Police

Criticism of BART oversight plans grows

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By Tim Redmond

I’m not the only one criticizing the BART Board’s weak and ineffective proposal for police oversight. The conservative Contra Costa Times weighed in today with a strong editorial saying that the BART proposal doesn’t go far enough and suggesting that BART adopt a San Francisco-style model:

BART should consider putting together a review board similar to what San Francisco has with its police review commission. It has a say over discipline of officers for serious offenses.

At the very least, a BART auditor and review panel should have a strong voice in developing hiring and training policies for BART officers. They also should be trusted to do more than simply offer their opinions regarding discipline of transit officers.

So when the Guardian and the CoCo Times agree on something, it’s pretty clear that a wide range of people with divergent viewpoints want more action than the BART Board has offered. I hope the board members are paying attention.

Prison report: American idle

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By Just a Guy

Editors note: Just a Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His columns run Mondays and Thursdays. You can read his last post and links to some of his past columns here. He will try to respond to all comments and questions, but it’s tricky to communicate from prison, so be patient.

Were all of you as surprised as I was at the results of American Idol? Hey! Don’t make fun, so I watch Idol with all that extra IDLE time Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, says I will have more of because of the layoff of 3,665 CDCR employees.

The reason I bring up American Idol is I see the results of the voting as similar to the mindset of Californians and the rest of the U.S. when it comes to prisons, inmates, and crime. One of the contestants was clearly a better singer and performer than the other, but the voting seemed not to be based on singing ability, rather by cultural ideologies and societal mores derived from Christian “values.”

What I mean is: one of the finalists was, obviously, “different” than the rest of “us,” so rather than voting for the guy with eye liner and a boyfriend America voted for Ken, Barbie, and their daughter because that’s what we’ve always done.

So it is with prisons and crime, because now Johnny Appleseed has become Johnny the Bad Apple and rather than embrace change it’s easier to fall back on what we’ve been told is correct (pounded in to us since elementary school), and that is: drugs are bad, “criminals” are bad, inmates are bad, ALL police are good, and prisons are good because they protect the public.

Something I noticed since Propositions 1A-1E didn’t pass on Tuesday is that the media and politicians have stopped talking about reductions in prison population and the early release of inmates. Now, they talk about the even deeper slashing of budgets for education, medical and mental-health care, and law enforcement. I am not sure I really understand this language, since “law enforcement” is such an all-encompassing term. It seems as if the word “release” is synonymous with Dalit (the Indian word for untouchable).

Maybe if we don’t mention the problem of prison overcrowding, it will just go away. Maybe if don’t mention releases, the CCPOA won’t say anything either, and we can let inmates go (or not) and nobody will notice.

Devil’s poetry

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AFRO-SURREAL Sadly, the mythology of poet Bob Kaufman almost rivals all we have left of his poetry. However, to place Kaufman within a mere "cult of personality" (along the lines of some of his contemporaries) undermines the innovation of his process and what it brings to the tapestry of American poetics and the complicated and surreal orality of his poems.

Called "the American Rimbaud" by the French, Kaufman lived as a poetic assassin. A frequently arrested union organizer, like Stagger Lee wielding a .44 of devil’s poetry, Kaufman assaulted the willing and unwilling (even white police officers) with verse. If you were cool, you knew his assault was meant as a cipher, a juxtaposition of rhythm, image, and sound meant to invite the listener into a dialectical examination of identity, even the identity obtained from syntax: "I went to a masquerade<0x2009>/ Disguised as myself<0x2009>/ Not one of my friends recognized."

Kaufman’s poetics were Kerouac’s spontaneous prose without the notebook, taken literally. Think an un-choreographed version of "Amethyst Rocks," the prison yard scene in Slam (1998) where Saul Williams stops a would-be beatdown with poetry. Except for Kaufman the beatdown was always real, inevitable, and though sometimes provoked, never for the camera.

Kaufman was the spirit of true North Beach bohemia: the street poet who stood "on yardbird corners of embryonic hopes drowned in a heroin tear," panhandling "with moist prophet eyes" free styles of surrealism, the blues and duende, meant to disturb, disrupt, and ultimately liberate.

Kaufman’s "crackling blueness" is distinctly Californian. In poems like "Carl Chaessman Interviews the PTA," Kaufman filters the "west of the west" through absurdist reflections that juxtapose outlaw figures such as Chessman (a 1960s serial killer on San Quentin’s Death Row) with figures from California’s mythology, all to the rhythms of a radio announcer calling a ballgame: Carl Chessman is in sickly California writing death threats to the Wizard of Oz, his trial is being held in the stomach of Junipero Serra, at last the game starts, Chessman steals all the bases & returns to his tomb to receive the last sacraments from Shirley Temple.

Ultimately, according to poet and scholar Nathaniel Mackey, what Kaufman creates is a cross-cultural poetics difficult to categorize. Though he lived in North Beach and is credited with coining the phrase "beatnik" — and infused his poetry with jazz and Eastern religious influence — Kaufman transcends the singular categorization of "Beat poet." By aligning himself with the pain of "all losers, brown, red, black, and white; the colors from the Master Palette," Kaufman creates a new American poetics — a hybrid poetics of projective California duende blues, an examination of the exhaustion that comes from the persistence of breath.

MORE AT SFBG.COM


PIXEL VISION: Bob Kaufman’s poem "Heavy Water Blues"

Crash landings

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news@sfbg.com

As the U.S. military wrestles with President Barack Obama’s plan to expand the war in Afghanistan while reducing its presence in Iraq, there’s a mounting cost on the home front for the 1.9 million soldiers who have been deployed to those conflicts and are now beginning the often difficult transition back to civilian life.

Inadequate stateside mental health and other veterans’ services has been serious problem for years (see "Soldier’s heart, 12/22/04). A report in January 2008 by the RAND Corp. titled "Invisible Wounds of War" found that nearly 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans report symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression, and that an additional 19 percent experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed. But only slightly more than half of these returning veterans seek treatment that RAND called "minimally adequate."

The report estimated that PTSD and depression will cost the nation $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment, but also estimated that investing in more high-quality treatment — and thus lowering the rates of suicide and lost productivity among veterans — could reduce those costs by $2 billion within two years. Modern life-saving and protective technologies and repeated deployments appear to be making the problem worse now than in previous wars.

"Early evidence suggests the psychological toll of the deployments may be disproportionately high compared with physical injuries," the report stated, concluding that a national effort is needed to expand and improve the capacity of the health care system and to encourage veterans to seek this care.

That national picture is reflected in San Francisco. Judi Cheary of San Francisco’s Department of Veteran Affairs medical clinic said that 25 percent of the service members they see returning from Afghanistan and Iraq receive a mental health diagnosis.

Keith Armstrong, the clinic’s PTSD counselor and a professor of psychiatry at University of California-San Francisco, noted that veterans often have a diagnosis that includes depression and PTSD, or substance abuse and PTSD. "So they may be struggling with many problems," said Armstrong, who wrote Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and Their Families (Ulysses Press, 2005). "Others simply have adjustment challenges from being in combat."

For instance, traffic can be difficult for returning service members who drove in combat conditions, where explosives were a constant concern. "They are scanning the environment because that’s what kept them safe in combat, or pushing the steering wheel when a friend is driving, trying to move from one lane to another," he explained.

According to V.A. data, California has the third-highest number of veterans in the nation. In Northern California, most live in the Central Valley, leaving some San Francisco vets feeling isolated. "There’s a lot of talk about supporting the troops, which is nice, but it’s intellectual," Armstrong said. "Here people may not disclose that a family member is in war, not because they’re afraid people will spit on him, but because they are afraid that people will say dumb things."

His clinic has seen an increase in these veterans in the past year. Armstrong typically sees three clusters of PTSD symptoms: intrusive symptoms (vets can’t get particular images and experiences out of their head); avoidance symptoms (vets believe they don’t have a great future ahead; they feel numb, it’s hard to get close to them); and arousal symptoms (vets are often irritable and angry).

Anger often causes the most problems. "We see more self-destructive and reckless behavior in younger folks," he added. "They have anger, revenge-based fantasies. They know what it’s like to blow someone’s head off or to see it being blown off, so when they get angry, that crosses their mind." But he said that couples and families often talk more about "the numbing" and "the inability to connect."

Armstrong also pointed out that many vets worry about the effect on their career of getting help, and how it looks to others if they do. "That’s due to both their training and age group," he said, noting that 50 percent of soldiers are 17-to-24-year-olds, and 89 percent are male.

