Public Health

Marijuana goes mainstream

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Marijuana goes mainstream

I’ve smoked marijuana on and off for most of my adult life, usually in the evening to help let go of the anxieties associated with being a progressive wage slave in an increasingly conservative capitalist country.

Buying my pot, which is California’s biggest cash crop, has always been a criminal transaction: in hushed tones or coded language, I arrange to meet a dealer I’ve been set up with through friends. And when I meet him (they’ve always been men), I give him cash in exchange for an eighth- or quarter-ounce of whatever kind of pot he’s selling.

I don’t know what variety I’m buying, who grew it, or how it was grown; whether violence or environmental degradation have occurred along the supply chain; or even whether it is an indica or sativa, the two most basic cannabis families that have differing effects on users.

I’ve been completely in the dark, both in terms of what I was buying and who was benefiting from the transaction, but that changed recently. I obtained a doctor’s recommendation to legally smoke weed — honestly citing anxiety as my affliction — and set out to explore the area’s best cannabis clubs.

It was a little strange and disorienting at first, this new world of expert purveyors of the finest Northern California marijuana and the various concentrates, edibles, drinkables, and other products it goes into. But what eventually struck me is just now normal and mainstream this industry has become, particularly in San Francisco, which has long led the movement to legalize marijuana.

Unlike in cities such as Los Angeles, where the rapid proliferation of unregulated pot clubs has made headlines and raised community concerns, San Francisco years ago made its clubs jump through various bureaucratic hoops to become fully licensed, permitted, and regulated, free to join the mainstream business community, pay their taxes, and compete with one another on the basis of quality, price, customer service, ambiance, and support for the community.

As Californians prepare to decide whether to decriminalize marijuana for even recreational use — on Jan. 28, advocates plan to turn in enough valid signatures to place that initiative on the fall ballot — it’s a good time to explore just what the world of legal weed looks like.

Pretty much everyone involved agrees that San Francisco’s system for distributing marijuana to those with a doctor’s recommendation for it is working well: the patients, growers, dispensary operators, doctors, politicians, police, and regulators with the planning and public health departments.

“It works and it should continue to be replicated,” Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, who created the legislation four years ago that led to the current system, told us. “It’s now mainstream.”

Public health officials agree. “In general, we’re very happy about our relationship with the industry and their commitment to the regulations,” said Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco’s environmental health director. “We did this well and we did it cooperatively with the clubs.”

Bhatia said there are now 22 fully-permitted clubs (and two more under review) in San Francisco, less than half the number operating when the regulations were created. He also said the city no longer receives many complaints from neighbors of clubs.

Misha Breyburg, managing partner of the nonprofit Medithrive, which opened just a few months ago on Mission Street, supports the process too. “The regulations generally are not easy, but I think that’s okay,” he said. “The process was long and cumbersome and stressful, but very fair.”

Martin Olive, director of the Vapor Room, one of the city’s largest and best dispensaries, agrees that the permitting process professionalized the industry: “I’m proud to be here because the city government has been amazing.”

Richard Lee — founder of Oaksterdam University in Oakland, which teaches marijuana cultivation and is the main financial backer behind the initiative to legalize and tax pot — said San Francisco and Oakland have demonstrated that cannabis clubs can function like any other legitimate industry and become a real asset to their neighborhoods and the local economy.

“Once they started legalizing the clubs, they had no more problems,” Lee told us. “It really is boring and really not a big deal. It’s only the prohibition that makes it exciting and a little scary.”

In fact, Lee said that normalizing and legalizing the marijuana industry is the best way to deal with the problems associated with the illegal drug trade, such as violence, creation of a criminal class, respect for law enforcement, wasted public resources, lost tax opportunities, unsafe growing operations, and environmental damage.

“We need to end cannabis prohibition to end the violence,” Lee said.

Bringing marijuana above ground also has created an artisanship that’s similar to the wine industry, elevating cultivation practices to an art form, improving the science behind it, and making users more sophisticated about subtle differences in taste and effect among the dozens of varieties now on the market.

But the growers themselves still exist in a murky gray area. Although they can get some legal cover as registered caregivers to a cooperative’s members, they’re still exposed to thefts, shakedowns, logistical difficulties, and raids by federal agents or even local police, such as the series of raids in the Sunset District last fall that targeted even legitimate growers for the clubs.

