand Hyatt San Francisco hotel. Union leaders see the action as another step in the fight for their members’ workplace rights. Hotel management called the action a staged spectacle and a waste of energy that would be better spent at the bargaining table.
San Francisco hospitality workers have been without a contract for nearly a year as Local 2 and hotel management of several corporations have reached an impasse over securing health care benefits, pension improvement, wage increases, and the right to organize without intimidation from employers. San Francisco Police Department Sgt. Tadao Yamaguchi confirmed that 150 demonstrators were arrested after blocking Stockton Street outside the Grand Hyatt San Francisco hotel. All were cited and released.

“The Hyatt Corporation has repeatedly said they want workers to pay hundreds of dollars per month for family medical,” Local 2 spokeswoman Riddhi Mehta told the Guardian. “Workers have sacrificed wages for decades to keep health care, to the point that their average income is $30,000 to $35,000 per year.”

Hyatt spokesman Peter Hillman told the Guardian that management wants to renegotiate the health care portion of the contract, but that negotiations hadn’t reached the point to make specific demands for worker contributions to the plan.

“They are sitting on top of $35 million that could be used to help address the overall health care plan that hasn’t been addressed in 30 years,” Hillman told us. “If there is finger pointing on profits and all that, I would ask them why they haven’t opened up that?”

Mehta told the Guardian that $35 million is in an health and welfare trust fund specifically for emergencies, like earthquakes or lockouts in which union members aren’t working enough hours to get health benefits. Local 2 President Mike Casey told the Guardian that the union does not control the trust fund. It’s managed by trustees from both employers and the union. “Bringing this up is it’s a delay tactic on their part,” Mehta said.

Casey, who was arrested during the demonstration, said it was a success. “We’re going to win,” he said. “It’s going to take some time. It’s a question of who’s going to last one day longer than the other side.”

“The game Unite Here is playing is to generate more union membership, to some extent at the expense of the current membership,” Hillman said. “These are staged spectacles. The energy would be better spent at the bargaining table and we encourage Local 2 to come back to that.”

To watch video of the action taken by the Guardian, click here, here, here, here, and here.


Unions say grand juror unethically helped Adachi measure

Sasha Cuttler
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57
Unions say grand juror unethically helped Adachi measure

San Francisco’s police and fire unions are taking a lead role in opposing Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s November initiative to make city employees pay more of their pension and health care costs, despite the fact that both unions have recently renegotiated their contracts to exempt their members from paying those increased costs until 2013.

The unions and Bob Muscat from the San Francisco Labor Council recently formed the group Stand Up for Working Families to run the opposition campaign to Adachi’s SF Smart Reform, yesterday holding a press conference at City Hall to highlight the allegedly unethical role that a grand juror has played in pushing the Adachi measure.

Civil Grand Jury member Craig Weber led the committee that in June released a report on the city’s pension system called “Pension Tsunami: The Billion Dollar Bubble,” warning that employee pension costs to the city would more than double in the next five years and “fundamental adjustments must be made to the City’s employee pension program.”

Yet by the time that report came out (following a similar grand jury report from a year earlier), Weber was already working as treasurer for the Adachi’s signature-gathering campaign, which City Attorney Dennis Herrera called an inappropriate conflict of interest and which Muscat says that raises questions about data manipulation and access to secret grand jury proceedings.

“I have serious concerns in this particular instance that Mr. Weber’s dual roles create a conflict of interest, or at least the appearance of conflict of interest, which would undermine the integrity of any Civil Grand Jury investigation into these issues,” Herrera wrote in a June 14 letter to Presiding Judge James McBride, relating how Weber had sought advice from Herrera’s office on the matter in March and that both Weber and the Grand Jury chair refused to heed his advice that Weber recuse himself from working on the report.

“We believe he used his position on the Civil Grand Jury to manipulate the civil grand jury report,” attorney Peter Saltzman, who represents opponents of the measure, said at the press conference.

But Adachi called the charges “just smoke and mirrors,” telling the Guardian that his initiative was based on data from the Controller’s Office and that the measure was written and publicly available before the latest grand jury report was released. “We received zero information from the grand jury,” Adachi told us. “We relied on public information that we received from the Controller’s Office.”

He has claimed the measure will save the city about $167 million per year by making city employees pay more into their pensions and health care costs for their dependents, although that figure will be lower for the next two years because of exemptions that were written into five police and fire memorandums of understanding that the Board of Supervisors approved last week, agreements negotiated by the Mayor’s Office and opposed by Sups. David Campos and Chris Daly (Sup. Ross Mirkarimi also voted against the MOU for Fire Department executives) because of the exemption.

Police union head Gary Delagnes, who was at the press conference, told the Guardian that the special consideration for those two unions – both of which are key supporters of Mayor Gavin Newsom — was simply a function of negotiating their MOUs later than the other unions. “By the time we and the firefighters were in there, this thing [Adachi’s campaign] had really picked up steam,” he told us.

During the press conference, Muscat highlighted how billionaire Michael Moritz, managing partner of Sequoia Capital, put almost a quarter-million-dollars into qualifying the Adachi measure for the ballot and said, “This is a measure not in the interests of anyone in San Francisco and it represents the interests of people outside of San Francisco” who are attacking public employee unions for political reasons.

Thousands of bees murdered at Hayes Valley Farm

Mary Magee
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9
Thousands of bees murdered at Hayes Valley Farm

Very sad news about a massive honey bee crime at Hayes Valley Farm: apparently, sometime between the late afternoons of July 19 and July 20, someone sprayed pesticide into two San Francisco Bee-Cause (SFBC) honey bee colonies at Hayes Valley Farm (HVF) and tried to do the same to a third, smaller colony, according to Karen Peteros, SFBC’s bee keeper.

Peteros reports that thousands of bees died immediately or rushed for air in the first two hives, blocking the entrance and making escape impossible. And that he third colony, maintained by Chris Burley, lost 60-70 percent of its members.

 “The distinct scent of household pesticide could be smelled around the entrance and ventilation holes of the SFBC hives, and around the piles of dead bees,” Peteros writes. “ A sample of the residue from around the ventilation holes and a sampling of the dead bees have been preserved for analysis.  A police report has been filed.”

She also reports that each of the two exterminated colonies was healthy and thriving and likely consisted of 60,000-100,000 individuals, and was set to produce 20-30 medium frames of honey which HVF planned to sell to support the work of SFBC.

It’s hard to imagine what was going through the perpetrator(s)’ heads. But whatever their motive, it seems there is a need for more education about bees in general and the vital role they play in pollination in particular—a role that helps produce one third of the world’s food supply.

Unlike wasps, which prey on spiders and ladybugs and other insects and have the ability to sting multiple times, bees are entirely vegetarian, a switch their ancestors made back in the great angiosperm explosion some 80 million years ago that produced our modern-day flowers. That switch means bees live on and raise their brood entirely from pollen (also known as bee bread) and nectar, and are unlikely to sting you, unless you approach their hives. (Could be the folks responsible for this massacre got stung quite a few times in the process of spraying all these bees, so that could be a helpful clue in tracking them down.)

But most people consistently confuse wasps, which are hairless and can sting multiple times, with bees, which are fuzzy and can only sting once, and then die, unless they happen to be the queen bee, which can sting many times.
A recent example of the general ignorance about bees were July 2 news reports that folks had been stung by “bees” at the Alameda County Fair’s fireworks show. It turned out that the insects were in fact yellow jackets, which are a type of wasp. But national news outlets repeatedly reported that bees were to blame.

Thousands of dead bees litter ground at HVF

Thousands of dead bees litter the ground at Hayes Valley Farm

 

Thousands of bees murdered at Hayes Valley Farm

Mary Magee
-
0
Thousands of bees murdered at Hayes Valley Farm

Very sad news about a massive honey bee crime at Hayes Valley Farm: apparently, sometime between the late afternoons of July 19 and July 20, someone sprayed pesticide into two San Francisco Bee-Cause (SFBC) honey bee colonies at Hayes Valley Farm (HVF) and tried to do the same to a third, smaller colony, according to Karen Peteros, SFBC’s bee keeper.

Peteros reports that thousands of bees died immediately or rushed for air in the first two hives, blocking the entrance and making escape impossible. And that he third colony, maintained by Chris Burley, lost 60-70 percent of its members.

 “The distinct scent of household pesticide could be smelled around the entrance and ventilation holes of the SFBC hives, and around the piles of dead bees,” Peteros writes. “ A sample of the residue from around the ventilation holes and a sampling of the dead bees have been preserved for analysis.  A police report has been filed.”

She also reports that each of the two exterminated colonies was healthy and thriving and likely consisted of 60,000-100,000 individuals, and was set to produce 20-30 medium frames of honey which HVF planned to sell to support the work of SFBC.

It’s hard to imagine what was going through the perpetrator(s)’ heads. But whatever their motive, it seems there is a need for more education about bees in general and the vital role they play in pollination in particular—a role that helps produce one third of the world’s food supply.

Unlike wasps, which prey on spiders and ladybugs and other insects and have the ability to sting multiple times, bees are entirely vegetarian, a switch their ancestors made back in the great angiosperm explosion some 80 million years ago that produced our modern-day flowers. That switch means bees live on and raise their brood entirely from pollen (also known as bee bread) and nectar, and are unlikely to sting you, unless you approach their hives. (Could be the folks responsible for this massacre got stung quite a few times in the process of spraying all these bees, so that could be a helpful clue in tracking them down.)

But most people consistently confuse wasps, which are hairless and can sting multiple times, with bees, which are fuzzy and can only sting once, and then die, unless they happen to be the queen bee, which can sting many times.
A recent example of the general ignorance about bees were July 2 news reports that folks had been stung by “bees” at the Alameda County Fair’s fireworks show. It turned out that the insects were in fact yellow jackets, which are a type of wasp. But national news outlets repeatedly reported that bees were to blame.

 

McGoldrick to challenge Fang for BART Board?

Zelda Bronstein
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14
McGoldrick to challenge Fang for BART Board?

The calls are already going out: former Supervisor Jake McGoldrick ought to challenge James Fang for BART Board. Bruce Balshone reported enthusiastically on the draft Jake effort in the Examiner, and when I called McGoldrick tonight, he seemed open to the idea. After all, Fang has been on the board 20 years, is the lone Republican elected official from San Francisco — and frankly, hasn’t done much of anything important in terms of improving transit (or controlling the BART police).


I called McGoldrick tonight to ask about it, and he told me he’s open to the idea. “I’m just juggling and weighing parts of my life,” he said. “I’m a teacher, the president of a union, the president of the Richmond District Democratic Club and a grandfather.” But he added: “The one thing that’s absolutely true is that James Fang need to be replaced. It doens’t have to be me, but I’m giving it serious consideration.”


Of course, he said (in typical McGoldrick fashion) that his family has to sign off: “I finally got home after eight years at City Hall and made some soup instead of being a supe,” he said. “I asked my wife about it, and she thought I was talking about Bart Simpson or something.”


Stay tuned.

Growing pains

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Growing pains

steve@sfbg.com

The medical marijuana movement was born and raised in the Bay Area, and now the city of Oakland is poised to take the next big step forward by being the first city to explicitly allow and permit several massive cannabis cultivation facilities on industrial land, making millions of dollars in taxes in the process.

It’s the latest move in a growing trend toward Bay Area cities figuring out how to regulate and tax a booming industry that could really explode if California voters approve Proposition 19 in November, which would legalize even recreational uses of marijuana and give local jurisdictions more authority to control it.

Pot growing has long been the murkiest realm within an increasingly legitimate and professional medical marijuana industry (see “Marijuana goes mainstream,” 1/27/10). While Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco all have well-defined and regulated systems governing the 30 licensed cannabis dispensaries in those three cities, most of their growers are underground operations with no official oversight.

Public officials on both sides of the bay — who almost universally voice their support for the medical marijuana industry — say there can be problems associated with unregulated grows. Jerry-rigged wiring can pose a fire danger, and valuable crops can be targeted by criminals. Growers can be raided by police even when they have valid paperwork. And cash-strapped city governments aren’t able to tax or regulate an industry that has kept on booming throughout the Great Recession.

“There is no system to regulate production,” Oakland City Council member Rebecca Kaplan, who has authored cultivation regulations, along with co-sponsor Council member Larry Reid. Although the city may lack resources to enforce new requirements on growers, Kaplan believes growers will sign up voluntarily: “Every time we’ve created a permitting system, people have sought to use it. They want to be above board.”

The measure would permit growing facilities of more than 100,000 square feet, charging them each a $5,000 permit fee and $211,000 “regulatory fee,” as well as a gross receipts tax to be determined. The Oakland City Council approved the measure July 20 after Kaplan agreed to have staff also create a permit system for smaller growers, with both regulatory systems slated to take effect Jan. 1, 2011.  Kaplan has also proposed a November ballot measure to increase the current gross receipts tax on cannabis-related businesses from 1.8 percent now to up to as high as 11.2 percent, which the council is set to consider July 22.

Kaplan’s cultivation proposal initially generated a backlash from some small growers and Harborside Health Center, Oakland’s largest dispensary, because of its focus on creating mega-facilities that could monopolize the market and hurt the small growers who have been at the heart of the medical marijuana movement.

“All we’re asking for is a level playing field and a fair opportunity to compete with these factories,” attorney James Anthony, who represents Harborside and its network of growers, told the Guardian. “As medical cannabis comes into the light, it’s still capitalism out here in the world.”

Oakland developer and business person Jeff Wilcox, who is new to the marijuana industry, has been aggressively pushing to create a massive cannabis growing and manufacturing facility on his 7.4-acre warehouse complex near the Oakland Coliseum, covering 172,000 square feet over four buildings.

On May 21, Wilcox and his company, AgraMed, released a report showing how the facility could produce about 21,100 pounds of high-grade marijuana per year, generating about $60 million in gross sales and more than $2 million a year in taxes for Oakland, assuming a 3 percent tax rate (or about $3.5 million if the rate is set at 5 percent). The report was based partly on information gathered from independent local growers.

“By closing the loop and regulating the entire industry, we can ensure the healthy production and use of cannabis, and ensure its legitimate standing in our society. We’re working with public health and public safety agencies to make sure we do this right,” Wilcox, who did not return Guardian calls for comment, said in his press release.

Anthony said he was wary of Oakland politicians handing so much market power to one person: “It’s not for the government to pick the winners and losers through a regulatory scheme.” But he does agree that growers are overdue for regulation. “It’s time for cultivation to come into the light.”

State law requires growers to be part of the collective that uses or distributes the product, and the facility proposed by Wilcox would contract with many collectives, a model that hasn’t been tested in the courts yet. In fact, Council member Nancy Nadel has expressed concern that what she called “a structurally flawed proposal” could be on shaky legal ground (City Attorney John Russo, who has endorsed Prop. 19, did not return our calls with questions about the Oakland measure’s legality. His office also has not issued an opinion because it conflicts with federal law).