"So it’s not just about war, but about the developmental stage of the troops," he said. "It’s an appropriate age to be independent and not get any help. But that, combined with the stigma of asking for help — and if they have PTSD avoidance symptoms — can keep them from going in."

As a result of recent studies showing that PTSD can develop up to five years after discharge, the V.A. extended what was previously a two-year limit in which veterans could get help to a five-year window. They also now have a suicide prevention hotline number for vets: 1-800-273-8255.

"The V.A. overall has made some mistakes, but it has really taken suicide prevention seriously," Armstrong said.

There are nonprofit options as well. Founded in 1974, Swords to Plowshares provides counseling and case management, employment, training, housing, and legal assistance to homeless and low-income veterans.

Equally important, it’s staffed by veterans like Walter Williams, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has combat-related PTSD, and Tia Christopher, a survivor of military sexual trauma. "The experience of being in a war zone as well, or being sexually assaulted by some one in your own unit, that’s profound," Armstrong said.

As Christopher explained, she and Williams have similar symptoms and attend weekly V.A. appointments to deal with their own mental health issues, between providing services to other veterans at the group’s Howard Street office.

"Pretty much everyone coming back has combat stress and everyone I know has been buying rifles," Christopher said, noting that cleaning guns can be a meditative therapeutic activity for veterans. "Combat stress becomes clinical PTSD when those symptoms don’t go away."

Christopher said women who were in combat and survived military sexual trauma face "a double whammy." Out of the military for more than seven years, Christopher observed that "things get better, but the memories don’t go away."

In 2007 there were more than 2,000 reported military sexual assaults, but only 181 were court-martialed, she said. "So basically survivors are dealing with injustice of nothing happening.

"I used to wish that PTSD gave you purple spots," she added. "That way people would know you had it. Instead, you are left dealing with getting panic attacks all of a sudden and being on edge."

"I call it a flare-up," Williams said. "It’s different each time. Sometimes, when I have to focus and get my mind around something, I’m blank. I feel like I want to cry, but I can’t."

Unlike past generations who openly identified as vets, "this new wave of vets is "more intent on blending in," Williams said. "They’re trying to suppress their symptoms. They don’t want to be seen as weirdos."

Deployed to Iraq and then Afghanistan as a communications specialist in 2004, Williams recalled having to give up his weapon twice and being put on suicide watch. "For a week, they watched me, then they gave me my weapon back."

He’s convinced that the best solutions to the challenges facing this latest wave of PTSD-afflicted vets lie in "listening to stories from the mouths of people with it," he said.

Bobbi Rosenthal, regional coordinator for V.A.’s homeless program, said that an estimated 20 percent of the 6,514 people recorded in San Francisco’s 2009 homeless count are veterans.

Anita Yoskowitz, administrative site manager for the V.A.’s homeless services center on Third Street, said 90 percent of the vets who use the clinic’ showers, laundry facilities, and computer lab have PTSD.

And while many of the center’s clients are still from the Vietnam and Desert Storm era, the average age is starting to come down, she said, as veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan begin to trickle in.

Veterans can come to the clinic every day, but those who are not clean and sober are limited to three times a week. When folks come for medical care, Yoskowitz said, "the clinic is on the look out for mental health problems."

Jacob Hoff, who volunteers at the center’s computer lab, said that from conversations he overhears, it’s clear that coming back is hard. "There’s a lot of survivor’s guilt. I can really tell the young kids who are coming in and learning how to be homeless. The older guys tell them where to go for food."

Donald Fontenot, who enlisted in 1980, was on the computer looking for housing when he shared his story. He enlisted when he was 18 and then messed up his knees jumping out of a C-141 jet, so he understands the stress of no longer being able to perform.

"You are young and strong and then all of a sudden, you can’t do these things," said Fontenot, who was living in his car behind the clinic until it got towed by the police. "So I wound up more homeless."

Currently staying with a friend, Fontenot recalled meeting a Vietnam vet who likes to walk around Golden Gate Park at night with a pistol. "It gives him the feeling of walking around in the jungle," said Fontenot, who is searching for suitable Section 8 housing — another unique challenge for PTSD-afflicted veterans in San Francisco.

For some, the road to recovery leads them from the streets of San Francisco back into the arms of their family. One such local family shared their story with the Guardian and we decided to shield their identities for privacy. Mike recalled the dramatic change he saw in his brother, Joe, who joined the Marines directly after 9/11, after he tore up his shoulder in Iraq.

"His whole mentality, even if he didn’t support the war in Iraq, was of a to-die-for-it Marine," said Mike, recalling the hurt and disappointment in Joe’s voice after he had two surgeries, and couldn’t return with his unit to combat.

Mike said his brother’s state of mind worsen after he had been out of active duty for three years, and that the first signs that his brother might have PTSD were night sweats and an inability to pay attention.

"But how can you expect soldiers to pay attention to isolated thoughts, words, and action, when they are or have been immersed in culture that teaches you to ‘walk, talk, shoot, shit’?" Mike asked.

Joe was homeless in San Francisco for stints in 2007, but never longer than a week. Mike recalled how things came to a head when the two brothers got into a fight one night after Mike closed the bar where he worked.

"Here we are, I’m 30 and he is 28, in a fist fight, and I told [Joe], ‘I think you’re losing your mind.’ And he said, ‘then save me,’ lying on my kitchen floor at four in the morning. But then that was it, no more conversation."

Joe soon checked himself into a couple of private facilities where he berated psychiatrists for not knowing about military combat zones and could always check himself out. "Then he went over to the East Bay, went into a 24-hour Fitness Center to use the shower, got into it with a security guard for trespassing and disorderly conduct, got arrested, and was brought to the V.A.’s PTSD center in Palo Alto," Mike said.

It was at this state-of-the art facility that Joe began to get help, and this year he returned to Chicago, where he is living with family until he returns to school to pursue his master’s degree. Joe’s mother, Betty, said dealing with all this has been minor compared to the prospect of losing her middle son permanently. But she resisted labeling behavior she believes was connected to his imploding marriage and financial problems when he moved to California, as well as to fallout from his injuries in Iraq.

She recalls getting an e-mail from their now former daughter-in law saying, "Joe has been living in the park, camping." Betty said the first year after Joe came back was pretty tough. "We knew the marriage was over. And a couple of times I called two of his real close friends who are Marines, to tough-talk to him. For a period of time, he was acting out, a different person. You could tell something wasn’t right, and yeah, some blamed it on the service."

Asked what she thought of giving vets with PTSD a Purple Heart, an idea the military floated earlier this year, Betty said, "I don’t know. They all have to go through it in some respects. My feelings about why he ended up totally collapsing is that he was trying to do too much on too little. They are over there, building cities and lives for people. Then they get back and find they can’t support their families or themselves. But at least it’s not like when folks came back from Vietnam and were labeled as bums."

Guardian staff writer Sarah Phelan’s son deployed to Iraq in 2007 and returned in April 2008.

Dazed and confused

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news@sfbg.com

Police officers in the Tenderloin have routinely violated city policies and wasted scarce public money sending people busted for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana to the Community Justice Center (CJC), a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom that was supposed to save money and clean up the Tenderloin.

Instead, all these minor drug possession cases have been dismissed by an already overtaxed court system. And as the police have only just begun to ease up on referring these cases to the CJC in its second month of operations, they continue to bust the homeless for quality-of-life violations.

The Tenderloin police station referred at least 17 cases of simple pot possession cases to the CJC since its inception in March. After only one month of the CJC’s operations in the Tenderloin, Public Defender Jeff Adachi could already see that such police referrals represented a larger misuse of resources occurring throughout the city.

Adachi’s office has handled more than 300 cases at the CJC. Of his caseload, he estimates that "about 80 percent of the cases have involved loitering, illegal camping, possession of marijuana, possession of paraphernalia, and blocking the sidewalk. The remainder of the cases were petty thefts, batteries, and other miscellaneous crimes."

Clarence Wilson, a 67-year-old African American Rastafarian, had his marijuana possession case dismissed at the CJC with Adachi’s help. Wilson’s ordeal began after he finished crossing the street at Hyde and Ellis at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 8. He recalls walking in the crosswalk during a green light. But when he gazed up while reaching the other side, it had just turned red.

Two Tenderloin station police officers stopped him for jaywalking and proceeded to question him to see if he was carrying anything. "Just herbal," he admitted, referring to the small amount of marijuana he had just purchased.

