Progressive

Questions for Gavin the Green

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Why did Mayor Newsom recently buckle three times to PG@E? How can he be a “green” mayor and a “green” gubernatorial candidate if he’s scared of PG@E?

By Bruce B. Brugmann

Last Saturday (July 26), out driving in my car, I was startled to hear Mayor Gavin Newsom on the Progressive Talk Radio Show Green 960 show. He was the host, interviewing Stewart Brand of Whole Earth Catalog fame, and generally sweating away to appear clean and green, green, green, and green some more.
However, he greened over his recent classics in green self-immolation. So I sent him and the station some questions by email and then on to his press secretary Nathan Ballard. No answer as of blogtime almost a week later.

Dear Gavin,

I was interested to hear you this morning on the Progressive Talk Radio Green 960 program. I am curious to know why, as a purported “green” mayor and a purported “green” candidate for governor, and a “purported” radio host on a green 960 show, you have buckled twice recently to PG&E? The first time you buckled to PG&E and changed your position on the Potrero Hill peakers, allowing PG&E to continue to control the power plant and city energy policy.

The second was your quick and hard rejection of the clean energy initiative. How can you be a “green” mayor if you are buckling to PG&E on the big green issues? I will be posting the questions and answers on my Bruce blog at sfbg.com, so I would appreciate hearing from you. Thanks, Bruce B. Brugmann, Guardian editor and publisher

P.S. 1:And now there is a third Newsom instance of buckling to PG@E: Newsom’s five PG@E-friendly appointments to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. None had any public power or community choice aggregation credentials. And Nora Vargas, director of the Latino Issues Forum, was not only considered PG@E friendly, but PG@E between 2004 and 2005 had given $150,000 as part of their community grantmaking.

More: Guillermo Rodriguez, former public relations flak for PG@E, is on the board of the forum (along with two other private private utility executives. Rodriguez left PG@E to head the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which receives gobs of money from PG@E on a regular basis and in return provides “community services” for PG@E.

This, ladies and gentleman, is yet another example of how PG@E exerts its power and uses the mayor to subvert any real moves toward real clean and green power, such as the Clean Energy Initiative. PG@E has used this maneuver successfully for decades: they influence the mayor to make PG@E-friendly appointments to the PUC and then the PG@e-friendly appointees never put a pebble in the path of PG@E or raise serious questions about its illegal private power monopoly. So far, it’s always worked but a new day may be coming. On guard!

P.S. 2:Why doesn’t the station bring on people from the clean energy campaign? Why doesn’t it appear to allow call-in questions on the show (at least I didn’t hear any during my listening time?)

P.S. 3: Alert: Let us know of any PG@E astroturfing and greenwashing as the campaign goes along. PG@E is more worried than ever and it will be spending millions to try to convince San Francisco voters that clean green energy is not for San Francisco. Their propaganda line: leave the greening to PG@E and Gavin the Green. B3

Click here to hear the podcast of the Gavin Newsom Show from Saturday July 26th.

Clean Energy Act makes ballot

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› news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY The San Francisco Clean Energy Act isn’t the only charter amendment on the November ballot, but it’s already shaping up to be the political lightning rod of this fall’s election.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. sent out mailers opposing the measure even before the Board of Supervisors voted 7-4 on July 22 to place it on the Nov. 4 ballot. Mayor Gavin Newsom also announced his opposition to the act moments after Assemblymember Mark Leno, former San Francisco Public Utilities Commission General Manager Susan Leal, and a cadre of progressive supervisors announced their support for it on the steps of City Hall.

Authored by Sups. Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin, the Clean Energy Act requires San Francisco to fulfill 51 percent of its electricity needs through renewable sources by 2017. That requirement rises to 75 percent by 2030, and to 100 percent, “or the greatest amount technologically feasible or practicable,” by 2040.

The SF Clean Energy Act also mandates that a feasibility study be undertaken to look at the best way to provide clean, green energy, which could lead to PG&E losing its stranglehold on energy if the study finds public power to be the best option.

Explaining the importance of mandating a feasibility study, Mirkarimi said, “Otherwise PG&E has a monopoly here until the planet dies.”

Supporters say it is important for San Francisco to set up a model that others can follow. “As goes San Francisco, so goes the state of California, and so goes the nation,” Peskin said at the July 22 rally, just before the Board voted to place the act on the ballot. “This is a time when people can change the destiny of the planet.”

Moments after that rally ended, Mayor Newsom took a minute to explain his opposition.

“We have other things we should be focusing on,” Newsom told reporters at a press conference at the War Memorial Building to announce housing bonds for veterans. “Let’s call it what it is. It’s a power takeover of PG&E,” he said.

But the elected officials and myriad organizations who showed up at City Hall to support the Clean Energy Act say that public vs. private power is not the main issue.

“The public power considerations have been drafted in a thoughtful and reasonable way,” Leno told the crowd. “It would involve study after study after study, and testimony from experts.”

Leno noted that 42 million Americans have public power, and if San Francisco did turn to public power, it would be embracing something as American as mom and apple pie. “Unlike their private power company counterparts, public power systems serve only one constituency: their customers,” Leno said.

Sup. Gerardo Sandoval opined that government is better able to assume renewable energy risks. “The private industry is not going to take that risk,” Sandoval said. “It’s always going to take the cheap way out, which is fossil fuels.

Others warned the audience not to be swayed by PG&E’s anti–Clean Energy campaign, which Newsom’s chief political consultant Eric Jaye is working on.

“This is not some crazy takeover scheme,” Leal said. “It’s about protecting the environment and the rights of San Franciscans and their rate payers.”

The Clean Energy Act has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, San Francisco Tomorrow, ACORN, the San Francisco Green Party, the League of Young Voters, Green Action for Health and Environmental Justice, the San Francisco Green Party, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights.

Mark Sanchez, president of the San Francisco Board of Education and a supervisorial candidate in District 9, described showing “An Inconvenient Truth” to the eighth-grade science class he teaches. “What can I say to my kids — we don’t have the policies in place to mitigate the damage they see?”

The Sierra Club’s John Rizzo noted, “This act insures that San Francisco is at the center of this economy. Not in Japan, China, or Germany. It will be here.”

Aliza Wasserman of the League of Young Voters stated that “PG&E is not investing $1 in renewable energy beyond state mandates, and they lobby against measures to raise those mandates.”

Going green requires cooperation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Outside the HRC dinner

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OPINION On July 26, the Bay Area’s gay and lesbian elite will gather at the posh Westin St. Francis to raise money for the Human Rights Campaign in the name of securing and protecting LGB rights. Despite flip-flopping its position on a federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which should include protections for gender identity as well as sexual orientation, HRC will rake in money to further advance a version of human rights in the political world of Washington, DC in which transgender and gender-non-conforming people are apparently less than human.

Luckily, there’s a fabulous alternative. Outside the Westin St. Francis we’ll be throwing the "Left Out Party: A Genderful Gay-la" in support of an inclusive ENDA that protects gender identity. Leaders in the city’s progressive community will be partying in the streets in support of our transgender brothers and sisters.

Why outside? The not-so-fabulous truth is that in promoting a noninclusive ENDA, the Human Rights Campaign abandoned the values of equality and inclusion. Transgender Americans need employment nondiscrimination protections at the federal level. Period. A recent study of the transgender community in SF found that 70 percent of transgender women in San Francisco are unemployed. This points to the need for an inclusive ENDA.

When ENDA was being discussed in Congress last autumn, important discussions surrounding political strategy were raised: should we secure legislation that protects all LGBT Americans, or should we compromise the rights of those most vulnerable among us for the gains of many?

A unified front made up of every single prominent LGBT organization nationwide, more than 350 LGBT organizations total, answered in favor of protecting all of us.

Publicly, HRC Executive Director Joe Solomonese promised to transgender activists that the organization would oppose any attempt to introduce a noninclusive ENDA. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the nation’s supposed leading LGBT political organization worked to strip gender identity protections from the bill in the name of "political expediency" and "incrementalism."

Since that decision, trans activists have organized pickets at HRC’s annual dinner in Washington and at subsequent dinners in cities across the country. Here in San Francisco, we are raising the bar.

In our city, prominent local elected officials and political organizations came out in support of an inclusive ENDA. The San Francisco LGBT Pride Committee nominated HRC for its annual "Pink Brick" award. All of the city’s LGBT elected officials, as well as many allies such as City Attorney Dennis Herrera, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, and Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, are refusing to attend the dinner.

HRC’s failed strategy on ENDA has needlessly divided our community at a time when we are poised to make great gains in civil rights. If any silver lining can be found in this debacle, it’s that a huge majority of queer progressive and even mainstream organizations have come forward to remind everyone that civil rights are not something that can be compromised. That’s a San Francisco value we’re all proud of.

Which is why you’ll find us outside the Westin St. Francis this Saturday — because we want to party with all members of our community. Come join the long list of trannies, queers, gender-fabulous performers, studs, twinks, soft butches, queens, shark femmes, and all fighters for social justice — outside!

SF Pride at Work

SF Pride at Work is an LGBT labor organization.