“Though state law allows for the operation of medical marijuana cooperatives by primary caregivers and patients, it does not legitimize large-scale growing operations. Just in the past few months, the DEA has raided two medical cannabis testing labs in Colorado. We need to retain a level of good sense and discretion,” Nadel wrote in a July 13 memo to her council colleagues, urging them to hold off on approving the measure until after voters decide Prop. 19 in November.

Yet Kaplan told us that even though the council moved the legislation forward, staff would continue to work through its myriad regulatory details and no permits will be issued until January. She also agreed that “it’s really important for Prop. 19 to pass,” giving Oakland more explicit authority to regulate the industry.

Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee, who bankrolled the campaign to place Prop. 19 on the ballot, supports Kaplan’s regulations (although he told us he would like to see a greater focus on small cultivators) and called regulation of growers “a historic next step” that further legitimizes the industry.

“I think this will help Prop. 19 pass and help Oakland be ready when it does,” Lee said, voicing support for Wilcox and other business people who seek to join this movement. “We need everyone we can get on our side.”

Most polls show that Californians are split fairly evenly on Prop. 19. Even so, several California cities are already making preparations to use the new taxation and regulation authority that the measure would bestow.

Lee said Sacramento, Oakland, Stockton, Long Beach, San Jose, and Berkeley all have been working on cannabis regulatory schemes for voters to approve. For example, on July 13, the Berkeley City Council placed a measure on the November ballot proposing a gross receipts tax of 2.5 percent on medical marijuana and a 10 percent tax on recreational pot, as well as a system for permitting up to 10 medical marijuana growing operations.

“State law is really a mess at the moment and there are a number of things happening now that violate state law,” Lee told us. “That’s why Prop. 19 is going to be a cleanup law to deal with a lot of the stuff that’s going on now.”

Kaplan, who has been working on her ordinance for almost a year and got help from students in UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, agreed that the current legal requirements for growing medical marijuana are unclear: “There isn’t a right way [to permit cultivation facilities] under state law. The law isn’t clear.”

Attorney David Owen, who has researched medical marijuana laws for the new SPARC dispensary in San Francisco and for local growers, echoed the point. “The short answer is that we know so little about the boundaries of state law.”

Prop. 215, the 1996 measure that legalized medical marijuana, was broadly written and then codified largely by Senate Bill 420, portions of which were later struck down by the courts. But enforcement of marijuana laws has primarily been done by the federal government, which backed off after President Barack Obama took office, leaving state and local officials to regulate a fast-growing industry using standards that the courts have yet to clarify.

“We don’t have appellate court decisions to interpret a lot of key terms in state law,” Owen said. “We don’t really know what state law says.”

For example, Owen said the widely used term “dispensary” doesn’t even appear in state law. Local jurisdictions often define how much pot a patient can grow. For example, Oakland allows groups of three patients to grow up to 72 plants in 96 square feet. But most of those standards haven’t been held up by the courts. And even though state law says growers must be part of the same collective as their patients, Owen said, “In theory, you could have a collective with 37 million members.”

Although Owen said a large scale doesn’t necessarily make a marijuana operation illegal, he said permitting a 170,000 square foot facility is bound to draw attention from the feds: “I guarantee the DEA will be at their doorstep the day they open.”

Council member Nadel said Oakland could be liable then as well, noting that it would be permitting a facility that would meet about 60 percent of the entire Bay Area’s demand for 35,000 pounds of pot per year. “Thus, to prevent diversion to illegal markets and collective members outside of the cultivation collective (which would violate state law), the city must act responsibly and set a limit on the total size of cultivation allowed in Oakland. While the memo from the Council members discusses the alternative method [permitting a smaller capacity], it does not recognize the problems with projecting sales to dispensaries outside the Bay Area,” Nadel wrote.

Kaplan said the ordinance is a starting point that can be further refined by staff. But she emphasized the need to regulate the industry, warning of risks to Oakland residents. Her measure’s staff report attributes at least seven house fires, eight robberies, seven burglaries, and two homicides to unregulated growing operations in 2008 and 2009. Kaplan also said she worries about the possibility of “another Oakland Hills fire.”

Yet Kaplan, who is running for mayor, also told us the taxes are important in a city that was recently forced to fire 80 police officers. “Given Oakland’s budget crisis,” she said, “the revenue for the city is no small thing.”

Deal time

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Deal time

sarah@sfbg.com

Lennar Corp.’s massive redevelopment plan for Candlestick Point-Hunters Point cleared a critical hurdle July 14 when the Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 to affirm the Planning Commission’s certification of the project’s final environmental impact report, with Sups. John Avalos, Chris Daly, and Eric Mar opposed

Board President David Chiu called the vote "a milestone." Termed-out Sup. Sophie Maxwell, whose District 10 includes Candlestick Point and the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, saw the vote as evidence that city leaders support the ambitious plan. Yet many political observers saw the vote as proof that Lennar and its Labor Council allies have succeeded in lobbying supervisors not to support opponents of the project.

"I’m concentrating on pushing this over the finish line," Maxwell said at the hearing in the wake of the vote, which came in the wee hours of July 14 after a 10-hour hearing. Supervisors can still amend Lennar’s development plan during a July 27 hearing and project opponents are hoping for significant changes.

Mar said he wants to focus on guaranteeing that the city has the authority to hold Lennar responsible for its promises. "I want to make sure that we have the strongest enforcement we can," he said.

Lennar’s plan continues to face stiff opposition from the Sierra Club, the Golden Gate Audubon Society, the California Native Plant Society, San Francisco Tomorrow, POWER (People Organized To Win Employment Rights) and CARE (Californians for Renewable Energy).

Representatives for these groups, whose appeals of the EIR certification were denied by the board, say they are now weighing their options. Those include taking legal action within 30 days of the board’s second reading of and final action on the developer’s final redevelopment plan, which will be Aug. 3 at the earliest.

Supervisors are expected to introduce a slew of amendments July 27, when they consider the details of the proposal and its impacts on the economically depressed and environmentally polluted.

Michael Cohen, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s top economic advisor, admitted July 19 that all these various demands will likely delay project construction. "But 702 acres of waterfront land in San Francisco is an irreplaceable asset," Cohen reportedly told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It’s not a question of if — but when — it gets developed."

Chiu already has introduced five amendments to the plan in an effort to alleviate concerns about shipyard toxins, Lennar’s limited financial liability, a proposed bridge over Yosemite Slough, and the possibility that local residents will need more access to healthcare and training if they are to truly benefit from the development plan.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi told the Guardian that he expects the board will require liquidated damages to ensure the city has some redress if the developer fails to deliver on a historic community benefits agreement that labor groups signed when Lennar was trying to shore up community support for Proposition G, the conceptual project plan voters approved in June 2008.

Mirkarimi said the board would also seek to increase workforce development benefits. "Thirty percent of the target workforce population are ex offenders. So while they might get training, currently they won’t get jobs other than construction," Mirkarimi observed.

He supports the health care access amendment and the public power amendment Chiu introduced July 21, pointing to Mirkarimi’s previous ordinance laying the groundwork for public power in the area. "This ordinance established that where feasible, the City shall be the electricity provider for new City developments, including military bases and development projects," Mirkarimi said. "PG&E was ripped when we pushed that through."

But Sierra Club activist Arthur Feinstein isn’t sure if additional amendments will help, given intense lobbying by city officials and a developer intent on winning project approvals this summer before a new board and mayor are elected this fall.

"Chiu’s amendments gave us what we asked for over Parcel E-2" Feinstein said, referring to a severely contaminated section of the shipyard for which Chiu wants an amendment calling for a board hearing on whether it’s clean enough to be accepted by the city and developed on.

But Feinstein is less than happy with Chiu’s Yosemite Slough amendment, which would limit a proposed bridge over it to a width of 41 feet and only allow bike, pedestrian, and transit use unless the 49ers elect to build a new stadium on the shipyard. In that case, the project would include a wider bridge to accommodate game-day traffic.

"The average lane size is 14 feet, so that’s a three-lane bridge. So it’s still pretty big. And it would end up filling almost an acre of the bay," Feinstein said.

Feinstein thanked Mirkarimi and Campos for asking questions that showed that the argument for the bridge has not been made. "But it’s disappointing that a progressive Board would be willing to fill the Bay for no reason," Feinstein said.

He concurred with the testimony of Louisiana-based environmental scientist Wilma Subra and environmental and human rights activist Monique Harden, who challenged the wisdom of the Navy digging out toxins while the developer installs infrastructure at the same site.

Subra said contamination is often found at Superfund sites after they have been declared clean when contractors to later dig into capped sites and expose workers and the community to contamination. Harden said the plan to begin construction on some shipyard parcels while the Navy removes radiological-contamination from shipyard sewers is "like a person jumping up and down on a bed that another person is trying to make."

But Cohen, who has aggressively pushed the project on Newsom’s behalf, countered that there is no scientific evidence to support such concerns. "It’s a very common situation," Cohen said. "It’s the basis for shipyard artists and the police being on the site for many years … It’s safe based on an extraordinary amount of data."

But Feinstein pointed to his experience working for the Golden Gate Audubon Society at the former Alameda Naval Station. He recalls how a remediation study was completed, but then an oil spill occurred at the site, which had been designated as a wildlife refuge.

"The military didn’t know about everything that happened and was stored on site, and it’s easy to miss a hot spot," he said. "And who’ll be monitoring when all these homes are built with deeds that restrict the renters and owners from digging in their backyards?"

Feinstein said he’s concerned that only Campos seemed to be asking questions and making specific requests for information around the proposed project’s financing

"Lennar is paying city staff and consultants and promising labor huge numbers of jobs. When you are throwing that much money around, it’s hard for people to resist — and the city has been co-opted," Feinstein said. "And how much analysis and resistance can you expect from city commissions when the Mayor’s Office is the driving force behind the project? So we don’t have a stringent review. The weakness of the strategy of ignoring our bridge concerns is that when we sue, we may raise a whole bunch of issues."

Arc Ecology director Saul Bloom says Chiu’s bridge proposal "screwed up the dialogue. We were close to a deal," Bloom claims. "But while that amendment allowed one board member to showboat, it prevented the problem from being solved."

Bloom is concerned that under the financing deal, the project won’t make any money for at least 15 years and will be vulnerable to penalties and bumps in the market — an equation that could lead the developer to build only market rate housing at the site.

"It’s a problematic analysis at best," he said.

"The bigger the development, the more it benefits people who have the capacity to address it — and that’s not the community," Bloom said. "So there’ll be more discussion of the bridge, and that’s where the horse-trading is going to be."

He also said the bridge has now taken on a symbolic value. "The thing about the bridge is that it’s not actually about the bridge any more," Bloom added. "It’s about Lennar telling people, ‘You will support us.’ If they get the bridge, it will give them free rein, an unencumbered capacity to do as they see fit. They are willing to make deals, but they have to have the bridge because it defeats the people who have been the most credible and visible — and then they have no opposition."

Booze or mismanagement?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Booze or mismanagement?

news@sfbg.com

The centennial celebration of the Bay to Breakers race and party is once again being targeted for a crackdown on alcohol. But many participants say the problem is mismanagement more than booze or public urination.

Organizers this month announced that all racers and revelers in possession of alcohol will be cited and possibly detained by the San Francisco Police Department. Those pushing floats or, as event spokesperson Sam Singer put it, “alcohol delivery devices,” will be cited as well.

After hearing concerns from residents along the race route and losing corporate sponsor ING, executives from organizer AEG said its decision to curb excessive drinking is an attempt to save the venerable event.

“We received significant complaints from neighbors and residents about people peeing, puking, and passing out on their doorsteps who were not registered to race but were there to take advantage of the event and stage an open street party at expense of the community,” Singer told us. “Bay to Breakers will be 100 [years old] next year and, unless we take steps to ensure public safety, we are concerned for its future.”

Drawing more than 100,000 spectators and racers annually, Bay to Breakers is one of the largest races in the world. Even greater than its size is the reputation it has garnered as one of the city’s premier street parties, where revelers wear ridiculous costumes or sometimes nothing at all.

That reputation caused ING to pull out, announcing that it “evaluates its sponsorship programs and strategies to make sure they align with the goals of the business. The decision to not renew our sponsorship was based simply on ING’s shifting priorities.”

The company and others associated with the event last year tried unsuccessfully to ban kegs and glass bottles along with alcohol carried on floats. But opposition from participants and area Sup. Ross Mirkarimi saved the party.

Yet Singer said the outcome of the failed ban only strengthened organizers’ conviction to prohibit alcohol in subsequent years. “After the ban was put forward, a negotiation between people who are the party element took place and we ultimately allowed alcohol that year,” Singer said. “However, because alcohol was originally banned and the ban was later eased, the confusion contributed to having a safer experience. Most of the drinking element stayed away, which led us to realize we have to prohibit alcohol to keep a certain type of people away from the race.”

That “certain type of people” who seek to uphold the lenient alcohol precedent last year banded together to form Citizens for the Preservation of Bay to Breakers. CPBB cofounder Edward Sharpless said the group considers the ban a simplistic distraction from AEG’s gross mismanagement of an event whose biggest problems could be easily mitigated.

“They have no respect for the event and no interest in preserving the San Francisco tradition of Bay to Breakers,” Sharpless said. “They have failed to provide an adequate amount of Porta Potties or set up appropriate barriers. It has nothing to do with booze or floats. They are merely trying to mask their incompetence by pointing the finger yet again.”

According to the race website, AEG provided only 705 portable toilets last year. Although that number may be sufficient for the 30,000 racers, it proved too few for the more than 100,000-person event. Even Mayor Gavin Newsom last year ran in the event without registering, he told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“They just aren’t addressing issues,” Sharpless said. “Their mind-set has been to support only the 30,000 registered runners, and once those people have gone by it’s everyone else’s problem. It doesn’t work like that.”

Wayne Lanier, a resident at 256 Ashbury St., last year tried to stop a young man from urinating in his yard, informing him that he would take a photograph and notify the police. “He responded with, ‘I don’t care, I’m from L.A.,'<0x2009>” Lanier told us. “They had an attitude that expressed their right to party and who were we to question it. It was just unbelievable.”

Sharpless said he wants to heed residents’ complaints. “The management is supposed to be professional, so something like public urination and a little bit of public drunkenness should be dealt with,” Sharpless said. “The priority is the neighbors, their private property, and their well-being. Just sticking your head in sand and turning a blind eye to the problem is not a solution.”

Sharpless and others met with officials in the Mayor’s Office July 12, seeking a dialogue between community groups, residents, city officials. and AEG. Some press coverage framed the meeting as simply about drunkenness, but Sharpless said mismanagement of the event was a key topic.

“The meeting was scheduled two weeks ago, before AEG decided to announce the ban,” Sharpless said. “The reason Sam announced the ban subsequently is because he wanted to make it look like it was about a ban on alcohol when really it was a focus group on neighborhood damage.”

AEG is expected to present a plan for next year’s event toward the end of summer. “We will be working with the police department on having a larger and more strategically placed police force to help ensure safety,” Singer said. “We are also planning on doing extensive outreach and advertising to inform the public of this year’s new rules.”