The officers faced Wilson against the wall, handcuffed him, and drove him to the Tenderloin police station where he spent 45 minutes handcuffed to a bench. Before they released him with a court date for the following Monday at the CJC, they booked him under a jaywalking infraction and a misdemeanor violation of marijuana possession of less than 28.5 grams (an ounce).

Wilson’s case stands out because he has lived in the city for 33 years with a clean record, but has now been sucked into Newsom’s costly criminal justice experiment. "I was the guinea pig for that day," he said. "All these other people were crossing the red light walking, and you chose me — and you wouldn’t even tell me why I was being arrested. You wouldn’t even read me my rights."

"If the officer wanted to cite Mr. Wilson for jaywalking, he could have written a citation and released him on the spot," Adachi said. "But to handcuff him, treat him as a common criminal for possession of a small amount of marijuana is exactly what the city’s directive prohibits."

Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is a misdemeanor and carries a maximum sentence of a $100 fine. But city law, specifically Administrative Code Chapter 12X, calls for police to make possession of less than an ounce of marijuana their "lowest priority" and to focus their resources elsewhere. The Board of Supervisors approved the law in 2006, sponsored by then-Sup. Tom Ammiano, who wrote, "the federal government’s war on drugs has failed" and called for a more sensible approach in San Francisco.

Particularly at a time when Newsom is asking every city department to makes budget cuts of 25 percent to cope with a $438 million budget deficit, Adachi said many CJC cases are a waste of precious public resources.

The CJC only takes misdemeanors and nonviolent felony cases in its court system. Modeled after New York City’s Center for Court Innovation, it serves as a one-stop location for the court to refer offenders to social services to address the root causes of criminal behavior — although those programs dealing with substance abuse, mental health treatment, and other social needs are also on the budget chopping block.

CJC only handled violations in four selected central neighborhoods deemed to be burdened by chronic crime: the Tenderloin, SoMa, Civic Center, and Union Square communities. Capt. Gary Jimenez of the Tenderloin Police Station could not be reached for an extensive interview, but told the Guardian that his officers are simply enforcing the law by citing offenders and referring such cases to the CJC.

CJC coordinator Tomiquia Moss has weighed in by facilitating talks between Adachi and Deputy Chief of Police Kevin Cashman, who sits on the CJC advisory board to address which cases get referred. While all 17 of the pot cases have been dismissed at the CJC, Moss believes that Adachi must continue to communicate with Tenderloin police officers to advise on citation referrals. "We don’t have any impact on how the police department administers enforcement," she said. "We can only be responsible for what happens to the case once it gets here."

Moss takes pride in the CJC for providing services even to clients whose cases are dismissed. She believes that almost all the people who have been referred to the CJC accept assistance because caseworkers are respectful and culturally competent, although she has yet to compile comprehensive statistics on CJC cases.

To get a sense on of the big picture at CJC, the Guardian reviewed a report from the Coalition on Homelessness based on the court’s calendar for its first two months in existence. Out of 336 total cases between March 4 and May 1, 100 (30 percent) were for sleeping outside; 71 (21 percent) were for possession of a crack pipe; and 99 (29 percent) were "public nuisance" citations to the court, a subjective violation often given with another citation such as obstructing the sidewalk.

However, among the pending cases that faced trial, the CJC reports that more severe crimes like theft, fraud, disorderly conduct, possession with intent to sell drugs, and soliciting drugs — cases routinely heard in other courtrooms — make up the majority.

Moss acknowledged the limitations of the CJC during tight budget times. "We anticipate people not being able to get all their needs met because there aren’t enough funds. Services are in jeopardy … You gotta consolidate. You have higher client-to-service-provider ratios. It’s a significant issue."

If the CJC is to continue operating with limited resources, Adachi and homeless advocates say Tenderloin police need to focus their resources on serious crimes, rather than quality of life violations that predominately criminalize the homeless.

Bob Offer-Westort, the civil rights organizer for Coalition on Homelessness and coordinating editor of the local paper Street Sheet, says it’s a shame to continue funding the CJC while service centers like the Tenderloin Health drop-in center are being closed due to budget cuts. Offer-Westort acknowledges the laudable social services provided at the CJC, but said "its front-end is conducted by law enforcement officers" who treat it as a "homeless court".

While Newsom hoped the CJC would be popular with city residents concerned about the homeless, 57 percent of San Franciscan voters weighed in last November against allocating extra funding to the CJC with Proposition L.

Although the mayor is proposing a 25 percent cut in the public defender’s budget, Adachi fears this would mean firing 38 lawyers, or one-third of his staff. This could translate to a withdrawal from representing approximately 6,000 clients at his office. In turn, low-income defendants stretched thin by the economic crisis would have to turn to being assigned to private lawyers with costly hourly rates that will still have to be paid for by the city.

Adachi told the Guardian that the marijuana possession cases at the CJC represent the benign types of cases squeezing his office dry, and that Newsom still has not provided Adachi with the two lawyers he promised to handle CJC cases. Newsom’s spokesperson, Nathan Ballard, would not comment on the cases going to the CJC, telling the Guardian, "I’m not going to play along."

Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project, sees San Francisco’s use of scarce resources for marijuana cases as parallel to state and federal policy. "In a sense, it’s a small piece of a larger puzzle, which is that we waste billions and billions of dollars every year in tax money that could be being used for schools, roads, healthcare, etc. in arresting and prosecuting people for possession of a drug that’s safer than alcohol. It’s just crazy, it’s pointless, and every dollar spent on it is a dollar wasted — particularly when government is strapped for cash and cutting vital services to try to balance the budget."

The city and state continue to reassess their marijuana regulations and enforcement on a broader scale. In April, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi proposed legislation allowing the city to sell medical marijuana through the Department of Public Health. And in March, Assembly Member Ammiano began pushing for the state to legalize and tax marijuana.

In the meantime, the CJC, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Public Defender’s Office are still stretching their resources to handle small possession of marijuana cases cited by Tenderloin police station — in spite of the city’s stated priorities. And homeless individuals continue to get cited for quality of life violations while city workers providing social services see their budgets running dry.

State of the movement

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news@sfbg.com

As local antiwar activists continue to oppose the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, they are struggling to mobilize popular support under a presidential administration that is less overtly bellicose than the Bush regime.

Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda (William Morrow, 2006) and last year’s The Tyranny of Oil (William Morrow), has worked with a number of Bay Area antiwar groups. Over coffee in the Mission District, she said much has changed since President Barack Obama took office.

"It’s an amazing victory for the antiwar movement that we pushed people to elect a president who pledged to end the Iraq war. Now our job is to make that pledge a reality," she said, visibly tired from long work on a report about Chevron Corp.’s profiteering in Iraq and even at home in Richmond, where it’s sued the city to block a voter-approved tax increase.

Juhasz argues that all U.S. troops and contractors should leave Iraq immediately and that all bases be closed. But Obama’s plan includes a slower withdrawal timeline and for some U.S. forces to be left there indefinitely.

Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CodePink and Global Exchange, told the Guardian that Obama supporters need to realize that it’s fine to disagree with our first African American president on some policies. She described MoveOn.org, the prominent liberal organization that was a key player in Obama’s campaign, as "very top down," and focused on pro-Obama talking points. "It’s very hard because a lot of groups have become appendages to the administration."

Juhasz feels the antiwar movement needs to better communicate that "the organizing isn’t over when the campaign is over. Even if the leader agrees with you, they still need activists to push them."

But she acknowledges the difficulty of the task. "We want to keep from telling people they’re wrong. They won, which is great. But we need to say ‘You have the responsibility to keep organizing for the issues, not just the individual.’ It’s critically important to see beyond the leader, so it doesn’t become a cult of personality," she said, recalling that "under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, if there wasn’t a mass movement for revolutionary change, there wouldn’t have been a New Deal."

That kind of pressure is clearly not being exerted on Obama. Tom Gallagher, a San Francisco resident active with the Bernal Heights Democratic Club, told us during a March 21 San Francisco demonstration commemorating the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, "If McCain had been elected there would be many more people here protesting. Obama is using the schedule Bush agreed to on pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq."

Gallagher grew more irked as he said, "Obama has sent 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. He’s getting a pass on it, and McCain wouldn’t."

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has continued to agitate against war and for social justice. Richard Becker, ANSWER’s Western Regional Coordinator, told us the relatively low turnout on March 21 was not surprising.