“Right now, cultivators have no air cover at all and they’re getting mixed messages,” Mirkarimi said, calling for the city to better protect growers and even consider getting into the business of growing pot for the clubs and patients. “General Hospital should dispense medical cannabis.”

That issue and others related to the city’s relationship with the industry are currently the subject of a working group convened by Sup. David Campos, a byproduct of which is the proposal to create a Medical Cannabis Task Force to advise the Board of Supervisors, an item the board was scheduled to vote on Jan. 26.

Mirkarimi said he’s also concerned about current rules that ban smoking in clubs that are within 1,000 feet of schools or drug treatment facilities, which has served to prohibit smoking in all but a few San Francisco clubs. Oakland bans smoking in all its clubs. “That’s where the laws could be modified, because you don’t want to take away that social vibe,” Mirkarimi said. “San Francisco needs to be a leader in activating the next step.”

Olive, whose club allows smoking and has a great social scene, agrees that something is lost when the clubs are forced to be simply transactional.

“This is a social healing medicine, and we’re here to promote an inviting atmosphere where people can share their stories,” Olive said. “The whole point is not to just come in and get your medicine, but to be a part of a community.”

That community can range from young stoners to dying old patients, who can both benefit from their communion. “It’s the hippies and the yuppies. Everyone comes here,” Breyburg said. Or as Olive told me, “There is something intrinsically rewarding to sharing a joint with someone, as silly as that sounds.”

The voter-approved Proposition 215 and state law are deliberately vague on what ailments qualify for a doctor’s recommendation, spawning a sub-industry of physicians who specialize in pot, like the ones at the clinic I visited, Dr. Hanya Barth’s Compassionate Health Options in SoMa.

The busy clinic charges around $130 for an initial visit and patients walk away with a legal recommendation, which is all state law requires to legally use marijuana (the clinic recommended also buying a $100 state ID card or a $40 card from the Patient ID Center in Oakland, but I didn’t need them to enter any of the clubs I visited).

The long forms patients fill out even suggest anxiety as an affliction that pot can help, but the clinic also asks patients to sign a waiver to obtain detailed medical records supporting the recommendation. When Barth learned that I have a shoulder separation for which I underwent an MRI a few years ago, she requested those records and added “shoulder pain” to my “anxiety” affliction.

“My goal is not just to give people a recommendation. I look at how I can help or support the person beyond just giving them a recommendation,” Barth told me, illustrating her point by showing me two packs of cigarettes from patients whom she said she convinced to quit smoking.

Her vibe combines the healer and the old hippie, someone who sees a plethora of uses for marijuana and generally thinks society would be better off if everyone would just have a puff and chill out. The clubs also don’t draw distinctions based on their customers’ reasons for smoking.

“There is a distinct difference between medical use and recreational use,” Olive said, telling stories about amazing turnarounds he’s seen in patients with AIDS, cancer, and other debilitating diseases, contrasting that with people who just like to get high before watching a funny movie, which he said is also fine.

But Olive said there’s an important and often under-appreciated third category of marijuana use: therapeutic. “They use cannabis to cope, to unwind, to relax, to sleep better, or to think through problems in a different way,” Olive said.

This third category of user, which I officially fall into, seems to be the majority people I encountered in the local clubs. And while it may be easy for cannabis’ critics to dismiss such patients as taking advantage of laws and a system meant to help sick people, Olive says they play an important role.

“They make it easier for the cannabis clubs to give it away to the people who really need it,” Olive said, referring the practice by most clubs of giving away free weed to low-income or very sick patients, which is supported by the profits made on sales.

The Vapor Room is widely regarded as having one of the best compassionate giving programs, and Olive estimated that the operation gives away about a pound per week through local hospice programs and by giving away edibles and bags of cannabis vapor at the club.

Some of the profits are also used to offer free massage, yoga, chiropractic, and other classes to their members, a system being taken to new heights by Harborside Health Center in Oakland, which has fairly high prices but uses that revenue to offer an extensive list of free services and laboratory analysis of the pot it sells, identifying both contaminants (such as molds or pesticides) and the level of THC, the compound that gets you high.