Sharpless remains confident that the party will go on. “It looks like we have a good, constructive start,” he said. “Of course we don’t support the alcohol ban. This isn’t just a 12K race. This is Bay to Breakers. This is a civic institution that represents the uniqueness of San Francisco, and we will fight to save it.”

Pro-Mehserle rally breaks out in Walnut Creek

Mary Magee
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Supporters of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle rallied in Walnut Creek this afternoon, eleven days after protests and violence erupted in Oakland July 8, when Mehserle was convicted July 8 of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting unarmed Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009 on a BART platform in Oakland.

The rally occurred outside the Superior Courthouse in Walnut Creek on Ygnacio Valley Road.  

Witnesses say the supporters were outnumbered by the cops and the paparazzi, and outnumbered and outvoiced by the “Justice for Oscar Grant” counterdemonstrators by about 2:1.

“While helicopters whirled overhead and riot police stood by, counterdemonstrators chanted ‘Justice for Oscar Grant’ and ‘Oscar did not have to die – we all know the reason why.'” a witness told the Guardian. “They flanked the Mehserle supporters, who stood mostly silent, holding up signs like ‘Understanding will permit healing’ and ‘Thank you for keeping my streets safe.’ There was no sign of open antagonism between the camps, although a bystander reported that words were exchanged initially and things were about to get heated when the police closed ranks and made it clear they would shut the whole thing down.”

Congress is acting stupidly

David Talbot
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Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka has it right. It’s not the heat in Washington, D.C., that’s bothering him and many other advocates of working people. It’s the stupidity – the economic stupidity of Congress refusing to give financial aid to states that badly need help in order t o save the jobs of some 300,000 teachers, nurses, firefighters, police and other public service workers who are facing layoffs because of budget deficits.

The possible remedy is at hand – a pending $100 billion jobs bill.  Most of the money would go to states for quickly creating or saving up to one million jobs in public and private employment, restoring government services that have been cut, and averting other planned cuts, mostly in education, public safety and job training.

Republican opposition has kept the jobs bill from passage. The GOP also opposes a companion bill that deals with another bit of economic stupidity in Washington – the stupidity of Congress’ refusal to extend the unemployment insurance benefits of the 1.4 million Americans who will run out of benefits by the end of July, and the 325,000 who already have run out of benefits.

By year’s end, more than eight million workers will have exhausted their benefits. Their regular benefits, averaging $300 a week, ran out after 26 weeks and have not been extended as they usually have been during periods of heavy unemployment. The House voted for extension, and President Obama urged extension. But the Senate has refused to act.

The AFL-CIO’s Trumka calls the situation tragic, as well he should. He notes that almost 15 million Americans are currently unemployed, a number that’s been growing by about 250,000 workers per week.

So, 15 million people who need jobs – many who desperately need jobs – are unable to find them. About one million have been jobless for more than a year.

Overall, the jobless make up about 10 percent of the workforce. They’ve been out of work an average of 35 weeks. Another 11 million Americans are underemployed, including temporary and part-time workers and others who are underutilized and underpaid.

Nearly half of all the jobless have been out of work for more than six months.  As Trumka says, “Families are stretched to the limit and state budgets are under incredible strain, putting hundreds of thousands more jobs in danger. Yet the Republicans in Congress repeatedly have blocked efforts to take action, create jobs and rebuild our battered economy.” Although it’s mainly Republicans who’ve opposed extension of benefits, some conservative Democrats have also opposed extension.

Trumka, noting that many politicians, including every member of the House, will be on the ballot in the coming mid-term elections, urges union members to demand that the office seekers take concrete action to “rebuild our economy and create jobs now.” If they don’t take action, Trumka warns, “they may not be elected officials anymore.”

New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman blames Congress’ failure to provide relief to the jobless on “a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused.”

Krugman defines the heartless as “Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do – especially anything that  might ease the country’s economic problems – improves their chances in the midterm elections.

And the clueless? Try Sharron Angle, the Republican candidate for senator from Nevada. She’s repeatedly claimed that the unemployed are deliberately choosing to stay jobless so they can keep collecting the benefits of a few hundred dollars a week.

The confused include politicians and others who apparently are too confused to understand the obvious – that the unemployed need money, and will quickly spend whatever they get in the way of extended benefits, thus boosting consumer spending, helping create jobs quickly and otherwise expanding the economy.

Except to the heartless, clueless and confused, saving money at the expense of the unemployed by denying them benefits is, as Paul Krugman says, “cruel as well as misguided.”

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

Adachi and the real politics of pension reform

Sasha Cuttler
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71
Adachi and the real politics of pension reform

While downtown-oriented politicos and out-of-touch corporate columnists tout the political potential of targeting public employee unions with pay reductions and pension plan take-aways – and say the Public Defender Jeff Adachi may be mayoral material for doing so – they forget that electoral success requires coalitions, particularly in savvy San Francisco.

Unlike his cheerleaders, Adachi seems to understand this, downplaying the personal political upside when he talked to the Guardian and other media outlets. Sure, he might just be sandbagging, as his boosters hope he is, but there’s good reason to believe that this move could hurt Adachi’s chances of becoming mayor more than it helps it.

Much has been written and said about how Adachi’s move alienated labor unions and much of the progressive movement. “They urged me not to do it,” Adachi told the Guardian in the final days of his successful signature-gathering effort for a measure that would save the city about $167 million per year by taking that amount out of employees’ paychecks.

It’s not that pension reform isn’t needed. Indeed, San Francisco voters just approved a measure in June to increase the pension contributions for all new city employees, and politicians ranging from Sups. John Avalos and David Campos on the left to Sup. Sean Elsbernd and Mayor Gavin Newsom on the right all agree that more needs to be done, pledging to work with unions on the issue. And given the surly mood of the electorate, Adachi’s measure will probably pass.

But that still doesn’t make him mayoral material. Unlike Newsom, whose Care Not Cash initiative to take money from poor people helped propel him into Room 200, Adachi doesn’t have a strong constituency behind him, unlike the full strength of downtown and the Willie Brown machine that Newsom had behind him.

Downtown will never get behind a mayoral campaign for Adachi, a heavily tattooed defender of criminals who has a strong independent streak, even if they like the fact that he’s socking it to the public employee unions, an effort they helped fund. And progressives will now have a hard time ever trusting Adachi to work with them, seeing him now as someone hostile to political process and coalition-building, much like Newsom.

And even Newsom has come out against Adachi and his proposal, even though he loves the pension reform issue and shares some stylistic similarities with Adachi, including a certain political petulance. “Mayor Newsom has been clear that effective, long-term pension reform will come by doing it with our public employee unions, in partnership, not to and against them, in contrast to the Adachi measure,” Newsom Press Secretary Tony Winnicker wrote to the Guardian this week. It was a laughingly hypocritical statement from a mayor who has repeatedly demonized unions and refused to work cooperatively with them, but it’s a true statement nonetheless.

Finally, while socking it to public employees may be in vogue right now, during this moment of real economic uncertainty and political myopia, this sort of divisive politics might come to be seen more as opportunistic than courageous. And it’s hard to see how the approach that Adachi has taken will somehow add up to an effective political coalition capable of stealing the Mayor’s Office from wily politicians like Mark Leno, Leland Yee, or Aaron Peskin.

Consider the fact that even the Police Officers Association – the most conservative, downtown-oriented employee union in San Francisco – also opposes the Adachi measure and other efforts to blame the city’s fiscal problems on employees, rather than the large financial institutions that don’t even pay any kind of business tax to the city.

So I leave you with the words of POA President Gary Delagnes, writing in the May issue of the POA Journal, sounding a bit like a Guardian editorial writer on this politically sensitive issue: “Even more problematic is the rapidly developing notion that public employee pensions serve as the root of all evil, and are almost solely to blame for all of our economic woes.

“Opportunistic Wall Street insiders, politicians, and robber baron CEOs have manipulated and pilfered our country’s financial well-being. They have unconscionably – if not also illegally – lined their deep pockets with the hard-earned savings and pensions of the middle class working man and woman. Accountants from coast to coast have coached multi-millionaires on the art of avoiding paying their true tax obligations. Millions of people were allowed to qualify for mortgage loans by greedy bankers and mortgage brokers that led to trillions of dollars in bailout money. The result is a public incensed about fat cats taking advantage of them. Now, the backlash has set up public pensions and the unions that negotiated them as the scapegoats for his anger.

“Those of use who long ago made the decision to forgo large salaries in exchange for a life of public service, are now being portrayed as greedy and self-centered, taking unwarranted pensions and benefits after 30 years of service as firefighters, police officers, teachers, and nurses. These are shameful accusations, and utterly without merit.”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, but unlike one of our editorials, this is the perspective of cops and other unions and progressive constituencies that will shape their actions in elections to come.

The martyrdom of Mooney and Billings

David Talbot
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0

Dick Meister , former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

It was an unusually hot July day in San Francisco.   There was a parade on that day in 1916 – a “Preparedness Day” parade organized by local Republican businessmen. It was intended to drum up support for U.S. entry into World War I and embarrass Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, who was running for re-election on a platform that stressed,  “He kept us out of war!”

A lot of people supported neither the war nor the parade, however. The opponents particularly included the union organizers who were the radicals of that period – “reds” who were trying to establish the right of unionization in the face of often violent opposition from the business interests who controlled the city and who most assuredly supported the war.

Many thousands of spectators, as many as 100,000 by some accounts, lined the parade route down Market Street, cheering and enthusiastically waving American flags. At precisely 2:06, less than a half-hour after the parade of more than 25,000 marchers had begun, just as contingents from the Grand Army of the Republic and Sons of the American Revolution were passing the crowded corner of Steuart and Market  streets. . . Boom!

It was the thunderous blast of a bomb that had either been thrown into the crowd or planted there.  The horrific explosion killed 10 bystanders and seriously wounded 40 others.

Within a few hours, the authorities had their culprits. Not surprisingly, all of those arrested as suspects were union organizers. Among them were two men who were especially despised by the city’s virulently anti-labor business establishment — Tom Mooney, 34, a burly Irish-American organizer for the International Molders Union who was one of San Francisco’s most prominent labor activists, and his close friend, slim, short, boyish Warren Billings, a 23-year-old shoe factory worker.

Mooney and Billings were San Francisco’s “most notorious reds,” declared the SF Chamber of Commerce in one of its typically frenzied assessments of those who dared challenge the status quo in which workers were treated as mere chattel.

The others who were arrested were soon freed, but Mooney and Billings were put on trial and eventually found guilty. Mooney was sentenced to death by hanging, Billings to life imprisonment.

There’s absolutely no doubt Mooney and Billings were framed. Federal investigators, investigative newspaper reporters and others proved that beyond any doubt.  The city’s famously corrupt district attorney, Charles Frickert, was found to have suppressed evidence that proved the pair’s innocence, joining with corrupt policemen to fabricate evidence that supposedly proved their guilt, and failing to call witnesses who, as he knew, had solid evidence that they were not guilty. Frickert hired other witnesses and coached them to give perjured testimony implicating Mooney and Billings.

Eventually, every major witness confessed to lying to the juries at both the Mooney and Billings trials. Some of them claimed to have seen the men plant the bomb on the day of the explosion, although it turned out the supposed eye-witnesses hadn’t even been in the city at the time.

Some gave their perjured testimony in exchange for such favors as the parole of relatives who were serving prison sentences, others for the pay District Attorney Frickert offered them. All were after the $17,500 reward posted for evidence leading to the conviction of Mooney and Billings.

 The judge who presided over Mooney’s trial told California’s governor he had determined through personal investigation that “every single witness who testified against Mooney had lied.” Mooney’s lawyer declared them “the weirdest collection of God-damned liars” he’d ever seen.

 A federal fact-finding commission concluded that “there was never any scientific attempt made by either the police or the prosecution to discover the perpetrators of the crime. The investigation was in reality turned over to a private detective, who used his position to cause the arrest of the defendants.” 

Fremont Older, the crusading editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, concluded that the authorities “conspired to murder a man with the instruments that the people have provided for bringing about justice. There isn’t a scrap of testimony that wasn’t perjured.”

The cases quickly drew widespread national attention, right up to the White House. President Wilson argued against Mooney’s hanging on grounds that there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support his guilt.

It was obvious that the Chamber of Commerce’s so-called Law and Order Committee had played a major role in framing Mooney and Billings as part of the chamber’s drive to change San Francisco’s status as one of the country’s most heavily unionized cities. 

Mooney and Billings, of course, had been attempting to enhance that status, in part by helping wage major organizing drives among the city’s vital transit workers and the equally vital employees of the company that supplied the city’s gas and electricity. Which was a very good reason the utility company – Pacific Gas & Electric – hired the private detective cited by federal fact-finders to help District Attorney Frickert and the police fabricate evidence against Mooney and Billings.  Not incidentally, Frickert was backed financially by Pacific Gas & Electric in his election campaigns for district attorney.

 The convictions prompted protests across the United States and worldwide, much like those raised five years later in behalf of two other union radicals, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vinzetti, who were executed in Massachusetts for a murder they clearly did not commit.

The Mooney and Billings case was dubbed internationally as “America’s Dreyfus Case,” a comparison to the famous French case that also drew worldwide protests. The protests stemmed from the rigged conviction of Jewish French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1894 for allegedly attempting to turn over secret military documents to the German government. Although the “Dreyfus Affair,” as it was called, was based on another issue – anti-Semitism – it similarly involved the use of false evidence against an innocent man by powerful authorities.

 Protestors in the United States and abroad quickly formed a network of defense committees in behalf of Mooney and Billings, and mounted rallies and other noisy and highly visible public demonstrations. 

 Freeing the two men became labor’s cause célèbre. Unions everywhere voiced loud and frequent protests, as did all other segments of the left, ranging from liberal to Communist. Eventually, they helped force California authorities to reduce Mooney’s death sentence to life imprisonment, ironically on the basis of evidence that should have freed him.

 President Wilson’s request that Mooney be spared was probably the main reason his sentence was commutated, but the heavy pressures of the Mooney-Billings defense committees and the American Federation of Labor, which Wilson most certainly felt, also had much to do with it.
   
Mooney finally was freed in 1939, twenty-one years later. Culbert Olson, California’s first Democratic governor in 44 years, granted him a full and unconditional pardon. Mooney, said Gov. Olson, was “wholly innocent,” and his conviction  “wholly based on perjured testimony.” 

Mooney’s release sparked great celebration among his supporters, who had fought so long for his freedom. Thousands paraded up Market Street behind Mooney shortly after his release, the street cleared for them by police, past the site of the explosion 23 years earlier that had sent Mooney to prison.

The next day, Mooney joined a picket line of striking department store employees on Market Street and donated to their cause half of the $10 the state had given him on his release from San Quentin Prison. Mooney sent the other half to Newspaper Guild members who were waging a major strike in Chicago.

Tom Mooney hadn’t much time to enjoy his freedom. His health had been broken in prison and he soon was hospitalized with a serious stomach ailment. He remained in a hospital bed until his death at age 60, less than two years later.