Becker said he sees Obama’s popularity as "elation" over Bush’s exit. But no matter how bad the past or good the intentions of a candidate, once the candidate is elected U.S. president, he said, "the job description is CEO of the Empire." Becker cautioned that it will take time for postelection euphoria to wear off and for people to realize that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are dragging on under Obama.

Local activist David Solnit, a mainstay of Direct Action to Stop the War, works with Courage to Resist, which supports military war resisters. The group also helps recruits fight "stop-loss," which sends soldiers back to Iraq for additional tours of duty without their consent. "Obama said he’s going to change it eventually, but we’re worried about right now," he said.

Courage to Resist organizer Sarah Lazare agrees with Solnit that peace activists should oppose U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Lazare says it’s important to communicate that "Afghanistan is not a good war" and that "terrorism is a tactic" that cannot be destroyed militarily.

"Measuring the number of people at a demonstration is not the only way to measure what’s going on," she said. Among her examples of ongoing, dynamic organizing is the work of Courage to Resist and Iraq Vets Against the War.

IVAW is directly organizing active-duty members of the military to engage in dissent. SF Bay Area chapter member Peter Schlange told us that their ranks are growing as the Iraq war continues.

IVAW is also challenging the Afghanistan buildup. In a recently passed resolution, the antiwar veterans group "calls for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all occupying forces in Afghanistan and reparations for the Afghan people, and supports all troops and veterans working towards those ends."

Paul Kawika Martin, organizing and policy director for Peace Action, says his group wants all troops out of Iraq by 2010, with no "residual forces" or contractors left behind. Martin also says it’s important for activists to march and to lobby Congress. He stressed that both Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi lobbied for reform, and U.S. peace activists also need to do so.

Martin feels the peace movement will have an important impact on the new administration. "I don’t think he fears being too liberal," Marin told me. "But he wants to get things done, and like any politician he will be more pragmatic than we want him to be."

Martin said the troop escalation in Afghanistan was a concern for Peace Action. Martin is working with a group of 70 activists, think tanks, and aid workers who make up the Afghanistan Policy Working Group. He points to Reps. Raul Grijalva (now the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus), Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee, and Maxine Waters as key allies of antiwar activists in Congress. "We need to support them," he told me.

The antiwar movement itself also needs support, given that many of its top activists have been arrested repeatedly in the last six years.

Organizer Stephanie Tang with the World Can’t Wait dismisses hope for Democrats as a trap. She pointed to Nancy Pelosi’s early knowledge of torture and Obama’s recent announcement that the administration would block release of torture photos in the courts. In March 2008, Tang was arrested for allegedly obstructing police at a Berkeley demonstration opposing a military recruiting center.

Walter Riley, Tang’s lawyer, told the Guardian: "It’s my contention they identified Stephanie as a leader and are vioutf8g her constitutional rights to protest an illegal war."

Berkeley police referred inquiries to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, which had not returned our call at press time. Riley said a Berkeley policeman "blind-sided her," and, holding his club horizontally, slammed Tang off her feet.

Police later attempted to get a statement from Tang while she was receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained during the incident. Berkeley police only later charged her with obstructing police at the march. Tang faces one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

BART police: It just gets worse

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By Tim Redmond

Well, maybe that’s a bit misleading: The BART board’s committee on police oversight first proposed a very weak model, but that got shot down at a community meeting last week, and now member Tom Radulovich is proposing a somewhat stronger approach. He wants a BART police commission with professional staff and the ability to investigate misconduct cases. There are still a bunch of issues — the civilian review agency should get all police abuse cases and should have a clear role in recommending discipline. I prefer a San Francisco-style model, which is what Assembly member Tom Ammiano is pushing, and I still think the Legislature needs to move forward on this.

But as Radulovich has looked into how the BART police really operate, he’s learned a lot — and some of it is truly amazing.

For example, he told me, the BART police union contract spells out the terms of allowable discipline for BART cops (which is crazy to begin with), but the result is mind-boggling in its insanity. Right now, by contract, the chief can only impose three types of discipline on an errant cop:
— A letter of reprimand
— A one-day suspension WITH PAY (that is, a paid holiday)
— Termination.

And since it’s very hard to fire a cop, that means there is basically no effective discipline.

In every American police jurisidiction I’ve ever heard of, a cop can be suspended without pay — and in San Francisco, serious offenses lead to 30, 60, or 90 day suspensions.

But if you’re a BART cop, you can screw up pretty badly and nothing at all will every happen to you.

That contract comes up in June, and the BART Board must change it. “This clearly needs to be an issue in the negotiations,” Radulovich told me.

Another looney provision: All of the officers other than the chief have union protection — and the chief can’t fire, demote or in any way control his own commanders. Nobody works at the chief’s pleasure.

So there’s a weak chief reporting to a bad general manager and no effective discipline at all. No wonder the force is such a godawful mess.

Rally this Sunday against torture and killings of gays in Iraq

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By Rebecca Bowe

Gays Without Borders S.F., the Rainbow World Fund, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and others will host a rally and fundraiser Sunday to speak out against torture and slayings of gays in Iraq.

Reports in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and elsewhere have described atrocities against gay men that occurred in Iraq’s Sadr City, where victims were fatally shot and found with the word “pervert” on notes attached to their bodies.

“This news has been under the radar for the past few years due to the overall confusion and killing in Iraq,” a press statement released by the rally organizers points out. “But the heinous torture and murder of gays in Iraq has escalated.”

The groups hope to attract international media attention to the abuses, and they plan to urge the U.S. State Department to investigate, denounce the killings, and support asylum. The goal of the fundraiser is to send $10,000 to organizations aiding Iraqi gays who are fleeing the most dangerous areas.

The rally and fundraiser — featuring speeches from S.F. Police Commission President Theresa Sparks, State Senator Mark Leno, Supervisors Bevan Dufty and Ross Mirkarimi, and others — will be held Sunday, May 17 from noon to 4 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza, near the intersection of Castro and Market streets. Speakers are scheduled for 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Donations may be made through the Rainbow World Fund. Those interested in volunteering at the rally should email MrSFL96@aol.com.

BART board wants weak cop oversight

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By Tim Redmond

Well, the good news is that the BART Board is actually considering civilian oversight for the police department. The bad news is, the committee looking at the issue is only recommending one model, a San Jose-style system that is much weaker than what San Francisco has.

There’s a public meeting to discuss this tomorrow:

Second Public Forum on Civilian Police Oversight set for May 15

WHEN: Friday, May 15, 2009
TIME: 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
WHERE: Joseph P. Bort Metro Center Auditorium
101 – 8th Street in Oakland
(across from Lake Merritt BART Station)

Totally tubular

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TV OR NOT TO BE "All around is magic, just open your eyes and see it," declares either Siegfried or Roy at the beginning of A Rich Tradition of Magic, a previously VHS-only compendium of visual abuse compiled by the inimitable Pinky of TV Carnage. The man isn’t kidding. The menu of Rich Tradition is formatted to look like a remote control — with the push of a button, your screen melts like the hallucinogenic kick-off of a bad acid trip, bringing visions of spray-on hair, senior citizen aerobics, white teens moonwalking to Kenny Loggins’ "Footloose," and grunge figure skating set to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." (Is this what drove Kurt Cobain to suicide?)

Not yet prone to gutwrenchingly funny juxtapositions (Say Anything boombox scene meets child with extreme vibrato singing "Lady in Red"; John Ritter meets Rosie O’Donnell’s horrible idea of someone with Down syndrome), this early installment in the TV Carnage library veers toward the straightforwardly unsettling and outright disturbing. We get aerial performers accidentally slicing each other in half in mid-air, an elephant stomping on people in a circus tent and then rampaging through the streets, and a split-second skull-glimpse of Heaven’s Gate suicide guru Marshall Applewhite. We get Real TV footage of a methed-out man holding his baby as hostage, dangling the boy Blanket-style from a second-story window and demanding that police deliver him some beer.

Kids are people, too. A Rich Tradition of Magic‘s hapless master of ceremonies Gary Coleman ricochets between performative childhood and sad adulthood. A public service safety announcement by a Diff’rent Strokes-era Coleman is cross-cut with an Entertainment Tonight report about him assaulting an annoying fan. Later, Coleman warns us all of the dangers of "Showoff-itis."