Olive said there’s also a positive psychological impact of legitimizing the use of marijuana: “It no longer feels like you’re doing a bad thing that you have to be sneaky about.”

As I created my list of the clubs I planned to review, I found abundant online resources such as www.sanfranciscocannabisclubs.com and www.weedtracker.com. But an even better indicator of how mainstream this industry has become were the extensive listings and reviews on Yelp.com.

I combined that information with recommendations from a variety of sources I interviewed to develop my list, which is incomplete and entirely subjective, but nonetheless a good overview of the local industry and the differences among the clubs.

Also, like our restaurant reviewers, I didn’t identify myself as a journalist on my visits, preferring to see how the average customer is treated — and frankly, I was amazed at the high level of friendly, knowledgeable customer service at just about every club. To comply with city law, all the clubs are fully accessible by those with disabilities.

So, with that business out of the way, please join me on my tour of local cannabis clubs, in the (random) order that I visited them:

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DIVINITY TREE

While the reviews on Yelp rave about Divinity Tree (958 Geary St.), giving it five stars, I found it a little intimidating and transactional (although it was the first club I visited, so that might be a factor). But if you’re looking to just do your business in a no-frills environment and get out, this could be your place.

The staff and most of the clientele were young men, some a bit thuggish. One worker wore a “Stop Snitching” T-shirt and another had “Free the SF8.” But they behaved professionally and were knowledgeable and easy to talk to. When I asked for a strain that would ease my anxiety but still allow me enough focus to write, my guy (patients wait along a bench until called to the counter) seemed to thoughtfully ponder the question for a moment, then said I wanted a “sativa-dominant hybrid” and recommended Neville’s Haze.

I bought 1/16 for $25 and when I asked for a receipt, it seemed as though they don’t get that question very often. But without missing a beat he said, “Sure, I’ll give you a receipt,” and gave me a hand-written one for “Meds.”

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: three years

Price: Fairly low

Selection: Moderate

Ambiance: A transactional hole in the wall

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Moderate

Access/Security: Easy. Membership available but not required

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GRASS ROOTS

Located at 1077 Post St. right next to Fire Station #3, Grass Roots has the feel of a busy saloon. Indeed, as a worker named Justin told me, many of the employees are former bartenders who know and value customer service. With music, great lighting, and nice décor, this place feels comfortable and totally legit. Whereas most clubs are cash-only, Grass Roots allows credit card transactions and has an ATM on site.

The steady stream of customers are asked to wait along the back wall, perusing the menus (one for buds and another with pictures for a huge selection of edibles) until called to the bar. When asked, my guy gave me a knowledgeable breakdown of the difference between sativa and indica, but then Justin came over to relieve him for a lunch break with the BBQ they had ordered in and ate in the back.

Justin answered my writing-while-high inquiry by recommending Blue Dream ($17 for a 1.2-gram), and when I asked about edibles, he said he really likes the indica instant hot chocolate ($6), advising me to use milk rather than water because it bonds better with the cannabinoids to improve the high. Then he gave me a free pot brownie because I was a new customer. I was tempted to tip him, but we just said a warm goodbye instead.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: A warm and welcoming weed bar

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

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HOPENET

Hopenet (223 Ninth St.) is one of the few places in the city where you can smoke on site, in a comfortable, homey style, as if you’re visiting a friend’s apartment. In addition to the loveseat, two chairs, and large bong, there is a small patio area for smoking cigarettes or playing a guitar, as someone was doing during my visit.

Although the small staff is definitely knowledgeable, they all seemed stoned. And when I asked about the right weed for my writing problem, a gruff older woman impatiently dismissed any indica vs. sativa distinctions and walked away. But I learned a lot about how they made the wide variety of concentrates from the young, slow-talking guy who remained.

He weighed out a heavy gram of White Grapes for $15, the same price for Blue Dream, and $2 cheaper than I had just paid at Grass Roots. That was in the back room, the big middle area was for hanging out, and the front area was check-in and retail, with a case for pipes and wide variety of stoner T-shirts on the walls.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: seven years

Price: Low

Selection: Moderate

Ambiance: Like a converted home with retail up front

Smoke On Site: Yes!