What the candidates need to tell us

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Judge denies SF Weekly motion for new trial

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Judge Marla Miller July 18th rejected attempts by the SF Weekly and its chain owner to overturn the Bay Guardian’s victory and $16 million jury award in a predatory pricing case.

The ruling on the defendants’ post-trial motions marked the end of the first full round of this legal fight and sets the stage for a shift to the California Court of Appeal. All that remains to be decided by Judge Miller is the Guardian’s upcoming motion for attorneys’ fees, which are expressly allowed to a prevailing party under the California Unfair Practices Act.

SF Weekly and Village Voice Media had asked Miller to overturn the jury verdict or order a new trial, and the company lawyers spent hours July 8th arguing that the evidence presented in a five-week trial didn’t justify the jury’s decision. And they claimed, in a laundry list of challenges, that Miller had issued improper jury instructions and erred in admitting evidence at trial.

Defense attorneys James Wagstaffe and H. Sinclair Kerr also tried to get the judge to overturn the 16-paper chain’s liabilty for any damages awarded by the jury. That would have left the Weekly as the only guilty party. VVM had admitted in earlier post-trial proceedings that the Weekly has a negative net worth and alone would be unable to pay the Guardian anywhere near $16 million.

Miller, with little comment, denied those requests.

In her “order denying defendants’ motion for new trial” Miller stated:

“To the extent that the motion for New Trial is based upon the grounds of insufficiency of the evidence to justify the verdict (Civil Procedure Code #657(6) and excessive damages (Civil Procedure Code #657(5) the court has weighed the evidence and is not convinced from the entire record, including reasonable inferences therefrom, that the jury clearly should have reached a different verdict. To the extent that the motion for New Trial is based upon errors at law which Defendants contend occurred at the trial and were excepted to by them (Civil Procedure #657(7), the Court finds these contentions lack merit.”

The defendants have said they plan to appeal.

The case centered around the Guardian’s charge that the Weekly had for years violated California’s Unfair practices Act by selling advertising space below the cost of producing it for the purpose of injuring the locally owned, independent competitor.

Evidence presented at trial showed that the Weekly had consistently lost money, as much as $2 million a year, since New Times, now known as VVM, bought the paper in 1995.

The chain later bought the East Bay Express, and transformed it from a profitable paper to one that consistently lost money. Between the Weekly and the Express, VVM has lost some $25 million in San Francisco.

The evidence also showed that VVM’s executive editor, Michael Lacey, had vowed to put the Guardian out of business, and that Weekly advertising and business staff were instructed to try to take business away from the Guardian by below cost pricing, whatever the sacrifice in revenue and profits.

And while the VVM lawyers mounted a convoluted legal argument to claim that the parent company wasn’t legally liable for any damages, the trial showed that the senior executives at the Phoenix-based chain were not only aware of the predatory strategy but were active participants in enabling the Weekly to carry out its pervasive program of below-cost sales..

In fact, two senior officers, CFO Jed Brunst and Controller Jeff Mars, testified on the stand or in pretrial depositions that the SF Weekly would have gone out of business years ago if the chain hadn’t made a policy of shipping large sums of money from headquarters into the San Francisco operation to subsidize below-cost sales.

After the trial, jurors said they were convinced that VVM sought to destroy local competition. Juror Kerstin Sjoquist, a local business owner and graduate student, said in an interview that “it felt overly predatory on the part of the Weekly” and that “the predatory intent trickled down from the top.”

Although the VVM lawyers have 60 days to file their notice of appeal, there’s already some indication of what the chain will try to argue to the higher court. Even before the trial started, Andy Van De Voorde, VVM executive associate editor, who flew in from Denver to cover the trial for the Weekly, argued in his blogs that the California Unfair Practices Act was out of date and irrelevant. Referring to the act as a “depression era law,” (actually, the act dates back to 1913, California’s Progressive Era), Van De Voorde suggested that modern competitive markets made such a law pointless.

The law bars any business from selling a product or service below cost with the intent to harm a competitor or destroy competition. That prohibition has been upheld by many appellate court decisions, some as recent as the 21st century. The state Legislature has reviewed and even amended that part of the state code many times in recent decades, but has declined to make any fundamental changes in the protections afforded by the Unfair Practices Act.

And the trend toward chain ownership and consolidation of businesses in everything from coffee shops to bookstores and hair salons would seem to suggest that the need for a law protecting independent local merchants from predatory chains is greater than ever today.

That’s certainly true for the news media: One company new owns almost every daily newspaper in the Bay Area.

Both before and after the trial, the VVM lawyers also argued that a ban on predatory pricing would violate the Weekly’s First Amendment rights. If the paper was forced to live within its means – that is, to raise ad rates and stop relying on big subsidies from the chain – Weekly managers might have to cut the size of the staff, thus reducing editorial coverage, the lawyers argued.

Two judges – first Richard Kramer, who handled pre-trial rulings, and later Miller – rejected that argument wholesale.

As the Guardian’s lawyers argued, newspapers have always had to follow basic business regulations – even when they might cost money that could have gone to editorial staffing. No newspaper has ever seriously tried to claim that labor laws, or environmental laws, or workplace-safety laws, or tax laws were a First Amendment violation.

Still, those claims may appear again in the appellate briefs.

Meanwhile, the costs to VVM and the Weekly will continue to rise: If the verdict is upheld on appeal, the chain will have to pay interest on the jury award, which is now accruing at about $4,300 a day. And at this point the Guardian has an additional statutory right to recover reasonable attorney’s fees, which could add a substantial amount to the current judgment of more than $16 million

The Guardian’s lawyers are Ralph Alldredge, Richard Hill and E. Craig Moody.

You can read the Guardian’s key legal brief on the post-trial motions here. For a detailed history of the case, click here

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Back in 2001, San Francisco came within 500 votes of approving a public power system in an election marred by lingering evidence of fraud. Ballot boxes were removed from the Department of Elections (under a bizarre, never-documented threat of anthrax poisoning) and box tops were later found floating in the bay. I still think we actually won that election. And it’s hard to see how we could have done it without organized labor.

The Central Labor Council backed public power. Service Employees International Union Local 790 poured resources into it. The labor-environmental coalition that came together around building a city-run system that would rely on clean energy was unprecedented.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. knows this. That’s why the company is trying mightily to keep labor from backing this year’s Clean Energy Act. And at the center of that battle is Mayor Gavin Newsom’s chief political consultant and close advisor, Eric Jaye.

The Clean Energy Act, as we point out on page 5, would give the city control of its energy future and put San Francisco at the forefront of national efforts to reduce carbon emissions. It also opens the door to public power — and Jaye has been hired by PG&E to try to keep the supervisors from putting it on the ballot, and to defeat it if they do.

He has a powerful weapon to use: labor’s determination to pass a giant bond act to rebuild San Francisco General Hospital.

A billion-dollar bond act is a tough sell, and harder still during a recession. Labor is also making a big push for progressive supervisorial candidates in Districts 1, 3, and 11. And the labor council director, Tim Paulson, tells me that he really wants to keep the city’s disparate and sometimes fractious labor unions united around those goals.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, PG&E’s union, will oppose any public power measure, any time, no matter what it says, and IBEW walked out of the labor council in 2001 over the issue. Now Jaye is telling labor people that the Clean Energy Act (and other issues that are "crowding" the ballot) may undermine public support for the hospital bond. "I have an early poll showing that these other measures have a negative impact on the hospital," Jaye told me. "I have been pointing to that fact and asking if we really need to do [the Clean Energy Act] this year."

John Whitehurst, who is running the SF General bond campaign, says his polls show that there was no correlation between an affordable housing set-aside measure and the hospital bonds, and presumably the same is true of the Clean Energy Act. On the other hand, he says, "if Jaye runs a campaign that says ‘Gee, the city can’t do anything right,’ it could create problems for the hospital measure."

Would Eric Jaye threaten the SF General bonds (which his client, Gavin Newsom, strongly backs) to keep labor from backing public power? He insisted to me that he would never do that, and that he and the mayor fully back the bonds. But PG&E, I think, cares nothing about the hospital — or the city — and will do whatever it can to scuttle this measure.

So will labor be intimidated by the threat of divisiveness (from the IBEW) and the political scare tactics from PG&E — or will labor leaders tell the mayor to knock it off?

Newsom and the Clean Energy Act

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EDITORIAL A progressive measure that would make San Francisco one of the greenest cities in the nation will be on the ballot this fall. It’s designed to lower energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and promote green-collar jobs. It has all the elements that Mayor Gavin Newsom has been talking about in his high-profile speeches, press conferences, and celebrity appearances. It’s a perfect vehicle for a mayor who wants to stand out as a candidate for governor of California. It has the backing of some of Newsom’s close allies, like state Sen. Mark Leno.

That’s why Newsom ought to support the Clean Energy Act.

The charter amendment, sponsored by Sups. Aaron Peskin and Ross Mirkarimi, seeks to make San Francisco more energy independent. It sets ambitious goals for renewable energy and would put the city on track to create its own public power system. It’s not a radical measure — in fact, it’s milder than we would have liked. It doesn’t mandate an immediate takeover of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s facilities. It doesn’t turn the Public Utilities Commission into an elected body. And no matter what lies PG&E puts out, it won’t raise electric rates or cost the taxpayers money.