John Travolta lipsync footage is perhaps the chief disturbing link between A Rich Tradition of Magic and The Dinah Shore Portal to Hell, another DVD whose beyond-Dante depths I’m just beginning to plumb. The opening installment is a series of lipysnc and live musical performances on Shore’s television show. A strange assortment of performers including Jeff Bridges and NFL star Terry Bradshaw try to be musical with varying degrees of success. William Shatner repeatedly attempts to be dramatic and poetic. All the while, unexpected lesbian golf icon Shore looks on admiringly, our friendly guide to the diabolical stretches of celebrity narcissism, her reliable appearance taking on an increasingly absurdist quality. Later, we are treated to Roger Ebert repeatedly tongue-lashing Gene Siskel between takes while recording promo spots. Rumor has it that it’s the later chapters devoted to alcohol, cocaine, and LSD that truly deliver the TV horror. I’ll report on those another time, if I survive them. (Johnny Ray Huston)

www.tvcarnage.com

“The Beast Stalker”

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REVIEW Missed The Beast Stalker at the just-completed 2009 San Francisco International Film Festival? Make sure you catch its theatrical run at the Four Star, a longtime hotspot for new Hong Kong genre films. (Owner Frank Lee was dishing ’em out long before 2006’s The Departed, a H.K. cops ‘n’ gangstas remake, raked in box office megabucks and Oscar gold.) Where else would I have seen 1998’s Beast Cops, starring the inimitable Anthony Wong and the irritating Michael Wong (no relation)? The Beast Stalker boasts neither Wong, but it does have Cops codirector Dante Lam, who directs solo here and cowrote the script. Prior to a car chase gone horribly awry, Tong (Nicholas Tse) was the kind of police captain his fellow officers hated to serve, thanks to anger issues, petty politics, and other charming attributes. After Tong accidentally causes the death of a child — coincidentally the daughter of an attorney, Ann (Zhang Jingchu), who’s prosecuting a mob boss — he takes some time off to become, uh, less of an asshole. It’s only when Ann’s other young daughter is kidnapped (what are the chances?) that Tong can attempt to redeem himself, though scar-faced baby snatcher Hung (Nick Cheung) proves an adversary as muddy-gray in the morality department as Tong is. Amid the gun battles and tense cell-phone negotiations (wouldn’t be a H.K. action flick without plenty of both), there’s not much beauty to be found in either of these two beasts. The movie, though, is plenty thrilling.

THE BEAST STALKER opens Fri/15 at the Four Star.

Rewrite the Muni budget

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EDITORIAL Just one day after the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee voted to reject Mayor Gavin Newsom’s Muni budget, the mayor’s press flak, Nathan Ballard, reminded us of how deeply the Mayor’s Office remains in budget denial.

"We are currently operating under the assumption that the supervisors will approve the MTA’s sensible budget," Ballard told City Editor Steven T. Jones May 8. "If they reject the budget, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it."

That was a foolish assumption. At press time, seven supervisors had signed on as cosponsors to Board President David Chiu’s bill rejecting the Municipal Transportation Agency budget proposal, and Sup. Bevan Dufty, an eighth vote, was among the Budget Committee members favoring rejection. Only seven votes were needed, so the MTA budget was dead by May 7 — and Newsom’s refusal to recognize that was nothing more than a foolish attempt to play chicken with the supervisors. If the MTA fails to produce a new budget by the end of May, the current funding remains in effect — and that means the city’s budget deficit is much worse. The mayor strategy seems to be aimed at blaming the supervisors instead of addressing the problem.

And the problem is serious — the MTA budget is a mess. It seeks to close a $129 million shortfall almost entirely on the backs of the riders through service cuts and fare hikes. Only 20 percent of the new revenue would come from higher downtown parking fees.

That’s not just bad public policy for a transit-first city (the last thing San Francisco wants to do right now is discourage people from taking Muni), it’s bad economics. Every time Muni raises fares, ridership drops. Typically, most of the riders come back eventually. But at a certain point — possibly at the proposed $2 level — further increases in cost will drive people away from the system, and that will end up costing Muni money. The alternative — charging more for parking, particularly downtown — has multiple benefits: most people who drive cars downtown are better off than the Muni riders and can afford to pay more — and if higher parking meter rates discourage driving, that’s an excellent outcome.

The MTA is a creature of Proposition A, a 2007 transportation reform measure that was supposed to insulate Muni from political pressure — and guarantee the transit system more money. Newsom pushed for Prop. A and promised that the measure would guarantee Muni a $26 million additional funding stream that could be used to improve service. (He also promised — in writing — that he wouldn’t use the fine print in Prop. A to try to privatize the taxi medallions). He’s now gone back on both of those vows.

In fact, the budget put forward by Newsom’s MTA appointees, and his $316,000 a year general manager, diverts a huge amount of Muni money to the Police Department, the mayor’s pet 311 call center, and other city departments — far more than $26 million. That money goes for "work orders" — in other words, the cops get to suck money out of the Muni budget for doing what they’re supposed to do anyway. And 311 charges Muni almost $2 every time someone calls to ask about bus service (even though 311 exists to help people find out about city services).

The mayor needs to quit his political games and direct the MTA to draft a new budget, quickly, that hits drivers harder than bus riders and dramatically trims the money used as a back-door subsidy for the cops and Newsom’s call center. And the supervisors should make it clear that they won’t approve any MTA budget until he fixes those problems. *

Newsom pushes hard for Muni budget cuts

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By Steven T. Jones
newsom on muni.jpg
Newsom only rides Muni for photos ops, so he won’t feel the pinch of paying $2 fares for decreased service.

As the Board of Supervisors prepares to vote this afternoon on a Muni budget that would raise fares and cut service in order to subsidize other city departments and protect drivers from increased parking fees, pressure from Mayor Gavin Newsom has reportedly flipped Sup. Bevan Dufty and weakened the resolve of the final swing vote, Sup. Sophie Maxwell.

Streetsblog has an excellent report (including audio from Newsom yesterday) about how Dufty – after voting against the Muni budget in committee just last week — has relented to accusations by the Mayor’s Office that a vote against the MTA budget is a vote to widen the city’s budget deficit.

Yet the reality is that the city charter makes the MTA an independent agency, not a piggybank for the Police Department, Newsom’s cherished 311 call center, or the other city agencies that will siphon off $66 million in Muni funds through work orders for functions that they perform anyway. Work orders have increased by way more than the $26 million per year that Newsom encouraged voters to give Muni by approving Prop. A in 2007.

Newsom tried dismissed arguments that the budget would create a downward spiral for Muni, which is already reeling from state budget cuts, saying of the issue “this is nothing.” He also said, “You have to be responsible for the things you advocate because there’s tradeoffs.” That’s true, and apparently Newsom is willing to trade the MTA’s independence and the quality of public transit in San Francisco for appeasing the cops, subsidizing 311, and justifying his budgetary unilateralism and opposition to new revenue measures.

“Failing to grasp the big picture”

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By Steven T. Jones

The supervisors that voted 4-1 yesterday to reject the MTA’s budget were smart, deliberate, curious, and forward-looking, so it’s no surprise that the Mayor Gavin Newsom’s flack Nathan Ballard told the Chronicle that they were “failing to grasp the big picture” and causing cuts in public health and other city services.

If those cuts happen, that’s Newsom’s fault for blocking the new revenue measures that President David Chiu, who also led this charge in questioning a budget that will hurt Muni and the city, tried to create. Instead, Newsom supports this utterly dishonest MTA budget, which takes even more than the $26 million per year that voters in 2007 said they wanted Muni to have by approving Prop. A and using it to fund pet projects that he wants to claim in his run for governor.

Newsom was also the one who decided to pay MTA director Nat Ford $316,000, the highest salary in the city, and to negotiate overly generous contracts with city police, fire, and management unions that he’s now having to try to go back and undo. He lets taxpayers pay Ballard and other highly paid political operatives and lets his precious 311 call center charge the MTA almost $2 per call, which is more than it costs to ride the bus. And he wants MTA is increase the number of fare inspectors, even though that program costs $8 million and only netted $350,000 in fines. On and on it goes, as the hearing yesterday clearly highlighted.

But don’t take my word for it, go to SFGTV and watch the Budget and Finance Committee hearing, starting around the third hour when this item began. Watch Chiu respectfully and intelligently ask insightful questions of Ford that clearly showed just how bad this budget is. Then you’ll grasp the big picture and appreciate who’s really running the city and who’s willing to sacrifice this city on the altar of his personal ambitions.

Supervisors seem primed to reject MTA budget

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By Steven T. Jones

While the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing on President David Chiu’s proposal to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s disastrous budget is just getting underway, the fact that Chiu has six co-sponsors (giving him the seven votes required to reject it) seems to indicate that this budget is going down.