Billings got his freedom a few months after Mooney left San Quentin. Gov. Olson commutated his life sentence to time served – 23 years for a crime that no one really believed he or Mooney had committed.  Finally, in 1961, Gov. Edmund G. Brown granted Billings a full pardon. But, as Billings complained, it was granted on grounds that he had been “rehabilitated” rather than because he was innocent.

After leaving prison, Billings married and settled down in San Mateo, working in  San Francisco as a watch repairman, a trade he had learned in prison, and later set up his own repair business at home.  Billings quickly resumed his labor activism, as a member of the Watchmakers Union executive board and delegate to the San Mateo Labor Council. He was active as well in the anti-Vietnam War movement and various other political, economic and social causes. 

I interviewed Billings just before his death in 1972 at age 79. I expected to encounter a bitter, angry old man. Yes, he was old, but his spritely manner belied that basic fact of his life, and he showed absolutely no bitterness over the great injustice that had been done him – none! He talked instead of injustices that were being done to others, and of joining in efforts to help overcome them.

“I don’t have anything against anybody about anything,” Billings told me. “The people who testified against me were after that reward, but it all went to the police who arrested me. I’ve never felt any bitterness, but the fact that the witnesses against me didn’t get any of the reward money should make them bitter.”

Warren K. Billings was a great inspiration to me and others who knew him, and to many who just knew of him. He was a man possessing a spirit that could not be broken by circumstances far more severe than most of us have ever had to endure.  A man who would not even raise his voice in anger or bitterness against the terrible injustice that was done him. A man who maintained his convictions through it all. A strong and courageous man, but kind and gentle, and possessed of an incredible measure of tolerance and understanding.

The Preparedness Day bombing has never been solved.

NOTE: For more on the Mooney-Billings case, See “Frame-up” by Curt Gentry, an extraordinary work of investigative journalism book covering all aspects
of the case.

Dick Meister , former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

National Lawyers Guild pushes back against OPD

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Shortly after filming a protester being arrested by police in riot gear near 12th street and Broadway in Oakland, the Guardian caught up with Dan Siegel, a legal observer for the National Lawyers Guild, who had also witnessed the incident. The protester, who is at this time unidentified, was featured on the cover of this week’s San Francisco Bay Guardian, squaring off with an officer in the police line shortly before being arrested.

Siegel described excessively forceful tactics employed by police officers that created more confrontation with protesters than was necessary in the hours of largely peaceful protests that gave way to shattering glass and trashcan fires when the sun went down. The unidentified protester was arrested at least an hour before police declared the assembly to be unlawful and ordered the crowd to disperse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvMvi7mqdl8

The San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the National Lawyers Guild has publicly condemned police conduct at the scene of the July 8 protests that turned to riots, and the organization is considering legal action against the Oakland Police Department, according to a news release posted on the guild’s website yesterday.

Carlos Villarreal, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild SF Bay Area Chapter, told the Guardian that possible legal action against the OPD was in very early stages, but NLG attorneys have met with many of the people who were arrested or otherwise detained or hurt by law enforcement. Villarreal confirmed that NLG attorneys have met with the unidentified protester in the video.

“If someone is in the streets, and they’ve been ordered to disperse, the method to get them to disperse is not to hit them in the head or the back with batons,” Villarreal said. “Law enforcement potentially has a role to play if there are unlawful assemblies that become violent, but it shouldn’t be the kind of involvement that deters people from completely lawful protest and assembly, which I believe by and large was what was going on.”

Board accepts EIR, but vows to amend Candlestick-Shipyard plan

Mary Magee
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14

Text by Sarah Phelan, images by Luke Thomas


At the end of a ten-hour hearing to appeal the final environmental impact report  for the city and Lennar’s massive Candlestick-Shipyard redevelopment project, the Board voted 8-3 to accept the FEIR, with only Sups. John Avalos, Chris Daly and Eric Mar voting to reverse certification of what they said was a flawed document.


But the vote does not mean the Board has voted to accept the city and the developer’s final redevelopment plan. That plan will come before the Board on July 27, and the supervisors are expected to introduce a slew of amendments, in addition to  five amendments that Board President David Chiu introduced earlier this week.


These amendments are intended to address longstanding concerns about toxins at the shipyard, limited liability on the part of the developer, the questionable need for a bridge over Yosemite Slough, the reality that Bayview residents may be cut out of any upcoming jobs, and the desire to nail down efforts to use public power at the site


“We can’t do the amendments here, we are frozen out, all we can do is an up and down vote on the EIR for now,” Sup. Ross Mirkarimi told the Guardian last night. 
Mirkarimi anticipates that the Board will seek additional mitigations, such as requiring liquidated damages to shore up a community benefits agreement that Labor entered into with Lennar in May 2008.


Mirkarimi said the Board would also seek to increase workforce development benefits.
“Thirty percent of the target workforce population are ex-offenders, so while they might get training, currently they won’t get jobs other than construction,” Mirkarimi observed.


Mirkarimi was proud of the Public Power amendment that Chiu has already lintroduced, pointing to an ordinance that he and then Sup. Gerardo Sandoval introduced and Mayor Gavin Newsom signed into law, in March 2006. This public power ordinance established that “where feasible, the City shall be the electricity provider for new City developments, including military bases and development projects.”


“PG& E was ripped when we pushed that through,” Mirkarimi said.


During yesterday’s marathon hearing, the supervisors grilled city staff on issues that have proved to be key sticking points, as the city seeks to win final project approvals, even though they cannot address these issues with amendments until the July 27 meeting.


The Board questioned the wisdom of moving forward with development on the Shipyard, as the Navy continues to clean up radiological contamination and other toxins at the site, including Parcel E-2, which contains some of the nastiest pollution at the yard.


“Why not just wait until the CERCLA process is completed?” Sup. Campos asked, referring to the fact that the Navy is responsible for shipyard clean up, under CERCLA, which is also known as the Superfund Act.


Campos question came after acclaimed environmental scientist Wilma Subra and national environmental human rights lawyer Monique Harden, challenged the sanity of having the Navy digging out toxins while a developer simultaneously installs infrastructure at the same site.


Subra, who works in Superfund sites throughout the U.S, warned the Board that it’s very common to find contamination at these sites after they have been declared clean.


“So, the number of samples isn’t the magic answer,” Subra said, referring to the city’s constant refrain that the Navy has taken thousands of samples at the site. Subra also warned that it is not uncommon for a contractor to dig into an area that has been capped, thereby potentially exposing workers and the community to contamination and resulting in legal stand-offs, as various parties argue as to who has responsibility to fix the resulting mess.


Harden, who is based in New Orleans but also has an office in D.C., expressed concern over the plan to begin construction on some shipyard parcels, even as the Navy continues to remove radiologically contaminated sewers and other deep infrastructure at the site.
“That’s like a person jumping up and down on a bed that another person is trying to make up,” Harden said


But Michael Cohen, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s chief economic advisor countered that there was no scientific evidence to support Subra or Harden’s concerns.


“It’s a very common situation, especially on brownfields,” Cohen said, (though the Shipyard is a Superfund site that’s been contaminated with radiological waste that was sandblasted off ships returning from a Bikini Atoll atomic testing experiment gone awry.)


“It’s the basis for shipyard artists and the police being on the site for many years,” Cohen continued. “It’s safe based on an extraordinary amount of data.”


But Cohen did agree that language in Chiu’s Parcel E-2 amendment should be changed from “should” to “shall” to indicate that city oversight is a requirement, not a request, when it comes to final decisions over the transfer of this particular parcel.


Mark Ripperda of U.S. EPA assured the Board that his agency is not going to permit transfer of parcels for development until cleanup is completed.
“We are not going to allow any transfer until we are convinced it’s safe,” Ripperda said.


Sup. Eric Mar chastised the EIR for its apparent failure to adequately discuss the impacts of the proposed development on schools in the surrounding area.


“There is less discussion of the impacts on schools than there is of the A-Bomb, which was held at the Shipyard for 1 to 2 days,” Mar said. “The analysis seems very weak.”


And Daly expressed frustration that the Board was being asked to take a decision when it lacked sufficient information about and understanding of the project.


“How do we know it’s safe? ” Daly asked, noting that, “Money talks, bullshit walks.”
(His point resonated as City staff scrambled to find key information within the 7,000 pages of comments and responses in the massive FEIR documents, and Amy Brownell of the city’s Public Health Department rattled off a series of measurements and schedules that few on the Board seemed to understand.)


“The risks are acceptable,” Brownell said. “And the only people allowed on the property [during the development] will be the ones doing the work.”


The Board also challenged the need for a bridge over the environmentally sensitive Yosemite Slough, especially in the wake of the June 2010 election in which Santa Clara voters approved building a new stadium for the 49ers near Great America.


“One reason I’ve been given for [the need for the bridge] is the financial viability of this project,” Campos said.


Cohen replied that if the city does not to build the bridge, “it elevates the financial risk.”


“Parcel C [on the shipyard] has been zoned for green tech, and for major employers, having that direct connectedness to BART and the T-Third is very important.”


Cohen also indicated that, thanks to the project’s huge reliance on tax increment financing, the loss of the bridge would translate into lost property tax revenues.


“Some of the repayment comes from generation of tax increment financing, so the failure to have a bridge here, degrades the potential of property tax revenues, and so you get much less tax increment,” Cohen stated.


The Board also expressed concerned that under the current terms of the deal they are now set to consider July 27, the developer has limited liability—an arrangement that has got supervisors worried that the city, and Bayview residents whose increased property taxes will help pay for the development, could end up on the wrong end of the financial hook.


Campos pointed to the disposition and development agreement (DDA) that the city drew up with Lennar.
“I’m specifically worried about a provision that on the face of it limits the developer’s liability,” Campos said, pointing to language that seems to say that “monetary damages are inappropriate”—conditions that Campos deemed, “Very unusual.


Cohen responded that the deal reflects the reality that, “the Navy, not Lennar is responsible for the cleanup.”
He added that the city retains the legal ability to sue, various remedies and, ultimately, “the right of reverter” (which folks call the “nuclear option” since it involves kicking out the developer, but losing everything in the process.)


“This is an incredibly frontloaded project,  in which we have the ability to terminate the developer at the cost of millions of dollars,” Cohen said.


But while the city and the developer ultimately affirm EIR certification, the decision left the Bayview community deeply divided, with many concerned that the FEIR failed to address their concerns, while others rejoiced, believing that they will benefit from jobs that will be created during the development’s 10-15 year build out and beyond. Only time will tell how it all plays out, but stay tuned as the Board prepares to try and make the plan the best it can in face of all these competing concerns.


 

Bad faith

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Bad faith

steve@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom and his business allies are actively trying to sabotage the various revenue measures that have been put forth by the labor movement and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, employing deceptive rhetoric, sneaky tactics, and a refusal to bargain in good faith.

In fact, Newsom — the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor — is so averse to supporting anything that could be called a “tax” that he rejected a hard-won compromise measure created by powerful developers, affordable housing advocates, a pro-business think tank, the building trades, and his own directors of housing and economic development.

Just as that story was breaking in the New York Times (produced by Bay Citizen) on July 9, members of the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee discovered that Newsom’s proposed ballot measure to close loopholes in the city’s hotel tax that favored airline employees and online travel companies — a widely supported change, but one worth just $6 million per year — contains language that would nullify any increases in the hotel tax. Earlier in the week, labor unions turned in signatures on an initiative to increase the hotel tax by 2 percent, which would bring in more than $30 million per year.

“This poison pill is an intentionally deceptive, underhanded move,” Gabriel Haaland, an organizer with Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which sponsored the hotel tax, told us. “It’s so frustrating. It’s not even a good faith fight. He’s trying to create confusion and fool the voters. If our measure passes fair and square, it should be implemented.”

Meanwhile, Newsom and business groups have been attacking a reform measure by Board President David Chiu that would make the currently flat payroll tax more progressive, exempt more small businesses from paying it, and create a commercial rent tax to spread the tax burden more widely than the 10 percent of businesses who now pay tax to the city.

Critics complained that the measure would hurt local businesses — but that’s just not true. The city’s Office of Economic Analysis concluded that Chiu’s original proposal would have no effect on private sector jobs and would generate $34 million annually for the city, preserving some government jobs and spending.

Then Chiu amended the measure to spare even more small businesses. Now the OEA says that the measure would actually create private sector jobs — and still bring $28 million in to the city. Yet Newsom and the business community are still withholding their support.

This trio of Machiavellian moves comes just a week after Newsom pulled out of budget negotiations with board progressives concerning about $40 million in board add-backs to programs that Newsom proposed to cut after they wouldn’t agree to his precondition that they withdraw unrelated measures proposed for the November ballot, such as splitting appointments to the Rent, Recreation and Park, and Municipal Transportation Agency boards and requiring police officers to do foot patrols.

The series of events has led many progressives to say that conservative ideological blinders — a knee-jerk opposition to anything that saves government jobs and services or that Republicans might criticize — is the only logical explanation for the intransigent stance adopted downtown and by Newsom.

“It’s ideological. It’s not economic, and it’s not even political,” said Calvin Welch, the affordable housing activist who helped negotiate the transfer tax compromise with developer Oz Erickson, San Francisco Planning Urban Research Association director Gabriel Metcalf, Mayor’s Office of Housing Director Doug Shoemaker, and others.

That measure would have created a transfer tax on sales of properties over $875,000 and generated approximately $50 million annually for affordable housing (funds that were drastically reduced in Newsom’s proposed 2010-11 budget) while cutting in half the current requirements and fees on market-rate developers to create below-market-rate units. The plan would have stimulated both types of housing and created desperately needed construction work — an approach those involved called an elegant solution to several problems.

“To me, this was a win-win, solving two problems that are each a big deal,” Metcalf told us. “I don’t know what his reasons were for not supporting it. I was surprised.”

But Welch said, “It collapsed straight up because the mayor didn’t want to support a tax.” Although Newsom told the Times it was because there wasn’t broad enough consensus yet, “the mayor’s reason is whole-cloth bullshit,” Welch said, noting the role of the Mayor’s Office in brokering the deal. “The mayor walks away from it because everyone wasn’t in the room? Well, it’s your room, motherfucker. Show some leadership.”

Newsom Press Secretary Tony Winnicker refused to discuss these issues by phone, responding to our written inquires by noting that Newsom opposes taxes and thinks the best way to address budget deficits are privatizing city services and pension reform (although he opposes Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s initiative, the only pension reform measure on the fall ballot).

“The mayor is opposed to the Board of Supervisors’ proposals to increase taxes because they’re not needed to balance the budget and they will strangle our still young economic recovery,” Winnicker wrote, refusing to answer follow-up questions or support a statement about Chiu’s measure that the OEA concludes is not accurate.

Like many political observers of all stripes, those from downtown and progressive circles, Welch criticized Newsom for his lack of engagement with city business and its long-term fiscal outlook, contrasting him with former Mayor Willie Brown, who met regularly with former Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano even as the two ran a bitter campaign for mayor against one another in 1999. “They dealt with the city’s business like two adults who cared about the city,” he said.