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

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VAPOR ROOM

Vapor Room (607A Haight, www.vaporroom.com) is San Francisco’s best pot club, at least in terms of feeling like an actual club and having strong connections to its community of patients. It’s a large room where customers can smoke on site, giving this collective a warm, communal vibe that facilitates social interaction and fosters a real sense of inclusiveness.

Each of the four large tables has a high-end Volcano vaporizer on it, there’s a big-screen TV, elegant décor, and large aquarium. There’s a nice mix of young heads and older patients, the latter seeming to know each other well. But, lest members feel a little too at home, a sign on the wall indicates a two-hour time limit for hanging out.

Its early days in the spot next door were a bit grungier, but the new place is bright and elegant. It has a low-key façade and professional feel, and it strongly caters to patients’ needs. Low-income patients are regularly offered free medicine, such as bags full of vapor prepared by staff. Mirkarimi said the Vapor Room is very involved in the Lower Haight community and called it a “model club.”

But they’re still all about the weed, and they have a huge selection that you can easily examine (with a handy magnifying glass) and smell, knowledgeable staff, lots of edibles and concentrates, a tea bar (medicated and regular), and fairly low standardized pot prices: $15 per gram, $25 per 1/16th, $50 per eighth. And once you got your stuff, grab a bong off the shelf and settle into a table — but don’t forget to give them your card at the front desk to check out a bowl for your bong. As the guy told me, “It’s like a library.”

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: six years

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Warm, communal hangout

Smoke On Site: Yes!

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy, but membership required

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MEDITHRIVE

The newest cannabis club in town, MediThrive (1933 Mission, www.medithrive.com) has a bright, fresh, artsy feel to it, with elegantly frosted windows and a welcoming reception area as you enter. This nonprofit coop takes your photo and requires free membership, and already had almost 3,000 members when I signed up a couple weeks ago. Tiana, the good-looking young receptionist, said the club recently won a reader’s choice Cannabis Cup award and noted that all the art on the walls was a rotating collection by local patients: “We’re all about supporting local art.”

The decorators seemed to have fun with the cannabis concept, with a frosted window with a pot leaf photo separating the reception area from the main room, while the walls alternated wood planks with bright green fake moss that looked like the whole place was bursting with marijuana. There’s a flat-screen TV on the wall, at low volume.

The large staff is very friendly and seemed fairly knowledgeable, and the huge selection of pot strains were arranged on a spectrum with the heaviest indica varieties on the left to the pure sativas on the right. Lots of edibles and drinkables, too. The cheapest bud was a cool steel tin with a gram of Mission Kush for $14 (new members get a free sample), while the high rollers could buy some super-concentrated OG Kush Gold Dust ($50) or Ear Wax ($45) to sprinkle over their bowls.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: three months

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Professional, like an artsy doctor’s office

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Very low

Access/Security: Easy, but membership required

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KETAMA COLLECTIVE

At 14 Valencia St., Ketama is a testament to how silly it is that clubs within 1,000 feet of schools aren’t permitted to allow smoking on site. This former café has a large, comfortable seating area and full kitchen, both of which have had little use since a school opened way down the street last year, causing city officials to ban smoking at Ketama.

Pity, because it seems like a great place to just hang out. Yet now it just seemed underutilized and slow. The staff is small (one door guy and a woman hired last summer doing sales), and we were the only customers during the 20 minutes I was there (except for the weird old guy drinking beer from a can in a bag who kept popping in and out).

But it still had jars of good green bud, several flavors of weed-laced drinks and edibles, and a pretty good selection of hash and kief at different prices, and the woman spoke knowledgeably about the different processes by which they were created. To counteract the slow business, Ketama has a neon sign out front that explicitly announces its business — another indication the industry has gone legit.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Low

Selection: Limited

Ambiance: Dirty hippie hangout, but with nobody there

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy, but free membership required

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MR. NICE GUY

Belying its name, Mr. Nice Guy (174 Valencia St.) thrilled and scared me, but not necessarily in a bad way. Located across the street from Zeitgeist, the thug factor here was high and so was the security, allowing no human interaction that wasn’t mediated by thick Plexiglass, presumably bulletproof.

After initially being told by a disembodied voice to come back in five minutes, I submitted my doctor’s recommendation and ID into the slot of a teller’s window, darkened to hide whoever I was dealing with. Quickly approved, I was buzzed into a small, strange room with three doors.