“If people have to pay more for less, they will stop taking Muni,” Chiu said at the hearing, referring to an MTA budget that closes a $126 million budget deficit mostly with Muni fare increases and deep service cuts.

Chiu and Sup. David Campos also took issue with the $66 million that the MTA is planning to pay out to other city agencies, most notably the police and health departments and the 311 call center, a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom. “Whatever money riders of Muni pay into the system should be used for public transportation,” Campos said, adding that his Mission District constituents are angry that the MTA is being used as a piggy bank by other city departments. “I’m very troubled by that and I believe the voters of my district are troubled by that.”

While this saga will take at least another week or two to play out at the board level, if Chiu’s co-sponsors remain supportive, the board is going to make the MTA come up with a fair, smart budget that doesn’t subsidize unrelated services or discourage public transit use when we need it most.

CJC just criminalizes the poor

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OPINION Two SF police officers stood; another was in the car at the curb, door ajar, lights flashing onto the sidewalk. It was 3:00 p.m. and the lights, the three police officers, and the squad car were all focused on one small man huddled next to a shopping cart and a torn Hefty bag, shining steel handcuffs glittering off his deep brown wrists. The man said nothing as they arrested him. His "crime": sitting, standing, sleeping while houseless in San Francisco.

It’s illegal to be houseless in the United States. In fact, arguably it’s illegal to be poor in a nation that has somehow equated urban messiness with the presence of youth, adults, and elders sitting, standing, and convening in public and cleanliness with emptiness and the lack of people, color, and things. Since the new $2.7 million Community Justice Center (CJC) — a.k.a. the poverty court — opened in San Francisco, police have been out in droves drumming up customers.

There are so many wrong things about the CJC, beginning with criminalizing people in poverty just for being poor. As a poverty scholar and formerly houseless child and young adult who was incarcerated for the sole act of living without a home, I can say for a fact: it didn’t matter how many times you arrested me or my Boricua houseless mama — it didn’t take us out of homelessness. In fact, it made our situation more compounded, more complicated, more intractable.

The city is grappling with a $350 million budget deficit — it has been cutting back and closing vital emergency services for houseless people, like the Tenderloin Resource Center (TARC) and Caduceus, for example, which does truly revolutionary work with houseless folks who struggle with a psychological disability.

But I think one of the most terrifying aspects of the CJC is the institutionalization of a new form of criminalized service provision. This stems from the idea that the delivery of services, advocacy, mental health, physical health, and housing are somehow more urgently needed, deserved, or valid if they are triggered by arrest and adjudication.

At the hour of 3:00 p.m., near the corner of Hyde and Larkin streets, the system was triggered by Richie, a 56-year-old who used to hold down a construction job until he was laid off. Arresting him didn’t get Richie a job. The CJC didn’t get Richie a job. But, the folks there would argue, they referred him to job training and a temporary shelter bed. And guess what? Other organizations that didn’t arrest Richie also referred him to job training and a temporary shelter bed.

My mother and I didn’t get affordable housing, mental health services, or access to free child-care for my infant son because I was arrested.

Acts of revolutionary legal advocacy, art, support networks, and political awareness, like the ones I learned through the Suitcase Clinic, POOR Magazine, WRAP, the Coalition on Homelessness, and People Organized to Win Employment Rights, were what took me out of the sorrow and desperation and depth of struggle of poverty.

Criminalization, arrest, and adjudication of people in poverty really accomplishes only one thing: it brings the prison industrial complex to a neighborhood near you. *

Tiny a.k.a. Lisa Gray-Garcia is the author of Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America and the cofounder of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork.

The trial of the San Francisco 8

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By Ben Terrall

On Monday, June 8, the seven former Black Panthers known as the San Francisco 8 will face a preliminary hearing in Superior Court. The defendants are charged in the 1971 death of a local police officer; the charges were initially brought back in 1975, and dismissed when a judge ruled that the central evidence in the case was obtained through torture.

In fact, the FBI COINTELPRO-era case has a chilling resemblance to stories of torture at Guantanamo Bay: the statements were obtained after several of the suspects were subject to sleep deprivation, wet blankets used for asphyxiation, and beatings.

Now, although the San Francisco district attorney refused to file charges, Attorney General Jerry Brown has brought the case back. In 2007, he charged eight men – all of them now in their 60s, 70s and 80s – with murder. One defendant has been dropped from the case.

The remaining defendants are Herman Bell, Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Henry (Hank)Jones, Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), Harold Taylor and Francisco Torres.

The case has attracted international attention, and Nobel Prize winners including Desmond Tutu have called on Brown to drop the charges.

Locally, it’s led to a fascinating battle within the San Francisco Labor Council.

How Weird to pay SFPD’s protection money

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By Steven T. Jones

Faced with San Francisco Police Department threats to block their permits to sell beer and to have amplified music, organizers of the How Weird Street Faire have decided to pay the nearly $10,000 that the cops were demanding up front rather than go to court to fight fees that appear to violate caps written into city codes.

How Weird organizer Brad Olsen said vendor fees and other financial support should allow them to come up with the money. That’s good news for those planning to attend the May 10 event, although other outdoor event advocates — such as John Wood, with the Entertainment Commission and Love Fest — had urged How Weird to make a stand against rapidly escalating SFPD fees. As the Guardian reported, city codes cap fees for events this size at $5,494.

Police have said they’re required to recover all costs associated with the event, although it is the SFPD that decides have many cops on overtime are required to staff the event, which has had no major police incidents in its 10-year history. Love Fest is a far larger event covering more territory, and therefore gets a bigger SFPD bill, so this fight is likely to pick up again once its organizers begin the permit process this summer.

Meanwhile, the SFPD has begun an aggressive campaign to crackdown on underground parties, one that has caused the dozens of local Burning Man camps now staging fundraisers to get creative in throwing parties. Many have moved the parties to the East Bay, while others are renting out existing clubs in San Francisco to get around the crackdown (which many suspect is tied to an SFPD power vacuum and struggle as Chief Heather Fong prepares to retire).

Stay tuned to the Guardian for more coverage of the Death of Fun.

Less sex at Dore? SFPD gets hot over crappy muck-monger

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By Marke B.

folsom0409a.jpg

Hurray, we’re back in the 50s again! Hot on the heels of the SF Weekly’s “alternative” take on the BDSM community comes this report from the Bay Area Reporter that the SFPD plans to get hard and tough on public nudity and consensual sex acts at that hallowed gay Bay tradition, July’s Up Your Alley Fair on Dore Alley, operated by the Folsom Street Fair folks.

Due to the complaints, the police are requiring the fair organizers to develop a more stringent security plan to deal with people who break the law at the event. [SFPD Lieutenant Nicole M.] Greely said simply because someone is attending an enclosed street fair does not mean that laws regarding public nudity and lewd behavior do not apply.

“There is no public sex allowed, that is illegal. Nudity laws still apply and laws against urinating in public still apply,” said Greely. “Sometimes things gradually get out of hand and that is what happened here. Last year it got out of control.”

….

It is the first time that the police have demanded the Up Your Alley Fair organizers to address public sex acts and lewd behavior in their security plan for the event, said Greely.

Ho hum, doesn’t this happen every year around the time the police want to ask for more fair fees? But here’s the kicker:

Police also point to the Web site http://www.zombietime.com that documented numerous photos of men performing oral sex, urinating in public, and masturbating from second floor windows overlooking the fair as another reason for their increased vigilance. The site, created by an anonymous local photographer, also questions why the police took no action against the public nudity and sexual behavior at the fair.

Those frankly beautiful pics caused a shit-storm a couple years ago after the Berkeley-based zombietime published the pics and ones of Folsom. They were used to fan anti-gay flames by such organizations as “Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.” (Yeah, here’s a truth — YOU’RE GAY) .

Historic proportions

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news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY "110 The Embarcadero" is the stately address of a building that doesn’t exist yet. But the battle that continues to be waged over this proposed development, along with skirmishes that are brewing over other proposed buildings nearby, speaks volumes about a complicated tug-of-war that is emerging over a prominent slice of the city’s northern waterfront.

Preservationists are concerned about saving a union hall on Steuart Street that housed the International Longshoremen’s Association during the strike of 1934, which would be razed to build 110 The Embarcadero. That’s one of a number of historic properties critics say could face the wrecking ball as new building plans are drafted. Other proposals, among them 8 Washington and 555 Washington, have neighborhood activists anxious about long skyscraper shadows that could be cast on public parks, the development pressure that would result from allowing skyscrapers to exceed height limits, and views of the bay that would be enhanced from inside luxury high rises but blocked to others.