Welch acknowledged that there was still work to be done building political support for the transfer tax measure. He and other progressives would have had to win over city employee unions who wouldn’t like the budget set-aside aspect, and Erickson and Metcalf would need to placate some of their downtown allies who oppose taxes on ideological grounds. But given how downtown groups are behaving right now, that might not have been an easy sell.

“There are members of the small business community that are averse to any taxes,” said Regina Dick-Endrizzi, director of the city’s Office of Small Business and staffer to the Small Business Commission, which was withholding a recommendation on the Chiu measure but planned to meet again to consider it July 12 (look for an update on the sfbg.com Politics blog). She said the small business community is having tough times and “they are just not sensitive to keeping city workers employed.”

Larger commercial interests are being even more forceful in opposing the revenue measures. While a parade of workers, social service providers, and progressive activists testifying at the July 9 Budget Committee hearing implored supervisors to place all the proposed revenue measures on the ballot, representatives from the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) and San Francisco Chamber of Commerce were the only two speakers urging supervisors to drop the measures and focus instead on creating private sector jobs.

“You’re trying to create a little revenue here and it’s not going to work,” said Ken Cleaveland, director of BOMA SF, arguing that big banks and financial services companies — entities exempt from the payroll tax that Chiu is hoping to target with the commercial rent tax — will buy their buildings to avoid paying the tax. “They aren’t going to create more jobs and they really aren’t going to create more revenue.”

Yet Chiu noted that it was the business community and fiscal conservatives who pushed to create the Office of Economic Analysis, whose work they have regularly used to attack progressive legislation. Now that the office has concluded that a piece of progressive legislation is good for the local economy, Chiu told Cleaveland and the Chamber spokesperson Rob Black at the hearing, “I ask you to respect the work this office has done.”

Black said the Chamber board will consider Chiu’s amended legislation, but said businesses are in no mood to help the city. “How many times have you gone to your neighborhood merchant and had them say, ‘Gee, my rent’s too cheap’?<0x2009>” he said during his testimony.

Yet Chiu said landlords of small tenants (those paying less than $65,000 in rent per year) are exempt from the rent tax and only 26 percent of SF businesses would pay any city business tax under his plan. “I hope the mayor will support this proposal and the business community will give it a good look,” Chiu said as the hearing ended.

At the beginning of the hearing, Chiu framed the dire situation facing San Francisco, citing Controller’s Office figures showing this year’s $500 million budget deficit (out of a $6 billion total budget) will be followed by a $700 million deficit next year and a $800 million gap the following budget cycle as a result of a deep structural budget imbalance.

“We have budget deficits as far as the eye can see,” Chiu said at the hearing. “We have to consider measures that will provide more stable sources of revenue.”

He also noted that city employee unions have agreed to give back about $250 million in salary and had their ranks reduced by about 2,000 workers in the last two years. So he and the other progressive supervisors say it’s time for the rest of San Francisco to help address the problem.

“We, as a city, should not be trying to balance this budget simply through cutting,” Sup. David Campos said.

Sup. John Avalos, the committee chair, amended his transfer tax measure in the wake of Newsom’s rejection of the deal by making it a simple 2 percent tax on properties that sell for more than $5 million, and 2.5 percent tax on properties over $10 million. He estimates it will bring in about $25 million per year from the city’s wealthiest corporations and landlords.

“That’s who we’re socking it to,” Avalos told us, saying he was disappointed the compromise fell through. “The amendment is going to be more progressive than what was originally planned.”

Even Sup. Sean Elsbernd, a strong fiscal conservative who announced early in the hearing, “You want to do that [balance future budgets] by adding taxes, but I want to do it through ongoing service cuts,” later told the Guardian that he was intrigued by the amendments Avalos and Chiu made to their measures and has not yet taken a position on them.

Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is also sponsoring a measure to increase the city’s tax on parking lot operators from 25 percent to 35 percent, the first change to that tax in 30 years, and will include valet parking for the first time. The measure would bring in up to $24 million per year, and OEA analysis shows it would decrease the number of cars trips by 1.3 percent, another benefit.

SFMTA supports the measure, with board member Cameron Beach testifying that the money will be used to subsidize Muni and “it links the use of private automobiles and is consistent with the city’s transit-first policy.” Mirkarimi, who chairs the Transportation Authority, also has proposed a $10 local vehicle license fee surcharge that would bring in another $5 million per year for Muni.

All the revenue measures require six votes by the full Board of Supervisors, which is scheduled to consider them July 20, after which they would need a simple majority approval by voters in November to take effect.

The mayor has the authority to directly place measures on the ballot, so the committee hearing on his hotel tax loophole measure and a $39 million general obligation bond that he’s proposing to create a revolving loan fund for private sector seismic improvements were mere formalities, so supervisors criticized aspects of each but were unable to make changes.

Avalos even grudgingly acknowledged the hotel tax poison pill was an effective way to kill that revenue source, saying at the hearing, “This is very smart. I don’t agree with it, but it’s very smart.”

Haaland was less charitable, criticizing a provision designed to confuse voters. “This kind of move means both measures won’t pass because now we have to oppose [Newsom’s measure],” he said, criticizing the mayor for running away from the hard decisions facing the city. “He won’t be around next year, when we have an even bigger structural budget deficit, to clean up this mess. Absent new revenue sources, this city starts to fall apart.”

Beyond the rage

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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46
Beyond the rage

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Downtown Oakland became supercharged with emotion in the hours following the July 8 announcement of the verdict in the trial of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. And in the days that followed, the city remained electrified as residents struggled to make sense of the verdict, the rioting that occurred in its wake, and the historic significance of these developments.

But as the emotions dissipate, the issues behind the verdict and its aftermath remain — along with a series of questions that could determine whether this intensely scrutinized shooting of an unarmed man will lead to any changes in police practices or the justice system, as well as how the community will react if the judge imposes a light sentence.

After being moved out of the Bay Area because the publicity surrounding the case, a Los Angeles jury found Mehserle, a white officer, guilty of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting Oscar Grant, a 22-year-old unarmed black man who was detained on a BART train platform in Oakland on Jan. 1, 2009 following reports of a fight.

The verdict stood out as an almost unprecedented conviction of an officer in a case involving deadly use of force, and a departure from an all-too-familiar narrative in which tragedies resulting from police shootings bring no consequences for those responsible for pulling the trigger. However, in the wake of the verdict, Grant’s family members made it clear that they did not believe that justice had been served.

“This involuntary manslaughter verdict is not what we wanted, nor do we accept it,” Oscar Grant’s uncle, Cephus “Bobby” Johnson, said at a July 10 press conference at True Vine Ministries, a West Oakland church. “It’s been a long, hard road, but there are chapters in this war. The battle’s just getting started.”

To Grant’s relatives and a coalition of supporters who came together in response to the shooting, the trial is intrinsically linked to a long history of police brutality that occurs with impunity in cases involving youth of color. Meetings organized by clergy and community members have been held weekly in West Oakland over the past 19 months with the ultimate goal of bringing about greater oversight of the BART police and effective police reform on a broader scale.

On July 9, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that its Civil Rights Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and the FBI have opened an investigation into the shooting and would determine whether prosecution at the federal level is warranted. Defense Attorney Michael Rains also made a motion to move Mehserle’s sentencing to a date later than Aug. 6, the date it was originally expected.

As the events of July 8 solidify into the Bay Area’s collective memory, attention is now shifting toward the next steps, and to lingering questions. Mehserle’s sentencing is key: will his sentence be light, reflecting the jury’s conclusion that he simply made a mistake — or will it include substantial prison time, reflecting the fact that he shot and killed an unarmed man without justification? Will he receive a lighter sentence than someone else without a criminal record found guilty of involuntary manslaughter simply because of his identity as a former officer with law enforcement organizations still in his corner? If Mehserle receives a long sentence, will it signify a shift in a justice system that many perceive as biased — or a stand-alone result of intense public scrutiny?

And as a result of all this, will the BART police finally get the type of training and serious civilian oversight they so badly need?

 

RAW REACTION

On the day the verdict was announced, thousands turned out for a peaceful rally near Oakland’s 12th Street BART Station and City Hall to hear speakers sound off about how their lives had been affected by police brutality.

As night fell, looting and rioting began to break out as the media covered scenes of rage set against small trash fires, causing anger and frustration for many Oakland residents who were dismayed and frightened by the chaos and disorder. More than 80 arrests were made, and dozens of stores including Sears, Whole Foods, Subway, Foot Locker, and numerous banks were damaged or looted. Police efforts to respond to the situation gave downtown city blocks the feeling of a war zone for several hours.

Reactions to the verdict, and the chaotic aftermath that followed, varied in the following days.

“The truth is that in American history, this is both a high point and a low point,” Olis Simmons, executive director of Youth UpRising — an Oakland nonprofit that works with youth of color — told the Guardian the following day. Speaking to the fact that an officer had been convicted in a case involving a wrongful death, she said: “I think it really is a signal that America is changing. This is the farthest we’ve ever gone.”

She said she hoped that people who were infuriated enough to react violently on the evening of July 8 would channel that energy toward constructive goals of pushing for a more satisfactory outcome. Before rallies and later rioting began that night, Youth UpRising sent people into the crowd to hand out glossy flyers proclaiming “violence isn’t justice.”

Davey D Cook, an independent radio journalist who extensively covered activity surrounding Grant’s death on a news site called Davey D’s Hip Hop Corner, said he thought the mainstream media was ready to have “a field day” with the riots, pointing out that they ran special coverage in the days leading up to verdict, building up anticipation of violent outbreaks. He also said that the scope of the rioting should be kept in perspective.

On his July 9 KPFA radio show, Hard Knock Radio, Cook added a salient point: “Broken windows can be replaced, and in two weeks, they will be. Stolen merchandise can be replaced, and it will be. But who’s going to replace this justice system that got looted? What insurance policy takes care of that?”

Just before the July 10 press conference, a town hall meeting was held inside True Vine Ministries. It was crammed full of supporters from Oakland, San Francisco, and beyond who listened as Minister Keith Muhammad — a representative of the Nation of Islam who has worked closely with the Grant family and traveled to Los Angeles to watch the trial — spoke at length. Muhammad was dressed immaculately in a suit and tie, and spoke with an air of fiery conviction.

“In the outcome of this case, there is surely more to be resolved that has yet to be addressed,” Muhammad said. He emphasized that “we’re not satisfied,” but added: “You should know that dissatisfaction is the foundation of all change.”

He raised a number of questions about the proceedings, asking why there was an absence of African Americans on the jury, and why the judge called an early recess when Grant’s teenage friend, Jamil Dewar, sobbed uncontrollably on the witness stand — but not when Mehserle sobbed on the stand. He noted that Grant’s friends were kept in handcuffs for six hours after witnessing Grant’s death.

In the days following July 8, much was also said about mainstream media coverage of the events, in particular the notion that “outside agitators” would come in and start trouble. “I do not like this divisive campaign to divide our community and protestors by calling people outsiders,” Oakland defense attorney Walter Riley wrote in a statement posted on Indybay.org. “This is a great metropolitan area … we expect people from all over the map to participate in Oakland. Calling people outsiders in this instance is a political attack on the movement. The subtext is that the outsiders are white and not connected to Oakland. From the days of the civil rights movement to now, the outsider labeling failed to address the underlying problems for which people came together. We must engage in respectful political struggle. I understand the frustration. I do not support destruction and looting as political protest.”

 

LOOKING FORWARD

Mehserle’s conviction suggests the jurors believed his defense that he meant to draw and fire his Taser instead of his gun. In legal terms, settling on involuntary manslaughter, rather than second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, means the jury was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Mehserle had malice toward Grant. But the jury found that he was criminally negligent when he failed to notice that he had his gun instead of his Taser in the moments before he pulled the trigger.

“In California, and really in any state, it is extremely difficult for jurors to convict a police officer. There’s an extreme reluctance to do that,” Whitney Leigh, an attorney who formerly worked in the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, told us.

“There are undoubtedly instances where things like this have happened at some time in the past in California, that weren’t videotaped,” Leigh continued. “But for the videotape, if you walked 10 witnesses in who said that what happened, happened, no one would believe them if the officer took the stand and said that’s not what happened. The only reason there’s a case at all is that there’s a videotape.”

Leigh said he thought that unless the public develops a better awareness that police misconduct regularly occurs, “individuals are going to continue to be victimized by a system that effectively encourages officers to believe that they can act with significant impunity.”

Asked whether he thought it was likely that the federal government would decide to step in after concluding its investigation, he said it was a tough call. “The Justice Department is highly selective in the cases it chooses to prosecute for these crimes,” he cautioned. “That said, the kinds of cases they choose are ones that tend to have a lot of public attention and concern, so this fits within that category. Since it’s such a public case, it can have more of a widespread impact.”

If Mehserle was prosecuted at the federal level, the case would invoke Criminal Code 18 U.S.C. Sec. 242, used when a government agent or an individual acting under the color of authority denies someone their civil rights through force, threats, or intimidation, based on their race, gender, or another protected category.

Then again, the federal government’s decision over whether or not to step in may be linked to the degree of severity of Mehserle’s sentence.

California Penal Code Section 193 specifies the mitigated, midterm, and aggravated sentences for involuntary manslaughter: two, three, or four years in state prison, respectively. Because Mehserle’s case involves his personal use of a firearm, a sentence enhancement of three, four, or 10 years can be added to his prison time under California Penal Code Section 12022.5.

The judge will weigh circumstances to determine Mehserle’s sentence, possibly including his record as a police officer, his criminal record, age, remorse, and other factors, explained Jim Hammer, a former prosecutor and current San Francisco Police Commission member. The judge could toss out the sentence enhancement for personal use of a gun — and there’s a possibility he would deem extreme circumstances, such as his police record, to warrant probation rather than prison time. But Hammer said he thought both of those outcomes are unlikely.

“The judge will want to appear more than fair, not giving special treatment,” Hammer said. “Judges have to stand [for] election too, and in the light of the fact that somebody’s dead, I think the chance of probation is incredibly slim.”

Even if Mehserle receives a light sentence and then faces prosecution at the federal level, there is a chance that information about his past record as an officer — which was not admitted as evidence, thanks to laws that afford protections for police officers in these kinds of cases — would continue to be shielded. The protection applies even though Mehserle resigned.

“The average person just wants courts to be fair,” Leigh said. “And there’s an inherent unfairness in a system that allows a government or a police department that has all the resources and records to … use against you while shielding what might be much more serious and relevant acts by police officers. That’s one change that would be great if that did happen.”

A key legal issue in the case and any possible federal case is reasonable doubt, Hammer said. “Reasonable doubt is everything, and no one talks about it. They just say, ‘Oh, he didn’t have intent.’ That’s not the issue. Can anybody really, honestly say that they don’t have some doubts about his intent?”

At the same time, Hammer tempered his legal analysis with some understanding of Grant’s mother’s pain in light of what happened to her son and as the verdict was reached.