It does, however, mandate that the PUC look at the best ways to ensure that by 2017, 51 percent of the electricity used in the city comes from renewable resources. By 2040, that number should be 100 percent. And the evidence from across the nation shows that the best way to promote renewable energy is to shift from private control of utilities to public power.

Again, that’s hardly a radical notion: more than 2,000 cities in the United States have public power. Palo Alto is among them; so are Alameda and Santa Clara. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District provides reliable service to Sacramento County at rates 30 percent below what PG&E charges customers in adjoining areas — and SMUD has one of the best records in the nation for promoting conservation and renewable energy.

Of course, the very existence of any sort of plan to consider energy alternatives for San Francisco seems to terrify PG&E. Already the giant private utility is pulling political strings and retailing outrageous lies to try to scare the supervisors away from placing the charter amendment on the ballot. And we expect to see a savage, multimillion-dollar campaign against the measure this fall.

That’s because PG&E wants no hint of competition, no chance that the city might actually consider the benefits of public power. It’s no secret why. When you look at the facts, compare how public and private systems have fared in the past decade, and line up the financial figures and the prospects for sustainable energy policies, public power wins.

The biggest misinformation PG&E is putting out these days involves the cost of creating and running a public power system in San Francisco. The company is throwing out numbers like $4 billion, and suggesting that the taxpayers would be on the hook for all of it if the city tried to take over the company’s system.

For starters, there’s nothing in the Clean Energy Act that requires a takeover. It might turn out to be more prudent, for example, to slowly build a new city-owned infrastructure. More important, if the city did decide to buy out PG&E’s wires, poles, and meters, the cost would be nowhere near what the company is claiming.

How much is the system really worth? Well, one way to find out is to check the assessed value, the figure the state uses for property-tax purposes. And as Amanda Witherell reported July 2 (see "The dirty fight over clean power"), the state says all of PG&E’s property within San Francisco city limits is worth only $1.2 billion — and that includes the company’s downtown office complex, which is worth at least several hundred million. So the actual cost of the system might wind up at less than a quarter of what PG&E claims.

And none of that money — none — would come from taxpayers. The PUC could issue only revenue bonds, backed by future electricity sales, to finance any buyout or construction. No tax money would ever be in play. And our past analyses have consistently shown that the city could buy out PG&E’s system, cut electric rates, and still wind up with a sizable surplus every year.

Newsom is aware of all of this, and has said that he’s willing to consider supporting public power. Now there’s a measure heading for the ballot that would also mesh with all of the mayor’s environmental goals. The only argument against it is that PG&E — in the past a backer of the mayor — doesn’t want it to pass.

Newsom needs to support the Clean Energy Act. If he doesn’t, it will demonstrate that he lacks the backbone to stand up to special interests — and has no business running for governor of this state.

A kickoff press conference on the Clean Energy Act will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 22 on the steps of City Hall.

Taste the Mochi

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› kimberly@sfbg.com

SONIC REDUCER "If you build it, they will come!" A few famous first words from David Wang — otherwise known as the ever-fruitful laptop lothario Mochipet — when we spoke recently, and something to ponder as I gazed around his so-chill, so-frolicsome, and oh-so-free Fourth of July barbecue bash in Golden Gate Park. In a green, leafy nook near the fields where the buffalo roam, a DJ tent is up and housing such pals as Phon.o and Flying Skulls. Funk ‘n’ Chunk fire the grill with impressive flamethrower action, and Christian of the Tasty crew plunges fish-sauce-marinated chicks into the hot grease for Filipino fried chicken. Throw a Tecate on the whole thing, pet your mochi, and call it an awesome party despite the fact that, as Wang confides, "we did get started a little late because there were some rangers sniffing around."

Mochipet, “Get Your Whistle Wet”

Wang is accustomed to building where few have ventured before — and as a collaborator extraordinaire who has worked with everyone from Spank Rock to Ellen Allien, he’s brought together communities of sorts in the most unlikely of locales (hence the name of his label, Daly City Records). Earlier that week we chatted by phone in lieu of digging into Hong Kong deep-fried pork chops and a sweet, cheap Filipino breakfast ("It’s like soul food for Asians — everything’s either deep-fried or smoked") at Gateway restaurant near the literal and spiritual home of Daly City Records. The occasion is his forthcoming Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival, an improv-y and likely collaborative performance, as well as a whopping release show at Club Six for his latest disc, Microphonepet (Daly City).

A formidable gathering of all of Wang’s work and collaborations since 2001, Microphonepet overwhelms with its awesome sonics, roving from "Tangle" with Salva and Epcot and "Get Your Whistle Wet" with the Hustle Heads, to "Vnecks" with 215 the Freshest Kids and "Lazy Days" with KFlay. Where has Wang been hiding his crazily deep-fried, deliciously bleepy hip-hop production skills all this time? "Guess it got to the point where last year I got 20 tracks, so I just put them out as a record, because some of them are really cool," he explains. "I thought they were really diverse and it would be a good segue to my next record."

Wang has been pouring plenty of energy into that coming disc, which may be released on Daly City or an imprint like Ninjatune. He describes it as more personal: he’s skating progressive, jazz, and South American musical influences off trad Korean and Chinese sounds, and acoustic guitar off heavy electronics. "I’ve always written traditional songs but I’ve never really been comfortable releasing it," says Wang, who describes his early aural interests as veering toward jazz and salsa. "All my records before this have been experiments — me trying new things. But they haven’t been as personal as this next record. I think of it as my first record, really. I’m a slow bloomer." *

MOCHIPET

MCMF show with Yoko Solo, Patrice Scanlon, and Blanket Head

July 18, 8 p.m., $7

Million Fishes Gallery

2501 Bryant, SF

millionfishes.com

Also Aug. 9

Microphonepet release show with Raashan, Mike Boo, Cikee, Daddy Kev, Dopestyles, Kflay, and others

9 p.m., $10–<\d>$15

Club Six

60 Sixth St., SF

www.clubsix1.com

BATTLE OF THE FESTS: MISSION CREEK VS. DIAMOND DAYS?

No need to create a faux feud: fests that clash by night and warehouse shows are no problem. In response to learning that Diamond Days — Heeb magazine’s hoedown, newly transplanted from Brooklyn to Oakland — goes down the same week as this year’s Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival, founder Jeff Ray said, "I think it’s great. I like Heeb magazine. We haven’t completely settled on those dates, and I randomly picked this weekend — normally we do it in May. Next time we might do it the first week of August." OK, so both fests also happen to include some of the same performers — each has its unique attractions as well. Sparkling offerings at DD’s Ella Baker Center for Human Rights fundraiser include Los Angeles’ punky-garagey Audacity, Seattle’s rousing Whalebones, Ventura’s thrashy Fucking Wrath, and a mother lode of intriguing folk from the LA area ranging from the sibling sublimity of the Chapin Sisters to the resurgent pop of "Windy" scribe Ruthann Friedman.

July 17 and 20, Mama Buzz Café, Oakl.; July 17–19, Ghost Town Gallery, Oakl. For details, go to www.myspace.com/diamonddaysfest

LOUDER, FASTER, STRONGER

APACHE


The garage rockin’ good times stream off this Cuts–Parchman Farm supergroup’s debut, Boomtown Gems (Birdman). Wed/9, 9 p.m., $6. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.elbo.com

KODE 9


The London dubstep artist and Hyperdub label owner with a doctorate in philosophy gives a shout out to his boroughs. Thurs/10, 9 p.m., $12. Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF. www.mezzaninesf.com

QUITZOW


The multi-instrumental wiz grabs for Solex’s crown with some goofy fun, like kitty-sampling "Cats R People 2" off her Art College (Young Love). With Settting Sun and the Love X Nowhere. Thurs/10, 8 p.m., $10. Rickshaw Stop, 155 Fell, SF. www.rickshawstop.com

RATATAT


A kinder, gentler Crooklyn combo? Rabid fans can expect polyrhythmic rock from LP3 (XL). Thurs/10, 9 p.m., $20. Slim’s, 33 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com

20 MINUTE LOOP


The SF indie rockers chime in on tabloid culture with their new, self-released Famous People Marry Famous People. Fri/11, 10 p.m., $10. Bottom of the Hill, 1233 17th St., SF. www.bottomofthehill.com

Erraticism

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› le_chicken_farmer@yahoo.com

CHEAP EATS Rube Roy’s gonna enjoy this … That sweet bluegrass kitty I wrote about? We got in an argument and I was the one who had to go to the hospital. It bit me, the little love, and drew blood. Just a couple a drops, but still, I’m a stickler for details. I called the advice nurse to see if I should bring the poor, exposed kitten in for a blood test, since probably some of my cells got left in its mouth, and it might have had a small cut or cold sore in there, for all I knew.

Ironically, the nurse was more worried about me! In her opinion, since this was technically a wild animal, albeit a cute one, I was at risk for rabies, kitten scratch fever, and sundry heavy metal maladies. Infection … who knew kittens could be so dangerous?