On the other side of the coin, building-trades union members increasingly desperate for work are fervently advocating for new construction projects that would open the spigot on jobs. And the Port of San Francisco hopes development money will help cover its huge infrastructure backlog.

Meanwhile a report released in early April by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission noted that the waterfront stretch from Pier 35 to the Bay Bridge is one of the most vulnerable to sea-level rise. As plans for this part of the Embarcadero are hashed out in public hearings and architects’ sketches, a new reality must be factored into the mix: some of that land could soon be underwater.

MISSING HISTORY


110 The Embarcadero initially won praise for its goal of attaining the highest certification level for nationwide green-building standards. Sponsored by Hines Interests, it was a shining example of ecodesign that even featured living vines climbing the sides. Even though it would shoot 40 percent above the allowable height limit of 84 feet, the San Francisco Planning Commission gave it a green light.

Enthusiasm waned, however, when historic preservationists pointed out that the building slated for demolition — 113 Steuart St. — was an ILA labor hall during the famous maritime strike of 1934, which erupted into violence after two union members were gunned down by police and led to a four-day general strike that paralyzed the city. "Harry Bridges rose to fame in this building," says architectural historian Bradley Weidmeier, referring to the famous labor leader. "Labor historians from around the country are going to be blocking this."

Hines hired a leading historic architecture firm, Page & Turnbull, to conduct a historic assessment of that building as part of the planning process. Yet the initial report neglected to mention anything about the building being at the center of a profound moment in San Francisco’s labor history.

Former Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, an opponent of the project, says the gaps in information weren’t hard to miss. "The fact that it was ground zero for bloody Thursday, that it was ground zero for the general strike … that people were shot in front of there, that their bodies lay inside. You want to know how we found that out? We got it online," Peskin said.

Page & Turnbull later submitted an addendum, including historic photos depicting people crowding into the two-story building to pay respects to the slain union members. The firm acknowledged its historic significance this time, but asserted that the now-empty building had undergone too many retrofits to comply with historic landmark requirements.

This, too, was challenged by project opponents. "You can look at pictures of dead people laying there on the sidewalk with that building in the background, and look at it today, and godammit, it’s pretty much the same building," Peskin says.

The Board of Supervisors in mid-March approved an appeal of the project and instructed city planners to prepare an environmental impact report. Ralph Schoenman, a preservation advocate who says he met with board members about the project, told us that "members of the board were plainly shocked by finding out that the historic report was so flawed and untrue."

That feeling may have lingered for some at the April 21 bard meeting when Supervisors voted 7-4 to reject Mayor Gavin Newsom’s nomination of Ruth Todd, a Page & Turnbull principal, to the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.

WHOSE WATERFRONT?


Though the project has been stalled, the issues it stirred are gaining momentum. The picture of what this stretch of the Embarcadero could look like is shaping up to be quite different from developers’ gauzy artistic renderings. Sue Hestor, a land-use lawyer, is a driving force behind a community-led meeting scheduled for June 24 at the headquarters of International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 34 (the successor to ILA) to initiate a new approach to development along the western edge of the Embarcadero.

"Threatened demolition of the 1934 Waterfront Strike headquarters at 113 Steuart has pulled us together," Hestor wrote in a widely disseminated e-mail. "The community will proactively start defining changes we want. No more waiting for a developer proposal, then meekly responding. The community gets to define how the city should look … along the northeast waterfront. When you start at the Embarcadero it is possible to weave in so many areas, so many neighborhoods, so much of our political and immigrant and labor history."

ILWU members are joining with preservationists in the effort to preserve 113 Steuart. "We are at a historic moment when working people are under unprecedented attack," a team of six Local 34 leaders wrote in a recent statement opposing the demolition. "That living history is a prologue to our struggles of the future."

Not all labor unions agree. At a picket staged by San Francisco’s Building and Construction Trades Council outside a Democratic Party luncheon April 21, protesters carried a few flew signs reading "How can we feed our kids with history?" The signs referenced the city’s Historic Preservation Commission, but the same question might be asked of 110 The Embarcadero, which was favored by building-trade workers.

Neighborhood groups are also worried because the construction of the two proposed 84-foot condominium towers at 8 Washington could cause the adjacent Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Club to lose half its facility. "Six hundred to 700 kids come every summer to learn to swim and to play tennis," Club director Lee Radner says. "To us, it’s just a matter of the developer not considering the moral issues of the neighborhood club that has given so much to the community." Friends of Golden Gateway (FOGG), which formed to preserve the club in the face of development, has hired Hestor as its attorney.

Because the development would be partially built on a surface parking lot controlled by the Port Commission, a parcel held to be in the public trust under state law, developers proposed a land-swap to get around provisions prohibiting residential uses in those parcels. Renee Dunn, a spokesperson for the Port Commission, noted that the Port’s annual revenues total $65 million, while the amount that would be needed for repairs and maintenance of its century-old infrastructure is almost $2 billion. In general, "Public-private developments provide the dollars needed to make improvements," she told us.

In the wake of concerns about 8 Washington, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu sent a letter to the Port Commission requesting an update to the waterfront plan for that area. "Concerns are currently being raised regarding the proposed development … and the future development of seawall lots along the northern waterfront, and I share many of these concerns," Chiu wrote. In response, the Port agreed to conduct a six-to-eight month focus study for those seawall lots.

Meanwhile, a quietly growing problem may mean that plans for this stretch of the Embarcadero will get more complicated. A report released in early April by the Bay Conservation and Development Commission predicts a 16-inch rise in the level of the San Francisco Bay by 2050, and a 55-inch rise by 2100, based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Along San Francisco’s waterfront, the most vulnerable area will be from Pier 35 to the Bay Bridge, the report found. "Sea-level rise has been linear, and it’s continuing, and we expect that based on what we know about climate change, it will accelerate," notes Joe LaClair of BCDC. In the event of storm surges, he adds, "we will have to find a way to protect the financial district from inundation."

As local governments begin to get up to speed on mitigating the effects of climate change, new questions — beyond developers’ plans vs. neighborhood input — will have to come into play. One that BCDC plans to tackle in coming months, LaClair notes, is: "What does resilient shoreline development look like?" It’s a good one to start asking now.

Tell BART what you think

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By Tim Redmond

BART’s holding a public meeting (!) to hear concerns about civilian oversight of the BART police. The place ought to be packed — and the message I would send is that BART can’t be trusted to do its own civilian oversight and ought to support the state legislation by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano.

Show up Saturday, May 2 at 1 pm, John P. Bort Metro Center auditorium, 101 8th Street, Oakland.

Fun under seige

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news@sfbg.com

As San Francisco’s party season gets underway — a time when just about every weekend includes street fairs and festivals, venerable celebrations like Bay to Breakers, quirky cultural events such a flash mobs, promoter-created club nights, and underground parties designed to raise funds for Burning Man camps and other endeavors — police and other party-poopers keep finding new ways to crack down on the fun.

The latest: potentially fatal price gouging of the How Weird Street Faire, a series of bizarre police raids on underground clubs, and state alcohol officials threatening to yank local club licenses.

For years, the Guardian has been warning that NIMBY neighbors, intolerant enforcers, and indifferent city officials were threatening the vibrant social events that make San Francisco such a fun and unique city (see “Death of fun,” 5/23/06, “Death of fun, the sequel,” 4/25/07, and regular recent posts on the SFBG Politics blog).

Lately the situation has gotten so bad that even the conservative San Francisco Examiner has written about the problem (“Squeezing the fun out of festivals,” 4/13/09) and followed it up with an editorial calling for city officials to address the issue and ensure that the cultural events can keep happening.

Overwhelming public opposition to recently proposed restrictions on the May 17 Bay to Breakers and April 12 Bring Your Own Big Wheel events led City Hall to pressure the San Francisco Police Department into reversing promises of a crackdown, although many events are being threatened.

The How Weird Street Faire is scheduled for May 10, although organizers say they can’t come up with the nearly $10,000 the San Francisco Police Department is demanding by May 1. Organizer Brad Olsen sought help from City Hall (Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and senior mayoral aide Mike Farrah — who helped save BYOBW — have both tried to intervene, so far to no avail) and unearthed city codes that seem to cap police fees for events like How Weird at $5,494, but the cops haven’t budged.