“If the dictionary had three pictures of murder for a picture image, one would be shooting somebody in the back who is unarmed,” he told the Guardian. “What she’s saying is not outrageous. If it were my relative I would probably call it murder too. She’s not crazy.”

As things continue to unfold with Mehserle’s sentencing and the federal civil rights investigation, civil litigation is in the works too. Wrongful death civil lawsuits will likely be filed against BART by Oakland civil rights attorney John Burris on behalf of Grant’s mother, as well as another suit by five friends who were with Grant the night he was killed. BART settled a suit filed on behalf of Tatiana Grant, the slain man’s five-year-old daughter, in January. That total settlement should amount to more than $5.1 million, according to a media release on Burris’ website.

During an interview after the July 10 press conference, Johnson was asked how Grant’s young daughter was doing. He responded: “Tatiana is still struggling with the issue of when her daddy’s coming home. So it’s going to take time for her, when she does understand that he is not coming back home.”

Outside Grant’s family, many observers hope to see systemic change come out of this tragedy. Assembly Member Tom Ammiano introduced legislation to create civilian oversight of BART police after the shooting, but was unhappy to see how it was watered down during the legislative process. Now he wants to see stronger reforms.

“I think Oscar Grant’s death was inevitable based on the lack of caring about how those police were trained,” he told us. “If you’re going to have the kind of independent civilian oversight that’s going to prevent a repeat of what happened to Oscar Grant, you can’t have this namby-pamby law. The mantra has been, well, this is better than nothing. Unless they’re made to do it … it’s not going to happen the way we want.”

Film listings

David Talbot
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0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Erik Morse, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide.

ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD

The seventh Another Hole in the Head Film Festival runs July 8-29 at the Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF; and Viz Cinema, New People, 1746 Post, SF. For tickets (most shows $11) and schedule, visit www.sfindie.com.

OPENING

Inception Christopher Nolan takes a break from the Bat-Director’s Chair to helm this Leonardo DiCaprio thriller about futuristic mind crimes. (2:30) Marina, Presidio.

*Let It Rain Well-known feminist author Agathe Villanova (writer-director Agnès Jaoui) is taking a rare break from her busy Paris life, visiting her hometown to see family, vacation with boyfriend Antoine (Frédéric Pierrot), and do a little stumping for her nascent political career. But despite the ever-picturesque French countryside as background, all is not harmonious. Antoine complains Agathe’s workaholism (among other things) is killing their relationship, particularly once she agrees to be time-consumingly interviewed for film about "successful women" by shambling documentarian Michel (coscenarist Jean-Pierre Bacri) and local Karim (Jamel Debbouze). Her married-with-children sister Florence (Pascale Arbillot) is having a secret affair with Michel, but seems more focused on old resentments springing from Agathe being their late mother’s favorite. Karim — son of the family’s longtime housekeeper (Mimouna Hadji) — bears his own grudge against the clan and brusque, officious Agathe in particular. Being happily wed, he’s further bothered at his hotel day job by his attraction to co-worker Aurélie (Florence Loiret-Caille). These various conflicts simmer, then boil over as the documentary shooting goes from bumbling to disastrous. In 2004, Jaoui delivered a pretty near perfect Gallic ensemble seriocomedy in Look at Me. This isn’t quite that good. Still, her seemingly effortless skill at managing complex character dynamics, eliciting expert performances (including her own), and weaving it all together with insouciant panache makes this a real pleasure. The problem with Agnès Jaoui: she’s so good it chafes that (acting-only gigs aside) she’s made just three films in ten years. Pick it up, girl! (1:39) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*[Rec] 2 See "666-ZOMB." (1:24) Lumiere.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Socially awkward science nerd Dave (Jay Baruchel) toils away on his suspiciously elaborate NYU physics project, unaware that he’s about to have a Harry Potter-style moment of awakening. Enter Balthazar (Nicolas Cage), a centuries-old, steampunky sorcerer who believes Dave to be "the Prime Merlinian" — i.e., the greatest conjurer since Merlin himself. (Literally) rising from ashes to provide conflict are fellow sorcerers Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Morgana (Alice Krige); signing on for romantic-interest purposes are Monica Bellucci and newcomer Teresa Palmer. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice spins off Disney classic Fantasia (1940) in only the loosest sense, though there is a scene of dancing brooms. The bland Baruchel’s rise to fame continues to mystify, but at least Cage and Molina seem to be having a blast exchanging insults and zapping each other around. (1:43) (Eddy)

South of the Border After a prolific career of dramatic films steeped in political commentary, Oliver Stone drops the pretext. South of the Border is his Michael Moore moment, a chance for the filmmaker to make a direct and focused documentary in which his bias is readily apparent. Stone travels to South American nations and meets with their political leaders, men and women — including Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa — who have long been considered enemies of the United States. His goal is to show that they are not ruthless dictators but rather democratically elected representatives of their country, cast in a negative light by a mainstream media with ulterior motives. Stone’s rapport with these politicians is intimate: at one point, he plays soccer with Morales. Even if you’re skeptical of his assertions, you can at least appreciate the unique perspective South of the Border offers. As a film, it’s somewhat slipshod, not nearly as glossy as a Moore production. But provided you’re willing to fill in the blanks, it’s a captivating and well-intentioned endeavor. (1:18) (Peitzman)

Spring Fever Shot surreptitiously and chock full of gay sex, Chinese director Lou Ye’s latest film isn’t likely to earn him any additional slack from Chinese government censors (his 2006 film, Summer Palace, got him banned from filmmaking for five years after he failed to preview it before it screened at Cannes). Using hand-held cameras, public settings, and natural lighting, Lou follows Wang Ping (Wu Wei), who’s been having a passionate, messy affair with travel agent Jiang Cheng (Qin Hao). Things get more complicated when the snoop Wang’s wife hires to follow her closeted husband winds up pursuing the two men in ways he never imagined. What Spring Fever lacks in continuity and psychological depth, it makes up for with sexual candor and a genuine frisson of risk, given the secretive conditions under which it was made. That thrill doesn’t quite last through the film’s duration, but as a document of defiance Spring Fever is commendable. (1:56) Four Star. (Sussman)

Standing Ovation Atlantic City teens form a song-and-dance troupe in this High School Musical-style family film. (1:48)

ONGOING

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo Opening with the humid buzz of crickets and the probings of bug aficionados in the thick of a forest, first-time documentarian Jessica Oreck puts Japan’s fascination with insects under the microscope. Preferring to let the images and interview subjects speak for themselves, she turns a lens to young children who clamor to buy sleek, shiny, obsidian beetles, as well as the giant big city gatherings of insect collectors — events that likely are less than familiar to western audiences. Oreck’s intent is to get at the ineffable attraction behind such astonishing sales as that of a single beetle for $90,000 not so long ago, and to that end, she weaves in looks at insect literature and art, visits to Buddhist temples, and historical factoids about, for instance, the first cricket-selling business in the early 1800s. (1:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*City Island The Rizzo family of City Island, N.Y. — a tiny atoll associated historically with fishing and jurisdictionally with the Bronx — have reached a state where their primary interactions consist of sniping, yelling, and storming out of rooms. These storm clouds operate as cover for the secrets they’re all busy keeping from one another. Correctional officer Vince (Andy Garcia) pretends he’s got frequent poker nights so he can skulk off to his true shameful indulgence: a Manhattan acting class. Perpetually fuming spouse Joyce (Julianna Margulies) assumes he’s having an affair. Daughter Vivian (Dominik García-Lorido) has dropped out of school to work at a strip joint, while the world class-sarcasms of teenager Vinnie (Ezra Miller) deflect attention from his own hidden life as an aspiring chubby chaser. All this (plus everyone’s sneaky cigarette habit) is nothing, however, compared to Vince’s really big secret: he conceived and abandoned a "love child" before marrying, and said guilty issue has just turned up as a 24-year-old car thief on his cell block. Writer-director Raymond De Felitta made a couple other features in the last 15 years, none widely seen; if this latest is typical, we need more of him, more often. Perfectly cast, City Island is farcical without being cartoonish, howl-inducing without lowering your brain-cell count. It’s arguably a better, less self-conscious slice of dysfunctional family absurdism than Little Miss Sunshine (2006) — complete with an Alan Arkin more inspired in his one big scene here than in all of that film’s Oscar-winning performance. (1:40) Four Star. (Harvey)

Cyrus It’s tempting to label Mark and Jay Duplass’ Cyrus as "mumblecore goes mainstream." Yes, the mumblecore elements are all there: plentiful moments of awkward humiliation, characters fumbling verbally and sometimes physically in desperate attempts to establish emotional connections, and a meandering, character-driven plot, in the sense that the characters themselves possess precious little drive. The addition of bona fide indie movie stars John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, and Marisa Tomei — not to mention Hollywood’s chubby-funny guy du jour, Jonah Hill — could lead some to believe that the DIY-loving Duplass brothers (2005’s The Puffy Chair, 2008’s Baghead) have gone from slacker disciples of John Cassavetes (informally known as "Slackavetes") to worshippers at the slickly profane (with a heart) altar of Judd Apatow. But despite the presence of Apatow protégé Hill (2007’s Superbad) in the title role, Cyrus steers clear of crowd-pleasing bombast, instead favoring small, relatively naturalistic moments. That is to say, not much actually happens. Mumblecore? More or less. Mainstream? Not exactly. Despite playing a character with some serious psychological issues, Hill comes off as likeable. Unfortunately the movie is neither as broadly comic nor as emotionally poignant as it needs to be — the two opposing forces seem to cancel each other out like acids and bases. (1:32) Empire, Sundance Kabuki. (Devereaux)

Despicable Me Judging from the adorable, booty-shaking, highly merchandisable charm of its sunny-yellow Percocet-like minions, Despicable Me‘s makers have more than a few fond memories of the California Raisins. That gives you an idea of the 30-second attention-span level at work here. Thanks to Pixar and company, our expectations for animated features are high, but despite the single lob at Lehman Brothers aimed toward the grown-ups, the humor here is pitched straight at the eight and younger crowd: from the mugging, child-like minions to the all-in-good-fun, slightly quease-inducing 3-D roller-coaster ride. Gru (Steve Carell) is Despicable‘s also-ran supervillain — a bit too old and too unoriginal for a game that’s been rigged in the favor of the youthful, annoyingly perky Vector (Jason Segel), who’s managed to swipe the Giza Pyramids and become the world’s number one bad dude. When Vector steals away the crucial shrink ray needed for Gru’s plot to thieve the moon, the latter pulls out the big guns: three adorable orphans who have managed to penetrate Vector’s defenses with their fund-raising cookie sales. It turns out kids have their own insidiously heart-warming way of wrecking havoc on one’s well-laid plans. Filmmakers Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud do their best to exploit the 3-D medium, but Avatar (2009) this is not. Nor will many adults be able to withstand the onslaught of cute undertaken by all those raisins, I mean, minions. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

*Exit Through the Gift Shop Exit Through the Gift Shop is not a film about the elusive graffiti-cum-conceptual artist and merry prankster known as Banksy, even though he takes up a good chunk of this sly and by-no-means impartial documentary and is listed as its director. Rather, as he informs us — voice electronically altered, face hidden in shadow — in the film’s opening minutes, the film’s real subject is one Thierry Guetta, a French expat living in LA whose hangdog eyes, squat stature, and propensity for mutton chops and polyester could pass him off as Ron Jeremy’s long lost twin. Unlike Jeremy, Guetta is not blessed with any prodigious natural talent to propel him to stardom, save for a compulsion to videotape every waking minute of his life (roughly 80 percent of the footage in Exit is Guetta’s) and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. When Guetta is introduced by his tagger cousin to a pre-Obamatized Shepard Fairey in 2007, he realizes his true calling: to make a documentary about the street art scene that was then only starting to get mainstream attention. Enter Banksy, who, at first, is Guetta’s ultimate quarry. Eventually, the two become chummy, with Guetta acting as lookout and documenter for the artist just as the art market starts clambering for its piece of, "the Scarlet Pimpernel of street art," as one headline dubs him. When, at about three quarters of the way in, Guetta, following Banksy’s casual suggestion, drops his camcorder and tries his hand at making street art, Exit becomes a very different beast. Guetta’s flashy debut as Mr. Brainwash is as obscenely successful as his "art" is terribly unimaginative — much to the chagrin of his former documentary subjects. But Guetta is no Eve Harrington and Banksy, who has the last laugh here, gives him plenty of rope with which to truss himself. Is Mr. Brainwash really the ridiculous and inevitable terminus of street art’s runaway mainstream success (which, it must be said, Banksy has handsomely profited from)? That question begs another: with friends like Banksy, who needs enemies? (1:27) Lumiere. (Sussman)

Get Him to the Greek At this point movie execs can throw producer Judd Apatow’s name on the marquee of a film and it’s a guaranteed blockbuster. It’s hard to say whether this Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) spin-off benefits from the Apatow sign of approval or if it would be better off standing on its own, but it definitely doesn’t benefit from comparisons to its predecessor. Russell Brand returns as the British rock star Aldous Snow, and Jonah Hill, playing a different character this time, is given the task of chaperoning the uncooperative Snow from London to LA in 48 hours. Despite a great cast, including a surprisingly animated P. Diddy, the story is pretty bland and can’t match the blend of drama and comedy that Marshall achieved. Of course, none of that matters because the movie execs are right: if you like Apatow’s brand of humor, you’re going to have a good time anyway. (1:49) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Peter Galvin)

*The Girl Who Played With Fire Lisbeth Salander is cooler than you are. The heroine of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling book series is fierce, mysterious, and utterly captivating: in the movie adaptations, she’s perfectly realized by Noomi Rapace, who has the power to transform Lisbeth from literary hero to film icon. Rapace first impressed audiences in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009), a faithful adaptation of Larsson’s premiere novel, and she returns as Lisbeth in The Girl Who Played With Fire. The sequel, as is often the case, isn’t quite on par with the original, but it’s still a page-to-screen success. And while the first film spent equal time on journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), The Girl Who Played With Fire is almost entirely Lisbeth’s story. Sure, there’s more to the movie than the hacker-turned-sleuth — and the actor who plays her — but she carries the film. Rapace is Lisbeth; Lisbeth is Rapace. I’d watch both in anything. (2:09) Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called "Millennium" books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Four Star, Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Grown Ups In order of star power, Grown Ups casts Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, and David Spade as five fortysomething friends who reunite to attend the funeral of their high school basketball coach, and play catch-up over a long weekend together at a cabin by the lake. If you’re expecting five of America’s biggest comedy stars to form like Voltron and make the most hilarious movie of the year, you’ve got a sad day coming. Grown Ups is never the sum of its parts, it’s about on par with Sandler’s other producing/starring affairs, and probably features a lot of the same jokes. People fall in poop and little kids say cute things designed to make audiences awww, but history has shown that’s exactly what a popcorn viewer is looking for. By these standards, Grown Ups is a perfectly summer-y movie. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness. (Galvin)