"Are you behaving erratically?" the advice nurse asked. To be fair, there were other questions too, but this was the one that impressed me. Was I behaving erratically?

I had one of those blink-of-the-eye moments, where a sudden shift in perspective allows you to see your life objectively and with absolute clarity. No time passes, yet you take instantaneous and discerning stock of your entire past, present, future, and (if you’re me) present perfect progressive.

Four years I’ve been living with my insane cat in this falling-down shack in the woods next to my homemade falling-down chicken coop. I’ve been driving a perplexingly sporadic little blue pickup truck that isn’t a pickup truck and only sometimes has a horn, or headlights, or first gear, and also only sometimes goes.

I’ve been lying outside in my junkyard bathtub, plucking my boobs and wearing a cowboy hat. There’s a black rubber ducky with anarchist slogans floating between my feet, a jar of piss next to a bowl of popcorn outside the tub, and on a beautiful Tuesday morning, to give just one example, while folks half my age and even probably one or two people twice my age are stuck in offices being productive members of society, here I am in said tub talking on the phone with you, Ms. Advice Nurse, because I tried to help a kitten.

"Me? Behaving erratically?" I said, more than a little miffed at her insinuating tone. "I’m a consistent character, if you don’t mind! Did I bite a kitten? No. A kitten bit me. Am I behaving erratically? What about this little nefarious bastard?"

My chickens were lined up on a log, just 10 feet away, looking at me and screaming. Inside our shack, Weirdo the Cat was jumping up onto and off of our chair, repeatedly, trying to bat down song lyrics that were hanging like laundry on my indoor clothesline, swaying in the wind because the windows were open to air out something I’d done.

"What’s that noise?" the advice nurse asked. "And what was that word you used?"

"Chickens. Didn’t I tell you? I’m outside, in the tub," I said. "What? Nefarious? It means wicked, or evil."

"Hold on a minute," she said, and she went away and came back nine seconds later and said I had to go see the doctor. As soon as possible. I guess because chicken farmers don’t normally use the word nefarious.

So, well, so I was erratic. And scared now too, so I called in "bit" from work, and did go see my doctor. I hate heavy metal music … and am susceptible to suggestion. Even dumb ones, like I could die from this horrific kitten wound, which was on my index finger and looked like a little dot, or freckle, only smaller.

My doctor laughed her ass off. She did give me a vaccine shot against tetanus, whooping cough, and something else — not because I got poked by a kitty, but because I work around little baby human infants and shit, in addition to chickens, chicken wire, and nefarious wildlife. So here’s why I love my doctor, and not advice nurses: while I was there, I showed her some warts I have and she said, and I quote, "Put duct tape on them."

————————————————–

My new favorite restaurant is Cable Car Pizza. And if you believe that, I’ve got a cute little kitten for you. This place kinda sucks. Only reason we went was we had a band to feed, and Arinell wasn’t open yet. I started foaming at the mouth when they rang me up. Georgie Bundle said $26 was the going rate for a large with a couple of toppings. If so, they might consider putting that price on their board, which apparently hasn’t been updated since the 1980s. It took four people to take our order.

CABLE CAR PIZZA

Daily: 11 a.m.–3 a.m.

535 Valencia, SF

(415) 431-8800

No alcohol

AE/MC/V

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

I was dreading the drive home from Lake Shasta. Sunday afternoon. The end of a major holiday weekend. Every car in Northern California would be converging on the Bay Bridge right around the same time I got there. Figure two hours from the Carquinez Bridge to the toll plaza. Hot weather. Tired, hungry kids who have to pee. Nowhere to go, no way to move. An impatient driver (me), who can’t stand waiting five minutes in a grocery store line, stuck in an endless, hellish queue with no outlet for the anger except to crab at my long-suffering partner. It wasn’t going to be pretty.

We did what we could. We got up early Sunday morning, de-fusted the boat, pulled into the dock by 11 a.m., and got on the road by noon. But still: 210 miles to San Francisco. We’d hit the Bay Area right about 3 p.m., along with every other auto-mad idiot who drove somewhere for the Fourth of July.

But a funny thing happened: we cleared Vacaville, and Crockett, and Vallejo, and I kept waiting for the traffic to hit. And then Albany and Berkeley and … whoa: we were on the bridge approach at 3:15, not one single stop-and-go spot, and the bridge was no worse than a typical pre-rush-hour weekday afternoon. It seemed as if nobody was driving.

Nobody is a bit too strong of a term — there were still plenty of people on the road. But for the first time in a decade, the California State Automobile Association reported a decline in car use over the holiday. "Less disposable cash and an overall increase in travel expenses have caused Californians to postpone or downsize their holiday getaways," CSAA spokesperson Cynthia Harris announced.

You could see that up at the lake, where rows of empty houseboats sat at the dock. Part of it was the incessant media coverage of the fires (in fact, Shasta was fine). But the biggest factor was the price of gas. At $4.50 a gallon, people don’t drive as much.

This is good.

For the first time in many, many years, people are talking about fuel efficiency again. I’m obsessed with it: change the oil, keep the car tuned and the tires inflated, and our utterly uncool Saturn wagon, with two-wheel drive and a small, weak four-cylinder engine, gets almost 40 mpg on the highway. We burned maybe 12 gallons round trip, which cost a little more than $50. Twice what it cost a few years ago, but not a deal-breaker. All of a sudden, the SUVs are grounded, and we’ve got the trick ride.

And I started to think: imagine what would have happened if courageous politicians in California had put a $2-a-gallon tax on gas five years ago. The SUVs and Hummers would be long gone. Public transit would be booming. And with 1.5 billion gallons of gas sold per year in the state, there would be $3 billion more each year in new revenue. Enough to fund huge improvements in urban transportation systems. The high-speed rail line to Los Angeles would be well underway. Traffic (and pollution, and global warming) would have dropped dramatically.

Yeah, the price of gas hits hard on working-class people who have to drive. I get that. It’s not the world’s most progressive tax. But the price has gone up anyway (as we all knew it would eventually) — and now all of that money is going into private oil company profits instead of going into public benefits. Something to think about.

Bucking off Chuck

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› amanda@sfbg.com

It was a steamy 95 degrees inside the vineyard, just east of Stockton, where Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez was pruning a shadeless stretch of young vines. It was May 14, the third day of work for the 17-year-old immigrant from Oaxaca, Mexico. She’d been working more than nine hours, with just one water break, when she collapsed from heat exhaustion at 3:40 p.m.

An hour and a half later, when she finally arrived at an emergency room, her body temperature was 108.4 degrees. For two days her heart stopped and started, then ceased beating completely.

The California Division of Industrial Relations has opened an investigation of the death and her employer, Merced Farm Labor, whose operating permit had already been temporarily suspended by state officials based on past unpaid fines for unheeded heat safety violations, and a permanent revocation could be imminent.

The San Joaquin county coroner determined that heat was the fatal factor, and so Jimenez’s family has filed a civil suit claiming wrongful death. The district attorney and attorney general have also opened investigations.

"We’re hoping to send a signal to farmers that you don’t just hire a labor contractor because it’s the lowest bid," Robert Perez, the lead attorney on the case, told the Guardian. "We think farmers, when they hire a labor contractor, should check them out."

But activists connected to the case want to send the message even further, to stores like Trader Joe’s that market products made with cheap or exploited agricultural labor.

Merced Farm Labor was subcontracted by West Coast Grape Farming, whose president, Fred Franzia, also owns Bronco Winery, makers of Charles Shaw wine — also known as Trader Joe’s cheap and wildly popular "Two-Buck Chuck." Approximately 72 million bottles of the $2 wine are sold each year, exclusively at Trader Joe’s.

United Farm Workers, responding to Jimenez’s death, have asked supporters to fire off letters to Trader Joe’s requesting the company "implement a corporate policy to ensure that its your suppliers are not vioutf8g the law by failing to provide basic protections such as cold water, shade, and clean bathrooms."

So far reaction has been swift and significant. "We always get a big volume of response because our Listserv is very socially conscious," said Jocelyn Sherman, UFW’s director of Internet communications. "But for this we’ve gotten an overwhelming volume of response. It’s the situation. People need something to be done."

Sherman estimates as many as 15,000 e-mails have been sent from UFW supporters to Trader Joe’s, whose spokesperson, Alison Mochizuki, told us the ire has been misplaced: "The unfortunate and tragic death of Maria Jimenez highlights issues and concerns facing all agricultural industries across America. Maria Jimenez was employed by an independent contractor working in an independent vineyard. The vineyard supplies many wineries, but was not supplying grapes for Charles Shaw. The company employing the young farm worker has no more of a relation to Trader Joe’s than they do to any other wine retailer or restaurant."

However, UFW asserts that subcontracting is the historic artful dodge of many a vineyard, and a vendor like Trader Joe’s, which serves a progressive community, ought to exert its clout on these issues.

"Lovingly nicknamed ‘Two-Buck Chuck’ by a member of the wine press, these California wines have become something of a phenomenon in the wine world, and in our stores," trumpets Trader Joe’s Web site. "Contrary to many an urban legend, these super-value wines began as the result of an oversupply of wine and a great relationship with a valued supplier."