“Although we appreciate your position, it would be unwise for the SFPD to risk public money by not collecting the required fees prior to the event. If the event is the only way your group is able to pay for police services, we are all betting that the event will be as successful as you hope,” SFPD Lt. Nicole Greely wrote to How Weird promoters on April 13, suggesting that organizers take out a loan to pay the escautf8g protection money demanded by SFPD.

But Olsen said his grassroots group, which barely breaks even on the event, has never in its 10-year history been required to pay in advance and told us that entrance donations at the event are the only real source of revenue for the popular dance party.

Meanwhile the Guardian has heard multiple reports of undercover cops infiltrating underground parties in SoMa in the early morning hours of April 11 and 12, followed up by groups of more than a dozen uniformed officers storming in and roughly making arrests for resisting arrest, illegal alcohol sales, and drug possession.

“All of a sudden an undercover cop just tackled someone on the dance floor,” 27-year-old San Francisco resident Ryan Parkhurst told us, describing the scene at one party. “Then at that point, more than 10 officers came upstairs … I asked an officer, ‘What’s going on?’ and he said, ‘Arrest this guy.'”

Parkhurst said four cops then jumped on him, roughed him up, and arrested him. “Another guy was beat up worse than I was, with severe bruises and scratches all over his face.”

Parkhurst said he was charged with being drunk in public, resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer, but when he went to court on April 13, he was told all charges had been dropped.

SFPD spokesperson Sgt. Lyn Tomioka spent several days trying to gather information on the raids, but had little to offer by Guardian press time. “I can’t give you the answers you’re looking for based on what the computer is telling me,” she said. The District Attorney’s Office also did not respond by press time.

The attention that the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) is paying to licensed venues seems to have ratcheted up lately as well. DNA Lounge, a nightlife haunt for freaks of all stripes, was cited by ABC in February for operating “a disorderly house injurious to the public welfare and morals” after undercover agents for the department witnessed brief instances of nudity and simulated intercourse during the DNA’s popular regular queer parties Cream and Escandalo.

These instances occurred during go-go and stage routines, mostly involving flashing buttocks and a wet T-shirt contest. In a statement on the DNA Lounge Web site , www.dnalounge.com, DNA owner Jamie Zawinski contends that ABC is retaliating against his club for appealing the department’s decision not to grant DNA a conversion of its license from a Type 48 (21-and-over bar) to a Type 47 (all-ages venue that serves food). During the appeal process, a settlement was reached, and the DNA successfully converted its license.

“As a direct result of our having filed an appeal, ABC began sending undercover agents into the club during our gay and lesbian promotions looking for dirt,” Zawinski writes, drawing attention to the specific targeting of DNA’s queer nights, a particular that inflamed the gay community when a story about it was published in the Bay Area Reporter.

It is the specific requirement that all-ages venues collect 50 percent or more of their revenue from food sales that has gotten several other San Francisco clubs in trouble with ABC. The state requires that venues possessing a Type 47 (“bona fide eating place”) license, a requirement for most all-ages clubs, earn just as much revenue from food sales as liquor sales. That’s particularly daunting for businesses that have traditionally made most of their money at the bar.

“There is grave concern and fear,” San Francisco Entertainment Commissioner Terrence Alan told the Guardian, “that the recent conflicting and oftentimes underground regulations [of ABC] could undermine the great and ongoing work of the Entertainment Commission and Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s proposed cultural legislation.”

Alan was referring to the “Promoting and Sustaining Music and Culture in San Francisco” charter amendment sponsored by Mirkarimi that would “produce a master plan and vision that promotes a sustainable environment for music, culture, and entertainment throughout the city.”

It appears the law enforcement types are doing everything possible to make sure Mirkarimi’s vision never becomes reality.

Bruno’s Pizzeria Cucina

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paulr@sfbg.com

What do pizza and jazz have in common? Why, two z’s, of course — the pair of identical twins that also appears in such exciting words as nozzle, nizzle, pizzle, pazzo, and cazzo. Put these all together and shout them from the rooftops and you’ll have quite a riff, if not quite a jazz riff. For music, play ZZ Top. Then run from the obscenity police.

Other than that, pizza and jazz go together like … well, they don’t actually go together. There is no connection I know of. Nonetheless, our drastically refurbished jazz district, along Fillmore south of Geary, now has a creditable pizzeria to go along with the fancier places across the street, Yoshi’s and 1300 Fillmore. The pizzeria is called Bruno’s and, in a most un-Italian development, is unrelated to the Mission District old-timer of the same name. Old Bruno’s has had enough facelifts to rival Phyllis Diller. New Bruno’s, on the other hand, is new — with freshly painted reddish-brown walls, nicely upholstered booths, a gleaming bar against a far wall, a showy kitchen, and jazz memorabilia everywhere, the walls laden with portraits and plaques.

In Europe, jazz has long appealed to the French more than the Italians, but Bruno’s, despite these musical festoonings, is Italian to its core, right down to the patrone, Claudius Oliveira (owner of several other Italian restaurants in northern California, many in the East Bay) who circulates through the dining room, shaking hands and checking, and the service staff with their winsome accents. The cultural flavor is very much that of Little Italy, and part of its beguiling spell is to intensify the experience of the food.

Pizzerias aren’t generally known for their grace notes, but Bruno’s offers several. To begin, there’s the basket of marvelous garlic bread, which is not only flavorful but of a brioche-like tenderness and plumpness. Tasty bread so often exacts a steep price in crustiness and toughness, but not this stuff. Even if you couldn’t eat it, you’d be happy enough just feeling it with your fingers. But you will eat it, and then they bring you more, along with an amuse-bouche — a little ramekin of roasted red pepper soup, say, with a broad hint of cayenne kick. One is typically afforded this type of treatment only when ordering seven-course tasting menus at much starchier places.

Given the slight sports-bar aura, it isn’t surprising to find that the list of appetizers includes buffalo wings ("Texas style"), along with a parade of goodies from the deep fryer, among them calamari and zucchini sticks. But a better choice might be the drunken prawns ($10.95), spiked with tequila.

There is both an Aloha and a Hawaii 5.0 pizza, both with pineapple. Fruit (tomatoes excepted) does not belong on pizza, but pepperoni does, sausage does, salami too, and you’ll get all that and more with the signature Bruno’s special ($14.99 for a 14-incher), along with bell peppers, onions, mushroom slices, and a sprightly tomato sauce.

Most noticeable is the crust, which bucks the current trend toward thinness and crispiness: It’s big, puffy, and bready in true old-school California style. Although I prefer thinner crusts for a variety of reasons — a thin crust doesn’t distract from the toppings but does provide a discreet, pleasurable crackle — there is a case to be made for the more billowy kind. Such a crust does make any pizza look bigger and so, perhaps, enhances one’s perception of value, no small matter in shrinking times.

A nice bonus: if you show up in a ZipCar, you get 10 percent off. And ZipCar has only one Z!

BRUNO’S PIZZERIA CUCINA

Sun.–Thurs., 11 a.m.–midnight

Fri.–Sat., 11–2 a.m.

1375 Fillmore, SF

(415) 563-6300

www.sfbrunos.com

Full bar

AE/DS/MV/V

Noisy

Wheelchair accessible

The “tax day” defense

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boasuspect.jpg
This surveillance photograph of the suspected bank robber is posted at the SFPD’s website.

The San Francisco Police Department has issued a description of a bank robbery suspect who threatened to blow up the Bank of America at 50 California Street, on April 15, aka tax day, if his demands weren’t met.

Carrying a black lap top case, the suspect, who is described as “a white male, 6’, 190 lbs., last seen wearing a
baseball cap with “SF” on it, a khaki buttoned shirt, and blue jeans,” allegedly “entered the
Bank of America on California Street, at approximately 12:50 P.M, and asked an employee to speak with the manager because he wanted to make a large withdrawal,” according to a SFPD press release.

The manager took him to a room, where the suspect allegedly “explained that he worked for an organization that is concerned about government bailouts of corporations.”

The suspect, who apparently was smiling throughout, then demanded cash, stating, that unless the manager complied, he would “detonate a bomb that he was carrying with him.”

The cash, the suspect explained, “would go to people who deserve it,” according to the SFPD.

The manager withdrew a large amount of cash from a vault and gave it to the suspect, who fled the bank on foot.

For more information–or if you have information for the police, call the SFPD’s Public Affairs Office at 415.553.1651.

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