*I Am Love I Am Love opens in a chilly, Christmastime Milan and deliberately warms in tandem with its characters. Members of the blue-blood Recchi family are content hosting lavish parties and gossiping about one another, none more than the matriarch Emma (Tilda Swinton). But when prodigal son Edoardo befriends a local chef, Emma finds herself taken by both the chef’s food and his everyman personality, and is reminded of her poor Soviet upbringing. The courtship that follows is familiar on paper, but director Luca Guadagnino lenses with a strong style and small scenes acquire a distinct energy through careful editing and John Adams’ unpredictable score. Swinton portrays Emma’s unraveling with the same gritty gusto she brought to Julia (2008), and her commitment to the role recognizes few boundaries. You’ve probably seen this story before, but it has rarely been this powerful. (2:00) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Galvin)

*Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work Whether you’re a fan of its subject or not, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s documentary is an absorbing look at the business of entertainment, a demanding treadmill that fame doesn’t really make any easier. At 75, comedian Rivers has four decades in the spotlight behind her. Yet despite a high Q rating she finds it difficult to get the top-ranked gigs, no matter that as a workaholic who’ll take anything she could scarcely be more available. Funny onstage (and a lot ruder than on TV), she’s very, very focused off-, dismissive of being called a "trailblazer" when she’s still actively competing with those whose women comics trail she blazed for today’s hot TV guest spot or whatever. Anyone seeking a thorough career overview will have to look elsewhere; this vérité year-in-the-life portrait is, like the lady herself, entertainingly and quite fiercely focused on the here-and-now. (1:24) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

John Rabe John Rabe (Ulrich Tukur) was the Oskar Schindler of Nanking: A man who, under discreetly opportunist pretenses, attempted to keep the Chinese in a safety zone from the Japanese in the late 30s. Steve Buscemi plays Robert Wilson, a surly American doctor. He’s to Tukur as Ben Kingsley was to Liam Neeson in 1993’s Schindler’s List, but without the nuance or iconic chemistry. Tukur is understated, bordering on uninteresting, and Buscemi is just over-the-top. Unlike Spielberg’s film, John Rabe grants us little access to the stories of civilians. The film is so preoccupied with people of power and those like Rabe, couched in a world of privilege, that the film lacks an emotional, human center. It’s impossible to feel much of anything because we’re never asked to feel, nor are we ever asked to endure any especially difficult scenes. Even the occasional rain of hellfire isn’t as wallop-packing as it ought to be. (2:14) Four Star, Presidio. (Ryan Lattanzio)

The Karate Kid The most baffling thing about The Karate Kid is its title: little Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) never actually learns karate. He practices kung-fu, an entirely different form of martial arts — you know, from a different country. There’s something obnoxious and absurd about the misnomer: the film seems to suggest that if you’ve seen one Asian culture, you’ve seen them all. That aside, it’s not a bad movie. Smith is mostly pretty likeable, and there’s a definite satisfaction to seeing him grow from bullied weakling to kung-fu star. And Jackie Chan gets to exercise his dramatic chops — he even gets a crying scene! But Karate Kid is a "reboot," the preferred term for the endless stream of unnecessary remakes Hollywood keeps churning out. You can’t help but think about the superior 1984 version. Jaden Smith is no Ralph Macchio, Jackie Chan is no Pat Morita, and kung-fu is no karate. Don’t even get me started on the "jacket on, jacket off" crap. Which, if you say it quickly, sounds a little adult for a PG movie. (2:20) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Peitzman)

*The Kids Are All Right In many ways, The Kids Are All Right is a straightforward family dramedy: it’s about parents trying to do what’s best for their children and struggling to keep their relationship together. But it’s also a film in which Jules (Julianne Moore) goes down on Nic (Annette Bening) while they’re watching gay porn. Director Lisa Cholodenko (1998’s High Art) co-wrote the script (with Stuart Blumberg), and the film’s blend between mainstream and queer is part of what makes Kids such an important — not to mention enjoyable — film. Despite presenting issues that might be contentious to large portions of the country, the movie maintains an approachability that’s often lacking in queer cinema. Of course, being in the gay mecca of the Bay Area skews things significantly — most locals wouldn’t bat an eye at Kids, which has Nic and Jules’ children inviting their biological father ("the sperm donor," played by Mark Ruffalo) into their lives. But for those outside the liberal bubble, the idea of a nontraditional family might be more eye-opening. It’s not a message movie, but Kids may still change minds. And even if it doesn’t, the film is a success that works chiefly because it isn’t heavy-handed. It refuses to take itself too seriously. At its best, Kids is laugh-out-loud funny, handling the heaviest of issues with grace and humor. (1:47) Bridge, SF Center. (Peitzman)

*Knight and Day A Bourne-again Vanilla Sky (2001)? Considerably better than that embarrassingly silly stateside remake, though not quite as fulfilling as director James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma (2007) rework, this action caper played for yuks still isn’t the most original article in the cineplex. But coasting on the dazzling Cheshire grins of its stars, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, reunited for the first time since Sky, you can just make out the birth of a beautiful new franchise. Everygirl June Havens (Diaz) is on her way to her sister’s wedding when she collides-cute at the airport with Roy Miller (Cruise). After killing the passengers and pilots on their plane, he literally sweeps her off her feet — thanks to some potent drugs. Picture a would-be Bond girl dragged against a spy-vs.-spy thriller semi-against-her-will — grappling with the subtextual anxiety rushing beneath all brief romantic encounters as well as some very justifiable survival fears. Can June overcome her trust issues? Is Roy the man of her dreams — or nightmares? Mangold and company miss a few opportunities to have more fun with those barely teased out ideas, and the polished, adult-yet-far-from-knowing charisma of the leads doesn’t quite live up to sophisticated interplay of Cary Grant and Grace Kelly, or even the down-home fun of Burt Reynolds and Sally Field, but it’s substantial enough for Knight and Day to coast on, for about 90 minutes tops. (2:10) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Last Airbender There must be some M. Night Shyamalan fans out there. How else does one explain the fact that he keeps making movies? And yet, most of his post-Sixth Sense (1999) work has ranged from forgettable to downright reviled. His latest disaster is sure to fall into the latter category: in The Last Airbender, he takes a much-loved Nickelodeon cartoon and transforms it into an awkwardly paced, poorly acted mess. Woefully miscast Noah Ringer stars as Aang, the avatar with the power to end the Fire Nation’s dominion. Along with his friends, siblings Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and Katara (Nicola Peltz), Aang must — oh, just watch the damn show. For newcomers, the film is as confusing as Shyamalan’s equally self-indulgent Lady in the Water (2006). For fans of the TV show, The Last Airbender is nearly unbearable, condensing the entire first season into one film by removing the humor, the heart, and the complexity of the characters. There’s no twist here — we expect Shyamalan to disappoint, and he does. (1:34) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Micmacs An urge to baby-talk at the screen underlines what is wrong with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s new film: it is like a precocious child all too aware how to work a room, reprising adorable past behaviors with pushy determination and no remaining spontaneity whatsoever. There will be cooing. There will be clucking. But there will also a few viewers rolling their eyes, thinking "This kid rides my last nerve." It’s easy to understand why Jeunet’s movies (including 2001’s Amélie) are so beloved, doubtless by many previously allergic to subtitles. (Of course, few filmmakers need dialogue less.) They are eye-candy, and brain-candy too: fantastical, hyper, exotic, appealing to the child within but with dark streaks, byzantine of plot yet requiring no close narrative attention at all. The artistry and craftsmanship are unmissable, no ingenious design or whimsical detail left unemphasized. In Micmacs, hero Bazil (Dany Boon) is a lovable misfit who lost his father to an Algerian landmine, then loses his own job and home when he’s brain-injured by a stray bullet. He falls in with a crazy coterie of lovable misfits who live underground, make wacky contraptions from junk, and each have their own special, not-quite-super "power." They help him wreak elaborate, fanciful revenge on the greedy arms manufacturers (André Dussollier, Nicolas Marié) behind his misfortunes, as well as various human rights-y global ones. So there’s a message here, couched in fun. But the effect is rather like a birthday clown begging funds for Darfur — or Robert Benigni’s dreaded Life is Beautiful (1997), good intentions coming off a bit hubristic, even distasteful. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Predators Anyone who claims to be disappointed by Predators has clearly never seen parts one and two in the series; all three are straight B-movie affairs (though 1990’s Predator 2 takes everything oh-so-slightly over the top. Gary Busey’ll do that). And if you’ve seen either of the recent Predator-versus-Alien flicks, Predators should feel like a masterpiece. Nimród Antal directs under the banner of Robert Rodriguez’s production company, which explains the presence of Danny "Machete" Trejo in the cast. Adrien Brody stashes his Oscar in a safe place to star as Royce, a well-armed mercenary who awakes to find himself in free fall, plummeting into a strange jungle along with other elite-forces types (including Brazilian Alice Braga, playing an Israeli soldier). It doesn’t take long before Royce realizes that "this is a game preserve, and we’re the game." I wish Predators had allowed itself to have a little more fun with its uniquely skilled characters (the yakuza guy does have a nice, if culturally-stereotyped, swordplay scene); there’s also an underdeveloped "plot twist" involving the presence of the decidedly un-badass Topher Grace among the human prey. But all is forgiven when Laurence Fishburne turns up as Crazy Old Dude Who’s Been Hiding Out With Predators a Little Too Long. Fishburne’s presence also adds to the heart-of-darkness vibe the movie seems vaguely interested in conveying. (1:51) 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*Restrepo Starting mid-’07, journalists-filmmakers Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger spent some 15 months off and on embedded with a U.S. Army platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley, a Taliban stronghold with steep, mountainous terrain that could hardly be more advantageous for snipers. Particularly once a second, even more isolated outpost is built, the soldiers’ days are fraught with tension, whether they’re ordered out into the open on a mission or staying put under frequent fire. Strictly vérité, with no political commentary overt or otherwise, the documentary could be (and has been) faulted for not having enough of a "narrative arc" — as if life often does, particularly under such extreme circumstances. But it’s harrowingly immediate (the filmmakers themselves often have to dive for cover) and revelatory as a glimpse not just of active warfare, but of the near-impossible challenges particular to foreign armed forces trying to make any kind of "progress" in Afghanistan. (1:33) Clay. (Harvey)

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07) Opera Plaza, Red Vic.

*Stonewall Uprising On the night of June 28, 1969, police embarked on what they thought would be a routine raid on a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, the sleazy, Mafia-run Stonewall Inn. The ensuing three days of rioting — during which mostly young men and drag queens accustomed to being marginalized and hauled off to jail stood their ground and fought back — became what historian Lillian Faderman has called "the shot heard round the world" for LGBT activism: a spontaneous expression of street-level outrage that fueled the birth of a movement. Kate Davis and David Heilbroner’s solid documentary Stonewall Uprising takes a "just the facts, ma’am" approach to this historic flashpoint that makes for an information-packed, if at times dry, 80 minutes. Working around the paucity of photographic documentation of the actual riots (itself a testament to the marginalization of homosexuality in the late 1960s), Davis and Heilbroner make extensive use of period news footage and photography, reenactments, and most important, the first-person testimonies of who those who witnessed and participated in what one interviewee terms "our Rosa Parks moment." The filmmakers’ contextual groundwork is as impressive for its archival research as it is repetitive in its message: pre-Stonewall life was hell. The documentary becomes more nuanced as it zeros in on reconstructing the first night of rioting via eyewitness accounts. (1:22) Lumiere. (Sussman)

Touching Home Hometown boys (Logan and Noah Miller) make good in this based-on-a-true-story tale of identical twins who must divide their time at home between training for major league baseball and looking after their alcoholic father. The brothers, who also wrote and directed the film, aim for David Gordon Green by way of Marin, but fall short of mastering that director’s knack for natural dialogue. Ed Harris is, unsurprisingly, compelling as the alcoholic father, but the actors in the film who are not named Ed Harris tend to contribute to the script’s distracting histrionics. Touching Home has some amazing NorCal cinematography, and I could see how family audiences might enjoy its "feel bad, then feel good" style of melodrama. But while it’s awkward to say that someone’s real-life experiences come off as trite, there are moments here that feel as clichéd as a Lifetime movie. (1:48) Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

*Toy Story 3 You’ve got a friend in Pixar. We all do. The animation studio just can’t seem to make a bad movie — even at its relative worst, a Pixar film is still worlds better than most of what Hollywood churns out. Luckily, Toy Story 3 is far from the worst: it’s actually one of Pixar’s most enjoyable and poignant films yet. Waiting 11 years after the release of Toy Story 2 was, in fact, a stroke of genius, in that it amplifies the nostalgia that runs through so many of the studio’s releases. The kids who were raised on Toy Story and its first sequel have now grown up, gone to college, and, presumably, abandoned their toys. For these twentysomethings, myself included, Toy Story 3 is a uniquely satisfying and heartbreaking experience. While the film itself may not be the instant classic that WALL-E (2008) was, it’s near flawless regardless of a viewer’s age. Warm, funny, and emotionally devastating—it’s Pixar as it should be. (1:49) Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse The only person more bored by the Twilight franchise than I am is Kristen Stewart. In Eclipse, the third installment of the film series, she mopes her way through further adventures with creepily obsessive vampire Edward (Robert Pattinson). Look, you’re either sold on this star-crossed love story or you’re not, and it’s clear which camp I fall into. Besides, Eclipse is at least better than New Moon, the dreadful Twilight film that preceded it last year. But the story is still ponderous and predictable — Eclipse sets up a conflict and then quickly resolves it, just so it can spend more time on the Bella-Edward-Jacob love triangle. (As if we don’t know how that ends.) Then there’s the unfortunate anti-sex subtext: carnal relations are cast as dirty, wrong, and soul-destroying. I’m not saying we should be encouraging all teenagers to have sex, but that doesn’t mean we should make them feel ashamed of their desires. And what parent would approve of Eclipse‘s conclusion? Marrying your first boyfriend at 18 — not always the best move. (2:04) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Wild Grass The premise of Wild Grass, Alain Resnais’ loopy new film, could have come straight from Nancy Meyers: an older married man finds a single, middle-aged woman’s wallet. He returns it but can’t stop thinking about her. She, in turn, is intrigued by his attentions. Both are surprised by the connection they feel growing between them, one which they nevertheless have difficulty articulating. When they finally meet, sparks fly. That purloined wallet, along with the romcom set-up, aren’t the only MacGuffins in Resnais’ Wild ride, which uses Christian Gailly’s novel L’ Incindent as a rough guide for its careening tour of the irrational courses that desire can lead us down. The man and woman in question are Georges, an embittered writer with a possibly dark past, and flame-haired Marguerite, a dentist and part-time aviatrix, both played to neurotic perfection by longtime Resnais regulars André Dussollier and Sabine Azéma. Resnais’ attempt to translate what he has called the "musicality" of Gailly’s prose has resulted in a frenetic everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach that tries to visually approximate Georges and Marguerites’ every internal monologue, fantasy, and increasingly risky instance of impulsive behavior, throwing in some knowing winks to classic Hollywood cinema for good measure. It’s a mess, to be sure (there are even two endings!). But like Mr. Magoo, the 87-year-old Resnais, as if by some unseen hand, steers clear of complete disaster. There hasn’t been a Gallic car crash this delightful to watch since Godard’s famous pile-up in 1967’s Week End. (1:44) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Sussman)

*Winter’s Bone Winter’s Bone has already won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival, but it’s the kind of downbeat, low-key, quiet film that may elude larger audiences (and, as these things go, Oscar voters). Like Andrea Arnold’s recent Fish Tank, it tells the story of a teenage girl who draws on unlikely reserves of toughness to navigate an unstable family life amid less-than-ideal economic circumstances. And it’s also directed by a woman: Debra Granik, whose previous feature, 2004’s Down to the Bone, starred Vera Farmiga (2009’s Up in the Air) as a checkout clerk trying to balance two kids and a secret coke habit.