"You say you have a great relationship with this supplier," Sherman responded. "Use this great relationship to protect workers."

A spokesperson for Franzia told the Guardian that the company had no comment. Mochizuki said Trader Joe’s — which has 62 stores in Northern California — is committed to protecting workers: "Our vendors have a strong record of providing safe and healthy work environments and we will continue to make certain that our vendors are meeting if not exceeding government standards throughout all aspects of their businesses."

The carfree challenge

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>>For our complete Towards Carfree Cities conference coverage, including video, interviews, and pics, click here.

› steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY A large group of San Francisco’s top alternative transportation advocates traveled to Portland, Ore., for the Towards Carfree Cities international conference June 16-20, marveling at a transportation system widely considered to be the most progressive in the United States.

"Portland is light-years ahead of everyone else in this country," said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, who attended the conference along with representatives from the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, San Francisco State University, prominent urban design firms including Arup (which is designing the new Transbay Terminal project), architect David Baker, and other institutions.

Public transit in Portland is extensive, cheap, frequent, and easy to use, with the Max line — unlike Muni — allowing bicycles on the trains. Walking is encouraged by new design standards and public information campaigns. A riverside freeway was replaced by open space years ago. And the large network of bicycle paths and other improvements to promote cycling have made Portland the only large city to earn the putf8um designation from the League of American Bicyclists (San Francisco is one tier down at gold).

"But the reality is Portland is far from being great," was the sobering assessment from keynote speaker Gil Peñalosa, the former parks director of Bogotá, Colombia, who pioneered carfree policies there before pushing the issues internationally through the nonprofit Walk and Bike for Life.

Cities are facing multiple crises connected to over-reliance on the automobile — declining public health, environmental degradation, resource depletion, loss of community, and not enough space in US cities to handle the 100 million people they’ll need to accommodate in the next 35 years. And Peñalosa said most are responding with baby steps that deny the scope of the challenge.

"We’re not doing enough," he said, noting that even the best US cities are way too dependent on automobiles compared to cities that have made the biggest advances in reducing automobile use, such as Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona, and Vancouver.

"That’s where Portland belongs, and that’s the challenge," Peñalosa said. "Under existing conditions, we have to make major leaps instead of baby steps."

It was the first time that this eighth annual conference has been held in the United States, and organizers said they hoped its message will resonate in a country that needs to change profoundly if it is to efficiently manage its growth while playing a positive role in dealing with global climate change.

Many of the ideas raised at the conference and pursued in Portland are beginning to spread. The conference opened with Depaving Day, a pavement-removal effort that has many adherents in the Bay Area, and closed with Sunday Parkways, during which a six-mile loop in North Portland was closed to cars. Such "Ciclovias," which Peñalosa started in Colombia, are planned this August in New York City and San Francisco.

"There are people from all over the world doing amazing work," said local conference coordinator Elly Blue of the Portland group Shift, which organized the conference to coincide with Portland’s annual Pedalpalooza, two weeks of fun bike events and other festivities.

Many attendees noted that global warming, high gasoline prices (and the specter of Peak Oil), worsening public health, and persistent traffic congestion have made many big city leaders more open to carfree concepts than they’re ever been.

"The climate is changing," League of American Bicyclists director Andy Clarke said. "This is our time. It’s our moment to seize the opportunity and change our communities."

Mia Birk, Portland’s former bicycle-policy coordinator, added, "We’re not anti-car, but we’re trying to create a system where walking and biking are viable transportation options." Birk now runs Alta Planning and Design, which is working on carfree and car-light projects with hundreds of cities around the world, including some in the Bay Area.

"What we’re talking about is a true cultural revolution to encourage that kind of shift," Birk said, inviting the crowd to "be a part of that revolution."

Peskin for DCCC chair

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EDITORIAL The San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee was the sleeper election in June: The Mark Leno–Carole Migden–Joe Nation contest for state Senate got a lot of attention, and the Bayview–Hunters Point redevelopment project got a huge amount of money, but only a small percentage of the voters got to the bottom of the ticket and chose the 24 people who will set policy for the local Democratic Party for the next two years. But a progressive slate won a significant number of seats. Now the DCCC has become a heated political battleground, with two candidates vying to become party chair.

The incumbent, Scott Wiener, leans toward the more moderate wing of the party, although he’s taken progressive stands on some issues. The challenger, Sup. Aaron Peskin, has the strong backing of many progressives.

The race has gotten a bit nasty: Sup. Chris Daly, a Peskin supporter, has sent out e-mail threatening the political future of committee members who don’t vote the right way. Both sides are lobbying furiously, with Leno helping Wiener and progressive leaders pushing Peskin. Right now it’s too close to call the election, which takes place later this month.

We’re not happy with the level of animosity here. We recognize that this isn’t the presidency of the United States, and that, thanks to the influence of the reform slate, the DCCC chair is no longer as powerful a position as it was in the days when the late Phil Burton and former Mayor Willie Brown controlled the party with an iron hand. And with the committee this closely split, neither candidate will be able to run an effective party operation this fall without working with both sides. So this shouldn’t be a political bloodbath.

We also recognize that neither candidate is perfect. We’ve disagreed with Peskin on a number of key issues, including Home Depot, and frankly, it’s not ideal to have the president of the Board of Supervisors also running the local Democratic Party.

But like any political contest, this ought to be decided on the issues — and on the future of the San Francisco Democratic Party. And Peskin is the clear choice.

If the DCCC did nothing but raise money, register voters, and push Democratic candidates, this wouldn’t be such an important fight. Weiner has done a perfectly fine job of keeping the party well funded and, under his tenure, 15,000 new Democratic voters have joined the ranks. But the party also endorses candidates and takes stands on ballot measures, and in close races — as some of the key battles will be this fall — the party’s support (which includes party money) can be significant.

And while the chair has only one vote, and can’t decide endorsements unilaterally, the person who runs the local party has a fair amount of influence over how money will be spent and how DCCC slate cards are managed; if the job didn’t matter, these two people (and their powerful allies) wouldn’t be fighting over it.

Peskin is on the right side of all the key fall contests. He’s backing progressive candidates for supervisor in the swing districts (John Avalos in District 11, Eric Mar in District 1, and David Chiu in District 3). He supports the housing justice initiative, is the cosponsor of the public power charter amendment, and the sponsor of two progressive tax measures. Wiener supports Ahsha Safai, the candidate of downtown and Mayor Gavin Newsom, in District 11. He hasn’t taken a position on public power, and told us he has "significant concerns" about the cost of the affordable housing measure, although he supports both of Peskin’s revenue proposals.

Wiener has been a reasonable and fair person as chair. But the issues matter. And if the San Francisco party is going to become a center for progressive activism, if the DCCC is going to be willing to challenge the state and national party and its leaders when necessary, take in the mayor when he’s wrong, and push the party to the left, putting a more activist progressive in the top slot is crucial.

It’s still possible a third candidate could come along. But for now the choices are Peskin and Wiener, and we urge progressives on the panel to support Aaron Peskin.

PS: As Amanda Witherell reports on page 14, PG&E is madly, desperately fighting to keep public power off the November ballot and is using every misleading figure and dirty trick possible. So the DCCC chair has to be willing to stand up to PG&E without hesitation or doubt.

Clean Energy — tomorrow!

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The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow (Friday) to discuss the new clean-energy charter amendment. It’s a long-overdue measure that would give San Francisco control of its own energy future and set aggressive mandates for sifting to renewable resources for electricity.

The measure is sponsored by Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin, and includes the following:

1. A mandate that 51% of the city’s electricity is generated from renewable resources by 2017, 75% by 2030, and 100% by 2040. This would be one of the few laws in the country that requires a city to move toward a 100 percent renewable portfolio. It also requires the Public Utilities Commission to issue a report every two years explaining how the city is meeting those goals. This would be a model for cities around the nation (and around the world), and would put San Francisco in the forefront of the movement to reduce carbon emissions and slow climate change. Since state and federal governments are moving far too slowly on the most important environmental issue of our lives, cities are going to have to take the lead, and San Francisco – one of the most progressive communities in the nation — should be showing everyone else how to do to that.

2. A mandate that the city move toward acquiring its distribution system for the sale of electricity. Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which now supplies the residential and business customers in San Francisco, is spending a huge amount of money on a greenwashing campaign to convince residents that it’s moving away from fossil fuels. That’s a big lie: PG&E’s current power profile is 44 percent fossil fuels, 24 percent nuclear, 20 percent large hydro, and only 12 percent renewable – and the utility admits that it will not even make the state’s mandate of 20 percent renewable by 2010. . The only way this city is going to have a truly environmentally sound energy program is if we run it ourselves.

Of course, a publicly run utility has other big advantages. Public-power agencies all over the country have lower electric rates and many bring in huge amounts of revenue, which the city desperately needs. And public-power is good for the economy

3. Mandate green jobs and job training for San Franciscans. There’s a lot of money in renewable energy, and thousands and thousands of good jobs. The measure mandates that the PUC as part of creating a public power agency create job-training programs to help San Franciscans build careers in green energy.

The hearing is at 10 am. Be there and support this crucial legislation.

The SF Democratic Party’s future

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Lots of talk and some interesting action at the Harvey Milk LGBT Club meeting last night. Marc Salomon, Robert Haaland and I gave a presentation on the meaning of the June election, and what November’s going to be about, and I passed along my thoughts about the tremendous potential for a broad progressive coalition this fall.

But mostly, the discussion involved the Democratic County Central Committee.

See, in June, thanks to a well-organized slate effort, the progressives won enough seats to hold something close to a working majority on the DCCC. That matters – and this fall, it could matter a lot. Because the DCCC controls the endorsements and money for the local Democratic Party. And in some of the key local races, particularly the swing supervisorial districts, the party’s money and party support could make the difference.

And the first test for the progressive slate will be the vote in a few weeks for DCCC chair.

The new privacy

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› annalee@techsploitation.com

TECHSPLOITATION It’s shocking how quickly we’ve all gotten used to the idea that the government can and will listen in on everything we say on our telephones, as well as everything we do on the Internet. Case in point: the FISA Amendments Act passed in the House last week, and is predicted to pass the Senate this week. This is a bill that grants telecoms retroactive immunity for illegally giving the National Security Agency access to the phone calls and Internet activities of millions of US citizens. What this bill ultimately does, aside from not holding companies accountable to the Constitution, is open the door for future mass infractions.

We’re looking down a fiber-optic cable that leads to a future where US spies can snarf up everybody’s data without warrants, combing through it for potential suspects in an ongoing digital witch hunt for terrorists or other "bad guys." I’m not saying anything new here. This is just a quick recap of every progressive futurist’s nightmare: it’s an Orwellian world where nothing you do goes unseen.

My hope is that this absurd bill won’t pass the Senate. But if it does, at least we can hope it will be somehow held in check by other laws to come, and by constitutional challenges. But I still think it’s time that we kiss our old-fashioned notions of privacy goodbye.

And not because we will all reveal our secrets and therefore be equally naked, as "transparent society" shill David Brin has argued. We never will be equally naked. There will always be governments and wealthy entities that have the means to cover their tracks and hide their transgressions. I think we must shed the idea that somehow we can protect the rights of ordinary people by protecting what we in the United States once called privacy.

The notion that we should each be granted a special sphere where everything we do goes unseen, unremarked, and unrecorded is a relatively new notion in itself, something that could hardly have existed in a small-town society where everybody knew everybody else’s business. And it still hardly exists in many high-density countries like Japan and China, where privacy is not as prized as other rights are.

What we ask for when we ask for privacy in the United States is a simply a space (physical or digital) to do legal things without fear of reprisals. Even when we had a more tightly-wrapped notion of privacy, say, 50 years ago, it was hardly perfect. Secrets leaked; spies spied. But there were no 24-hour videocam logs and detailed records of your every correspondence available and searchable online. You could write love letters to your secret admirer, ask her to burn them, and be sure nobody would ever know about your forbidden love.

If those letters were intercepted in a small community, your infamy would live forever. Not so in the digital age, when there’s so much readily available infamy that nobody could be bothered to remember your indiscretions for more than a few seconds. What I’m trying to say is that we will never have the old privacy of the burned letter again.

Instead we will have the new privacy, where what we do can be seen by anyone, but will mostly be hidden by crowds. The problem is that we still lose the old privacy forever. My secret transgressions may be drowned out by multitudes, but anyone who is determined to spy on my most private life will probably be able to do so — without a warrant.

So what do we do? Develop new standards of propriety, becoming as formal and controlled behind closed doors as we are in public? I think that will have happen in some cases. And in most cases, people will rely on crowds to hide them, hoping they never fall under sustained scrutiny. The more noise all of us make, the more we can help to hide the innocent. There will be a kind of privacy in the crowd.

But there will also be a private class of people who never have to rely on crowds. To return to my earlier point, I don’t buy for a minute the idea that at some point everyone — including the rich and politically connected — will be subjected to the same scrutiny as those people whose phone records were illegally handed over the to NSA by AT&T. The powerful will continue to have old-fashioned privacy, while the rest of us must get used to living without it.

Annalee Newitz (annalee@techsploitation.com) is a surly media nerd who tried to hide behind a crowd once but they dispersed.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Chronicle has suddenly discovered that the middle class is leaving San Francisco.

Staff writer James Temple broke the news on the front page of the Sunday, June 23 paper with a lead sentence that boggles the mind in its insight and news value: "The number of low- and middle-income residents in San Francisco is shrinking as the wealthy population swells, a trend most experts attribute to the city’s exorbitant housing costs."

I don’t want to downplay the importance of this story. It could have (and should have) been written a decade ago, when Willie Brown was mayor and city planning policy, combined with the dot-com boom, started San Francisco on the path toward becoming the first fully gentrified big city in America. And I’m always frustrated when a daily newspaper reports after the fact on something that could have been prevented, or at least slowed, back when the story first became a story.

But the news is still news today, and the fact that the Chronicle has facts and figures and demographers denouncing and community leaders deploring means the problem will be getting some additional attention this fall. That matters, because this November, the future of San Francisco will again be on the line.

And that could be a very good thing.

Calvin Welch, who has been fighting for a progressive city longer than many of today’s activists have been alive, remembers the summer 1972 state ballot: "You had George McGovern. You had the Coastal Commission [Act]. You had the farmworkers [labor law]. You had marijuana [decriminalization]. And you had every constituency on the left coming out to vote for them all. And they all won."

This fall in San Francisco we will have perhaps an even greater perfect storm: a proposed rebuild of SF General Hospital, which is a huge priority for organized labor. A housing justice measure that sets aside money for affordable housing (and could help address the single biggest issue in the city, something even the Chronicle now puts on page 1). A green energy and public power measure (which would shift energy policy toward renewables and bring in millions of dollars). Two new revenue measures that tax the wealthy. Six seats on the Board of Supervisors, including three swing districts that will determine whether the progressive majority that has controlled the board since 2000 will remain intact. And all of that will happen in the context of the Obama campaign and a massive statewide mobilization to protect same-sex marriage.

We are a fractious crew, the San Francisco left, but if we can come together this fall, share resources, and run some sort of large coalition campaign for progressive values, this could be an election for the ages.

The commissioner’s conflicts

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› gwschulz@sfbg.com

Before the June 5 special meeting of the San Francisco Planning Commission got underway, Michael Antonini had an announcement.

Dressed in a charcoal suit and red-checked tie, with his white hair combed back over his skull, the longtime commissioner disclosed that he was a part owner of a condominium in the eastern neighborhoods, where a years-long rezoning effort is nearly complete. That means Antonini is among the people who could benefit from increased land values due to zoning upgrades.

As a result, Antonini begrudgingly declared that he would have to recuse himself from hearings involving the eastern neighborhoods until the potential conflict is dealt with.

"Hopefully this can be resolved in the next few weeks and I’ll be able to participate at later hearings," Antonini said at the meeting.

But it was a bit late to be complying with the state’s conflict-of-interest laws: Antonini had already actively taken part in meetings in which the plan was discussed. And Antonini also neglected to mention that after he and his son purchased the condo, he voted on two other projects that appear to be within steps of it.

Public records show that Antonini bought the $515,000 condo at 200 Townsend Street in 2003 with his real estate agent son, John. Commissioner Antonini and his wife own a 25 percent stake in the property through a family trust the couple created in 1997. His son holds the majority interest.

Antonini worked hard to play down his stake in the condo at the June 5 meeting. It’s not an investment property, he made clear to the commissioners. There’s no rent generated from it. He’s a mere minority holder in a family trust that controls the condo, and it was purchased as a residence for his son and his wife.

"Because I did not believe our fractional interest in John’s condo represented a conflict, I did not consider reclusing [sic] myself from projects near the condo," Antonini wrote to the Guardian.

But the laws on this are pretty clear. The state’s Political Reform Act of 1974 prohibits public officials from participating in decisions that will have a "foreseeable material financial effect on one or more of his/her economic interests." It also states that any "direct or indirect interest" worth more than $2,000 poses a potential conflict, for which a 25 percent stake in a half-million dollar condo would seem to qualify.

RECUSE ME


Other public officials in similar situations have recused themselves long before the issue became a potential political liability.

Sup. Bevan Dufty bought into a three-unit residential property on Waller Street with two co-tenants in December 2006. He immediately sought advice from the city attorney, who told him he no longer could vote on the Market-Octavia Plan, a series of land-use changes in Hayes Valley, Duboce Triangle, and elsewhere that was similar in scope to the current rezoning efforts in the eastern neighborhoods. The supervisor also couldn’t vote on a major Laguna Street redevelopment project or on legislation making it easier for seniors to convert rental units to condos.

Antonini told us that "only in the last month" did the city attorney warn some officials involved with plans for the eastern neighborhoods that if they held property in the area, there could be a conflict of interest.

"We’ve been working on [the eastern neighborhoods] for the whole six years I’ve been on the planning commission," he said at the meeting. "It’s a little troubling that this issue of conflict is raised now rather than at the very beginning."