Drugs also figure into the plot of the harrowing Winter’s Bone, though its protagonist, Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence), is faced with a different set of circumstances: her meth head father has jumped bail, leaving the family’s humble mountain home as collateral; the two kids at stake are her younger siblings. With no resources other than her own tenacity, Ree strikes out into her rural Missouri community, seeking information from relatives who clearly know where her father is — but ain’t sayin’ a word. It’s a journey fraught with menace, shot with an eye for near-documentary realism and an appreciation for slow-burn suspense; Lawrence anchors a solid cast with her own powerful performance. Who says American independent film is dead? (1:40) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

REP PICKS

*Beyond the Doors and Bigfoot This double bill in the middle of the Vortex Room’s conspiracy-focused schedule of Thursday screenings offers musings on some favorite 1970s subjects for paranoid speculation. "Our assignment: neutralize the three Pied Pipers of rock n’ roll music," recalls a government operative near the beginning of Larry Buchanan’s Beyond the Doors. Upset at Vietnam protests and drug culture, President Nixon hits on the logical solution: Jimi, Janis and Jim (Morrison) must die. Made in 1984, this late effort by Southern cheesebagger Buchanan followed three decades of such titles as Naughty Dallas (1964), Zontar: The Thing from Venus (1966), Mars Needs Women (1967), and The Loch Ness Horror (1981). Having achieved modest box-office success with his tabloid-tenored 1976 take on Marilyn Monroe, Goodbye Norma Jean, Buchanan applied the same delicate brushstrokes to this dramatized imagining of what really happened to acid rock’s martyred holy trinity. Actor "discoveries" Gregory Allen Chatman (Hendrix), Riba Meryl (Joplin), and Bryan Wolf (Morrison) were, not entirely surprisingly heard from again, though the various approximations of those musicians’ sounds could be worse. In the second half of the Vortex Room bill, John Carradine helps helps various bikers, rednecks, and cops investigate the abduction of underdressed white-meat babes which Bigfoot (or rather, several Bigfoots … or is that Bigfeet?) kidnaps to chain up in a cave so that they might squirm and scream in their bikini briefs. (The original ad line was "Breeds with anything.") Leading victim is 1950s starlet Joi Lansing, a Mormon-raised Monroe wannabe whose prior career highlights were a brief run on The Beverly Hillbillies, bits in studio features and leads in Z-grade films like the glorified ’67 country-music concert compendium Hillbillies in a Haunted House. This being a 1970 drive-in feature (by Robert F. Slatzer, who’d made the rather stupendously bad 1967 Hellcats), naturally a biker club rides to the eventual rescue, pitting one group of hairy primitives against another. Add Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) star Haji, Elvis bodyguard Del "Sonny" West, some hoary Hollywood veterans, and lesser Mitchum family members, and you’ve got one weird time capsule. Thurs/15, 8 p.m., $5, Vortex Room, 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. (Harvey)

Fix the BART police force – or disband it

David Talbot
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4

18 months after a BART cop shot Oscar Grant, the transit agency still doesn’t have effective police oversight

EDITORIAL Who murdered Oscar Grant? Part of the equation is the years of neglect of the BART Police. — Assembly Member Tom Ammiano

We’re angry, too.

Angry that a police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man could wind up with little or no prison time. Angry that the news media whipped up such a fervor over the potential for a riot in Oakland that it almost guaranteed someone would show up and break a few windows. Angry that the jury who decided this case was 400 miles away and included no African Americans.

But mostly we’re angry that 18 months after a BART cop shot Oscar Grant, the transit agency still doesn’t have effective police oversight. And until the BART board recognizes that it still has 200 poorly trained, poorly supervised,* armed officers on the streets — and that this shooting wasn’t an anomaly, it was simply the latest in a series of criminal acts by BART police officers that led to the deaths of innocent people — and until the BART Board starts treating this like the emergency that it is, the problems are going to continue.

There are elements of this case that are historic — and very positive. This is the first time we can remember that a police officer in California has faced murder charges for an on-duty shooting. That alone sends a powerful message — and the Alameda County District Attorney deserves immense credit for taking the case to trial. And let’s not forget: Johannes Mehserle was, in fact, convicted. With the additional penalties for using a handgun, he could wind up with a sentence of more than 10 years.

Much of that is now in the hands of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry, who will sentence Mehserle later this summer. The judge in an involuntary manslaughter case has considerable discretion; he could, conceivably, sentence Mehserle to probation, and the killer of an unarmed man could walk away with no jail time at all. Perry could sentence him to five years (of which the former officer would probably serve no more than three). He could also go as high as 14 years, which seems more reasonable.

Most of the protesters in Oakland were peaceful; most recognized that the verdict was mixed, that at least Mehserle was convicted, and that there’s still a chance justice will be done. It’s hard to imagine that the patience of the community will last long in the wake of an unacceptably short sentence.

But even if Perry issues a sentence that reflects the crime, there’s still the problem of the BART Police. This isn’t the first time a BART cop has killed an unarmed person; twice before, the subway system’s finest have committed crimes just as heinous as the one that put Johannes Mehserle in the dock. The difference is that the previous shootings — which we covered in depth and the mainstream media ignored — were never caught on video. BART never took either killing seriously, never changed police oversight procedures — and shouldn’t be surprised that nothing changed.

Now the agency, with much reluctance and gnashing of teeth, has created a modest civilian oversight program. But it’s not enough — and the reason is simple: The BART directors don’t want to spend the time it takes to monitor and control an armed police force. They’ve always happily delegated that job to someone else — a general manager, an assistant general manager, a police chief — and never done the job they were elected to do.

Now time’s up. The BART directors need to take direct control of the police, including holding hearings on disciplinary action and quickly acting on complaints against problem officers. Or they need to recognize that they can’t run a police force, disband the BART police, and let a professional law enforcement agency from one or more of the BART counties take over.

Fix the BART police force – or disband it

David Talbot
-
0
Fix the BART police force – or disband it

EDITORIAL Who murdered Oscar Grant? Part of the equation is the years of neglect of the BART Police. — Assembly Member Tom Ammiano

We’re angry, too.

Angry that a police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man could wind up with little or no prison time. Angry that the news media whipped up such a fervor over the potential for a riot in Oakland that it almost guaranteed someone would show up and break a few windows. Angry that the jury who decided this case was 400 miles away and included no African Americans.

But mostly we’re angry that 18 months after a BART cop shot Oscar Grant, the transit agency still doesn’t have effective police oversight. And until the BART board recognizes that it still has 200 poorly trained, poorly supervised,* armed officers on the streets — and that this shooting wasn’t an anomaly, it was simply the latest in a series of criminal acts by BART police officers that led to the deaths of innocent people — and until the BART Board starts treating this like the emergency that it is, the problems are going to continue.

There are elements of this case that are historic — and very positive. This is the first time we can remember that a police officer in California has faced murder charges for an on-duty shooting. That alone sends a powerful message — and the Alameda County District Attorney deserves immense credit for taking the case to trial. And let’s not forget: Johannes Mehserle was, in fact, convicted. With the additional penalties for using a handgun, he could wind up with a sentence of more than 10 years.

Much of that is now in the hands of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Perry, who will sentence Mehserle later this summer. The judge in an involuntary manslaughter case has considerable discretion; he could, conceivably, sentence Mehserle to probation, and the killer of an unarmed man could walk away with no jail time at all. Perry could sentence him to five years (of which the former officer would probably serve no more than three). He could also go as high as 14 years, which seems more reasonable.

Most of the protesters in Oakland were peaceful; most recognized that the verdict was mixed, that at least Mehserle was convicted, and that there’s still a chance justice will be done. It’s hard to imagine that the patience of the community will last long in the wake of an unacceptably short sentence.

But even if Perry issues a sentence that reflects the crime, there’s still the problem of the BART Police. This isn’t the first time a BART cop has killed an unarmed person; twice before, the subway system’s finest have committed crimes just as heinous as the one that put Johannes Mehserle in the dock. The difference is that the previous shootings — which we covered in depth and the mainstream media ignored — were never caught on video. BART never took either killing seriously, never changed police oversight procedures — and shouldn’t be surprised that nothing changed.

Now the agency, with much reluctance and gnashing of teeth, has created a modest civilian oversight program. But it’s not enough — and the reason is simple: The BART directors don’t want to spend the time it takes to monitor and control an armed police force. They’ve always happily delegated that job to someone else — a general manager, an assistant general manager, a police chief — and never done the job they were elected to do.

Now time’s up. The BART directors need to take direct control of the police, including holding hearings on disciplinary action and quickly acting on complaints against problem officers. Or they need to recognize that they can’t run a police force, disband the BART police, and let a professional law enforcement agency from one or more of the BART counties take over.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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0
Editor’s Notes

tredmond@sfbg.com

Broken windows can be replaced, and in two weeks, they will be. Stolen merchandise can be replaced, and it will be. But who’s going to replace this justice system that got looted? What insurance policy takes care of that? —

Davey D Cook, Hard Knock Radio, KPFA, July 9

I’m not going to argue with the jury that convicted Johannes Mehserle of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Oscar Grant. I didn’t sit through the entire trial; I didn’t hear all of the testimony; I didn’t get the judge’s instructions on the law. I know it looks a lot like murder when you take a gun and shoot someone in the back, but the law requires intent, and the jury clearly believed — based on the evidence presented at trial — that the white officer made a mistake and never wanted to kill the young black man.

Based on the evidence I’ve seen — the videotape of the shooting, which, like many Bay Area residents, I’ve watched dozens of times— Mehserle had plenty of opportunity to back off, to recognize that he was about to fire a weapon at a man who was already on the ground and under police control. And remember: a Taser can also be lethal.

But the jury didn’t see evidence of murder, and voluntary manslaughter is a strange amalgam that’s very hard to fit with this case. If the judge sentences Mehserle to something close to the maximum (14 years), then some form of justice will have been done.

I say some form because it’s impossible to talk about this case without talking about race.

If Oscar Grant had been a white guy — even a drunk, belligerent, obnoxious white guy — I don’t think he ever would have been shot. The cops deal with annoying white people all the time, and they don’t get beat up, shot, or abused anywhere nearly as often as black people. That’s just reality.

Well-trained police officers working for professional law enforcement agencies are taught to be sensitive to race issues. They’re also taught how to make sure not to confuse a pistol with a Taser. It doesn’t always work — anyone who follows the criminal justice system knows that racism is very much a part of life. (And, of course, the BART police force is not a professional operation, and its officers aren’t well trained.)

If Mehserle had been a black kid from Hunters Point who was involved in a shooting death — even if he didn’t pull the trigger, even if he never meant to kill anyone — he’d be going to prison for a long, long time. The very fact that people are discussing the possibility of probation or a short sentence for Mehserle is a statement about the unfairness of our justice system.

And that’s not going to get fixed in two weeks. *

Oakland considers limiting and licensing marijuana growers

Sasha Cuttler
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7
Oakland considers limiting and licensing marijuana growers

Updated info below

The medical marijuana community – everyone from small growers to Harborside Health Center, the biggest dispensary in Oakland – are reacting strongly against an ordinance proposed by Oakland City Council members Rebecca Kaplan and Larry Reid to limit and license marijuana cultivation, a proposal that will be heard tonight (7/13) at 6 p.m. by the council’s Public Safety Committee.

They say the measure is an affront to medical marijuana patients and the small growing operations that have been at the forefront of the long struggle to legalize pot for medical uses. While the measure stems from concern about growing weed in residential areas – it would allow only a few large growing operations exclusively in industrial areas – critics characterize it as an attack on patients that violates Prop. 215, the 1996 measure that legalized medical marijuana and explicitly allows patients to grow their own medicine.

“It’s a disturbing turn of events for the usually forward thinking Oakland City Council,” medical marijuana consultant Gaynell Rogers, who works with Harborside, the city’s premier dispensary, wrote in a press release. It went on to quote Harborisde executive director Steve DeAngelo as saying, “This ordinance would deprive hundreds of patient-farmers of their livelihood. It seems a very unfair way to repay them for the years during which they courageously stood up to the federal government, and faithfully supplied patients with the medicine they could not get anywhere else…I’d rather see Harborside’s own opportunity to produce on a centralized efficient-scale basis reduced, than to see the small patient-farmers who are the backbone of this movement driven to extinction.”

Kaplan did not immediately return a Guardian call seeking comment, and neither did Oakland City Attorney John Russo, who is one of the few active law enforcement officers and elected officials to come out in support of Prop. 19, the fall ballot measure that would legalize marijuana for even recreational use by adults.

In addition to regulating growers for the first time, the proposed legislation would also increase the number of licensed dispensaries from four to six. San Francisco, a trailblazer in regulating medical marijuana, currently has more than 22 licensed dispensaries and no licensing program for growers, although Sup. Ross Mirkarimi has said there is a need to better protect growers from prosecution and even to explore having the city grow medical marijuana.

While medical marijuana advocates welcome regulations as a necessary step toward legitimizing the industry, they generally oppose anything limits a patient’s rights to grow their own weed. “We support local regulation but not when it’s at the expense of patients,” Mike Meno, a spokesperson for the DC-based Marijuana Policy Project, told the Guardian.

The hearing will be held in council chambers, with this item last on the agenda for a meeting that begins at 6 p.m.

Update: Kaplan has been in a closed session on Oakland Police Department issues all day, but her staffers just got back to me and clarified that the measure allows small grows of up to 96 square feet or 72 plants (Oakland’s standard for the needs of three patients) to continue unlicensed, although they say the intention is to eventually set standards and a legal framework for all medical marijuana growers.

Policy analyst Ada Chan said Kaplan is concerned about commercial grows in residential areas and its related crime and fire risks and “she feels we need to move it out of residential areas.” She said Harborside and other medical marijuana players were consulted in drafting the legislation, which she said would likely be subject to more staff work before being approved: “This is just the first step.”

But Harborside attorney James Anthony told us that he had not seen language or specifics on the legislation until it was publicly released last week, he’s still concerned that small growing operations will be hurt by the measure because of ambiguity in the legislation, and he fears the council intends to move quickly on an unworkable policy: “This thing is on track to go to the full City Council next week and pass.”

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