The law does make an exception when the economic interests of the "public generally" could also be enhanced by a government decision such as those that have an impact on a large section of the city like the eastern neighborhoods. But the city attorney’s office concluded for now that the condo indeed may pose a conflict. And in the meantime, Antonini told us that the Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento, which helps enforce the state’s Political Reform Act, is being consulted to determine "whether our fractional interest in the condo truly represents a conflict of interest."

The eastern neighborhoods planning process isn’t the only legislation that created a potential conflict for Antonini. The commissioner voted in January 2007 to approve construction of 26 new single-room occupancy units at 25 Lusk Alley, not far from his property at 200 Townsend. The project’s sponsor, Michael Yarne, is a land-use attorney who today works for the mayor’s economic development office. The project was approved, according to meeting minutes.

The project itself relied on a contentious legal loophole in which developers claim their units are "single-room occupancy," a necessity because the area permits residential efficiency hotels where the poor and working-class used to live. Allowing such SRO hotels in areas zoned for light industrial uses enabled the city to preserve some forms of affordable housing. But builders can turn around and lease the opulently large units such as the ones at 25 Lusk, which bear little resemblance to genuine SRO rooms, to well-heeled clients.

"They are allowed where normal residential units are not allowed, because historically SROs were always extremely affordable housing," community organizer Calvin Welch said. "The whole notion of market-rate SROs is a new invention, and that’s why they’re controversial. They’re basically the new version of live-work lofts."

In November 2006, Antonini also voted to approve a liquor license for a new full-service restaurant and wine bar at 216 Townsend, even closer to his son’s condo.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT


State ethics laws say that a public official has a conflict if his or her property comes within 500 feet of a project the official will be scrutinizing and voting on.

Conservatively measuring from the furthest corners of each property, Google Earth puts both the proposed restaurant and SRO within 500 feet.

Bob Stern, president of the Los Angeles–based Center for Governmental Studies and co-author of the state’s Political Reform Act, said a public official could face $5,000 in civil penalties for each conflict-of-interest violation. But it’s not common for the chronically under-resourced FPPC to go after local officials, he said.

Mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard wrote in an e-mail that "we take any allegations of conflicts of interest seriously" but added there is a disagreement over whether the "public generally" exception applied to the eastern neighborhoods and that the City Attorney’s Office was seeking additional input from the FPPC.

As for the two projects he voted on near the condo, Antonini apparently told the mayor’s office he had looked into whether 25 Lusk fell inside 500 feet. "Based on his understanding at the time," Ballard wrote, "they didn’t."

That’s a stretch, at best. The projects are in the same block. We walked them off and found that Antonini would have to be splitting hairs to argue that they are outside the boundary — and even in that case, it would be only by a few feet. The rusty red paint job, black trim, and stylish, outsize windows of 200 Townsend are easily viewable from the backside of 25 Lusk.

"If there is a legitimate argument that they did fall within the 500-foot radius, this should be clarified," Ballard stated. "However, given the relative insignificance of the two projects cited in your e-mail and Antonini’s long-standing reputation as an ethical and hard-working commissioner, we don’t have any reason to believe that he would have knowingly and/or willingly violated the state’s Fair Political Practices Act."

But the Lusk Street project was by no means insignificant. "They are highly regulated," Welch said of SROs. "You cannot convert them to tourist hotels without going through a very long and cumbersome process. They are valued for affordable housing so highly that the city regulates their conversion to tourist uses." So instead, the "corporate suites," as Welch calls them, masquerade as SROs. The project was approved in the end, but two commissioners — Christina Olague and Sugaya Hisashi — voted against it.

Antonini told us that he believes 25 Lusk is more than 500 feet away, and as for the restaurant, planning staff recommended approval.

The commissioner told us, "I was the one who brought public attention to the issue of my possible conflict. I believe it is a small issue when compared to my body of work on behalf of San Francisco over the last six years."

The June 5 meeting where Antonini made the disclosure about his son’s condo was part of a long and detailed process that will determine the fate of vast sections of Potrero Hill, SoMa, the Mission District, and Dogpatch. The official planning process for the targeted 2,200-acre area began back in 2001, and the commissioners could approve new zoning plans next month before sending the proposal to the Board of Supervisors.

For much of San Francisco’s history, the city sections poised for rezoning have been home to light industry and blue-collar jobs. But housing has encroached over the last 15 years, and the planning commission is prepared to allow between 8,000 and 10,000 new units over the next 20 years. That will almost certainly increase the value of land in the area.

Residential developers built thousands of pricey condos in the SoMa District during the 1990s, exploiting another divisive zoning loophole that created waves of animosity across the city and aided in a takeover of the Board of Supervisors by a progressive bloc of candidates.

Live/work lofts, as developers called them, were built in areas zoned for light industrial commercial purposes. Wealthy buyers would ostensibly operate businesses out of their homes or live in them as working artists as the zoning required, but few have complied with the letter or — having found ways to narrowly abide by it — the spirit of the law.

"The city turned its head," housing attorney Sue Hestor said. "We have 3,000 units that are supposed to be occupied by artists and probably 90 percent of them are not occupied by artists at all. It’s blatantly illegal."

Antonini has managed to maintain friendships with local moderate Democrats over the years despite being an elected member of San Francisco’s Republican Party County Central Committee. Willie Brown first appointed him to the powerful planning commission in 2002, and he’s been a reliable vote for developers and other large business interests. Mayor Gavin Newsom reappointed him in 2004 and earlier this year tried to engineer Antonini’s election as president of the commission.

Frameline 32: Sex changes

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TAKE ONE In Iranian director Tanaz Eshagian’s Be Like Others, fear hovers over a whole nation, leading to schizophrenic behavior. By concentrating on three different individuals before and after they went through sexual reassignment operations in Iran, Eshagian reveals an incredibly sad and asphyxiating society — one where homosexuality is banned and punishable by death but changing one’s sex is legal.

No matter how progressive the act of changing one’s sex might sound, Be Like Others proves that it has conservative and oppressive connotations in Iran. Most of the people considering surgery in Eshagian’s film do so because they feel that it’s their only alternative to a gay male or lesbian identity that involves disrespect, harassment, and the possibility of a horrible death. Yet instead of finding acceptance post-operation, many are even more alienated.

The reason for this insanity, as explained by one official: being gay or a cross-dresser allegedly disrupts the “social order.” In other words, gender-bending blurs the distinctions between the sexes, making Iranian social role-assignment — largely determined by sex — a confusing task.

Mind-boggling and utterly scary, Be Like Others is a great comment on people’s obsessive need to label and compartmentalize, and a statement about our disgusting fear of anything that lacks clear delineation. At first, Eshagian’s documentary might make you feel lucky to live in a country where measures against homosexuality are not as extreme. But as it sinks in, it will make you question how far removed the situation in Iran really is from that in the United States. (Maria Komodore)

TAKE TWO At first the Iranian laws that make Tanaz Eshagian’s movie necessary seem not just cruel, but absurdly and arbitrarily so. How could homosexuality be illegal and punishable by death, while the government not only sanctions sexual-reassignment surgery but acts as its facilitator?

In Be Like Others, the answer comes from Cleric Kariminiya, a so-called Theological Expert on Transexuality, during an information session for prospective patients and their families. While Islamic law explicitly forbids homosexuality, he explains, there is no such explicit restriction on changing one’s gender.

In other words, the binary sexual politics of Iranian authority are undermined by the existence of queer citizens, whose mannerisms or predilections suggest a continuum. Eshagian’s powerful film follows a few citizens who, too visibly close to the middle of that continuum, are forced to decide between the suffering and danger of their current lot and an abrupt surgical introduction into social legitimacy.

The decision-making process these individuals face is extremely difficult viewing. Those people who successfully transition often have no other option but sex work to survive. Suicide is rampant.

Eshagian’s project is exceptional because it leaves the viewer enlighteningly confused about Iranian attitudes toward gender and law. The most fascinating character in the film is a transgender woman dedicated to the care of patients in transition. She is supportive, devoted to her patients’ well-being, and fully entrenched in the traditional Iranian views of men and women. (Jason Shamai)

BE LIKE OTHERS

Mon/23, 7 p.m., Victoria

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Ask any elected Democrat in San Francisco about the governor’s budget, and you’ll get an instant answer: it’s awful. It’s brutal. It sucks. Education, housing, the environment … everything we care about is being gutted because the governor and the Republicans in Sacramento won’t raise taxes.

Which is absolutely correct.

Now ask those same Democrats what they think about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s budget. In too many cases, the answer’s a little slower, and a little softer. Gee, it’s too bad that the economy, and Washington and Sacramento and all of these other forces out of our control leave us no choice but to tighten our belts and do things that none of us really wants to do. Gee, Gavin doesn’t like cutting either, but he has to balance the books. Gee, it’s certainly not the mayor’s fault.

Which is absolutely wrong.

The governor of California is not the only chief executive who can look for revenue solutions to a budget shortfall. The mayor of San Francisco can do that too. In fact, Newsom wouldn’t have to look far: Supervisor Aaron Peskin has introduced two measures that together could bring in a minimum of $30 million per year and, in good years, $80 million or more. That’s about a quarter of the budget deficit, enough to save a whole lot of city services, city jobs, and city resources for the needy.

Both tax measures are aimed at the wealthier end of the spectrum. One would raise the transfer tax on real estate sales of more than $2 million. Few first-time homebuyers would see any impact at all, and the ones who do … well, if you can afford a $2 million house, you can pay a reasonable transfer tax. The biggest revenue would come from major downtown commercial property sales: when the Bank of America Building is sold for $1 billion, none of the investors are paupers and the corporations, real estate investment trusts, and financiers involved have all done quite well under the George W. Bush administration’s tax cuts. This is, for the most part, a tax on the rich.

The second measure would eliminate a loophole in the business tax law that allows some partnerships, like law firms, to avoid payroll taxes. See, if you’re a partner in a firm and you earn "profits" in the form of a partnership payout as opposed to a "salary," then the money you make doesn’t get taxed by the city. Most of these outfits are big firms that can afford to pay the city’s business tax. It’s only fair: companies that don’t operate on the partnership model have to pay taxes, and so should everyone else.

The two measures need a vote of the people, and passing any tax is hard. It would help immensely if the mayor endorsed these progressive taxes — and I guarantee that if a Democratic legislator in Sacramento introduced a statewide tax bill hitting the exact same group of people for the exact same amount of money, Newsom and all his Democratic allies would support it (and if the governor vetoed the bill, those same Democrats would denounce him).

The measures would take effect in the middle of the next budget year, and the income could make Newsom’s river of red ink a good bit smaller. He could, in theory, endorse the measures, work for them, and include the revenue in his proposed budget. But so far Peskin hasn’t heard a word from Newsom’s office on this. Neither have I.

Gavin? Hello? *

Politics and sausage

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hungarian-sausage.jpg
Last night, I was reminded of the old joke that people who like sausage and appreciate politics shouldn’t watch either one being made.
Less than a week after winning a majority of the seats on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, the progressive-minded “Hope Slate” candidates (all of which were endorsed by the Guardian) descended into bitter infighting over who to back for the powerful chair of the DCCC.
The acrimony began when Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, whose 23,049 DCCC votes was second only to David Campos (whose run for supervisor this fall would conflict with running the DCCC), resisted calls to run for the chair, much to the consternation of progressive stalwarts such as Chris Daly and Robert Haaland.
Some Hope Slate candidates, such as Laura Spanjian, were apparently supporting a play by Assembly member turned Senator-to-be Mark Leno to have moderate Scott Wiener continue as the DCCC chair, despite the fact that he wasn’t part of the winning slate and he finished in 10th place in the DCCC District 13 race.
And for awhile there, Peskin seemed to be going along the Leno’s play, arguing that progressives should adopt a conciliatory posture. So the candidates gathered together last night at the 500 Club to hash out their differences, and I had a front row seat for a discussion that turned nasty – with Daly shouting at Peskin and Spanjian and then storming out of the room.
But today, as cooler heads prevailed, Peskin has decided to run, telling me, “Yes, it is true, I am running.”

The public power initiative: let’s roll

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

Coming home after almost two weeks in Sweden with the annual World Association of Newspapers (WAN) assembly and study tour, I was struck once again how nothing seems to change in San Francisco when it comes to the PG&E/Raker Act scandal.

PG&E was still firmly in control of the city’s energy policy in the mayor’s office. Mayor Gavin “The Green Knight” Newsom had capitulated spectacularly to PG&E and had reversed his policy of supporting a plan by his PUC that would have given the city control over some local power generation at the Mirant power plant (the peaker proposal.) The mayor had met secretly with PG&E executives and stiffed representatives from the Potrero Hill neighborhood and the environmental, environmental justice, public power, and community choice aggregation (CCA) movements.

The Hearst-owned Chronicle continued its long corporate tradition of blacking out the real story of the accelerating PG&E/Raker Act scandal. The utility was beautifully executing its divide and conquer strategy it has honed ever since the days that John Muir and the Sierra Club fought in vain to stop the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park for the city’s public water and power supply. (In that battle at that time, the Guardian would have stood with Muir.)

Amanda Witherell laid out the latest sorry episode in her story in Wednesday’s Guardian. Her lead: “Green City Mayor Gavin Newsom finally outlined what he calls a ‘more promising way forward than the current proposal’ of building two publicly owned power plants in San Francisco. The way forward: retrofit three existing diesel turbines at the Mirant Potrero Power Plant, while simultaneously shutting down Mirant’s most polluting smokestack, Unit 2.”

Our editorial laid out the political context: “The politics of the deal are complicated, but the driving force is clear: PG&E didn’t want the city moving even a small step toward public power, and as usual, the big utility is getting its way…PG&E has been trying for months to derail the peakers–not, of course, out of any concern for the environment, but because the city would own the power plants. At first Newsom stuck by his SPUC but when seven PG&E lobbyists came into his office and gave him the facts of life (see ‘PG&E offers Newsom a blank check‘), he backed down.

“And now, after meeting with the CEOs of PG&E and Mirant, Newsom is pushing the worst possible alternative: he wants to retrofit the Mirant plant and let the private company operate its own peakers. Same fossil fuel plants in the Bayview. Same type of air pollution. And the facility would be owned by a private company.”

Repeating for emphasis: When PG&E spits, City Hall swims. When PG&E spits, the mayor swims.

And so PG&E and Newsom have set the stage for the next phase in this great battle to kick PG&E out of City Hall, enforce the federal Raker Act mandating public power for San Francisco, and bring our own cheap, clean Hetch Hetchy public power to the residents and businesses of San Francisco.

The next stage is the emerging new public power initiative that Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Aaron Peskin are working on, with a wide swath of neighborhood and public power forces, aimed for the November ballot as a charter amendment.

This would be the third go at taking on PG&E head-on on the November ballot. This time it has a good chance of succeeding since PG&E and Newsom have gone out of their way to make the case for public power in 96 point Tempo Bold for all to see and savor. The measure will also be helped by massive turnout with Obama, seven supervisorial races, a clutch of solid progressive measures, and a smart, aggressive Obama like grassroots organizing campaign.

Let’s roll. B3, who wonders when he will no longer see the fumes from the Mirant plant from his office window at 135 Mississippi Street at the bottom of Potrero Hill

Click here to read this week’s article, Newsom’s power play.

Click here for this week’s editorial, A vote for public power in November.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com

Mark Leno took a huge political gamble this spring, and if he had lost, he would have lost big.

It was hard enough challenging an incumbent state Senator in a Democratic primary (and pissing off a long list of people, some of them powerful and all of them with long memories). But when it became clear that Joe Nation — a centrist (at best) Democrat from Marin — was joining the race, Leno was facing a dramatic challenge.

Imagine if Nation had won. Imagine if a progressive (if sometimes ethically challenged) lesbian from San Francisco had been tossed out of office and replaced with a straight white guy who was pals with the landlords and the insurance industry. The rap on Leno would have been vicious: he would have been the one blamed for losing a San Francisco seat, a queer seat, a progressive seat … it’s not fair, of course, since Carole Migden was the one who made herself vulnerable, but politics often isn’t fair.

And this would have been ugly. I was wincing to think about the comments the next day. Leno’s political career would have been toast. And this is a guy who loves politics, loves holding office. Talk about going all-in.

But Leno pulled it off, putting together a coalition of progressives and moderates and winning convincingly. And his job is only beginning.

Leno has to mend a lot of fences. A lot of people still don’t think he should have taken on Migden, and some of her supporters are going to be bitter for quite a while. Many think his victory empowered the wrong side of the Democratic party: the Gavin Newsom wing, the squishy center. A lot of people (including me) wonder how Leno will come down on the key contested supervisorial races this fall, when Newsom’s forces and the progressives will be fighting — literally — for the future of San Francisco.

If Migden had won, there would be no doubt about the future alignments: people who were with her would be in the game, and people who opposed her would be punished. That’s how she operated, for better and for worse. Leno is different; he’s willing to work with people who opposed him and try to build bridges. He tells us he’s not always going to be with Newsom on local issues and endorsements — and if that’s true, and if he keeps in mind that he needed the progressives to win (and that Newsom’s buddies at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and the big landlords groups did their best to bump him off) — we may see some fascinating new political coalitions emerging. (We may also see more issues like Propositions G and F, in which Newsom, Leno, and the entire power structure supported the Lennar Corporation’s land grab.)

But first, there’s the Democratic County Central Committee.

The DCCC controls the local party, and the party’s money, and the party’s endorsements, all of which will be critical this fall. The progressive slate organized by Sups. Aaron Peskin and Chris Daly did very well, and now could control the committee.

But Scott Wiener, part of the more moderate wing, is still the party chair. Wiener’s a decent and fair guy, but he likes Plan C (a group that has horrible pro-downtown politics). Someone’s going to run against him. Then we’ll see what side everyone’s on.

Read the Potrero Boosters letter to Newsom opposing the Mirant retrofit (PDF)

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