I paused, confused, until the disembodied voice again told me, “Keep going,” and I was buzzed through another door into a hallway that led to a large room, its walls completely covered in brilliant murals, expertly painted in hip-hop style. Along the front walls, a lighted menu broke down the prices of about 20 cannabis varieties.

Then finally, I saw people: two impossibly hot, young female employees, lounging nonchalantly in their weed box, like strippers waiting to start their routines. The only other customer, a young B-boy, chatted them up though the glass, seemingly more interested in these striking women than their products.

I finally decided to go with the special, an ounce of Fever, normally $17, for just $10. I opened a small door in the glass, set down my cash, and watched the tall, milk chocolate-skinned beauty trade my money for Fever, leaving me feeling flushed. It was the best dime-bag I ever bought.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: ???

Price: Moderate, with cheap specials

Selection: High

Ambiance: Hip hop strip club

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: High

Access/Security: High security but low scrutiny

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BERNAL HEIGHTS COLLECTIVE

Bernal Collective (33 29th St. at Mission) seemed both more casual and more strict than any of the other clubs in town — and it also turned out to be one of my favorites.

After refusing to buy pot for a guy out front who had just been turned away, I entered the club and faced more scrutiny than I had at any other club. It was the only club to ask for my doctor’s license number and my referral number, and when I tried to check an incoming text message, I was told cell phone use wasn’t allowed for “security reasons.” On the wall, they had a blown-up copy of their 2007 legal notice announcing their opening.

But beyond this by-the-book façade, this club proved warm and welcoming, like a comfortable clubhouse. People can smoke on site, and there’s even a daily happy hour from 4:20–5:20 p.m., with $1 off joints and edibles, both in abundant supply. Normal-sized prerolled joints are $5, but they also offer a massive bomber joint with a full eighth of weed for $50.

The staff of a half-dozen young men were knowledgeable about the 20 varieties they had on hand and offered excellent customer service, even washing down the bong with an alcohol-wipe before letting a customer take a rip from the XXX, a strong, sticky bud that was just $15 for a gram.

Buds weighed at purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Fairly low

Selection: High

Ambiance: A clubhouse for young stoners

Smoke On Site: Yes

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Fairly tight

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LOVE SHACK

This longtime club (502 14th St.) has had its ups and downs, the downs coming mostly because of its location on a fairly residential block. After taking complaints from neighbors, the city required Love Shack to cap its membership, although that seems to be changing because the club let me in, albeit with a warning that next time I would need to have a state ID card. It was the only club I visited to have such a requirement.

Once inside this tiny club, I could see why people might have been backed up onto the street at times. But the staff was friendly and seemed to have a great rapport with the regulars, who seemed be everyone except me. The knowledgeable manager walked me through their 20-plus varieties, most costing the standard street price of $50 per eighth, or more for stronger stuff like Romulan.

On the more affordable end of the spectrum was the $10 special for Jack Herrer Hash, named for the longtime legalization advocate who wrote The Emperor Wears No Clothes, a classic book on the history of the movement.

Buds weighed at purchase

Open for: eight years

Price: Moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Small, like a converted apartment

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Moderate

Access/Security: Tight

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COFFEE SHOP BLUE SKY

Blue Sky (377 17th St., Oakland)is based on the Amsterdam model of combining marijuana dispensaries with coffee shops, although it suffers a bit from Oakland’s ban on smoking. Still, it’s a cool concept and one that Richard Lee sees as the future of marijuana-related businesses because of the synergy between smoking and grabbing a bite or some coffee.

Most of Blue Sky is a small coffee shop and smoothie bar, but there’s a little room in back for buying weed. “We’ve got the best prices around,” said the guy who checked my ID, and indeed, $44 eighths and $10 “puppy bags” were pretty cheap. Customers can also sign up to do volunteer political advocacy work for free weed.

The only downside is the limited selection, only four varieties when I was there, although the woman at the counter said the varieties rotate over the course of the day based on the club’s purchases from growers.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: 14 years

Price: Low

Selection: Very limited

Ambiance: A fragrant little room behind a coffee shop

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

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HARBORSIDE HEALTH CENTER

I have seen the future of legitimized medical marijuana businesses, and it’s Harborside (1840 Embarcadero, Oakland). With its motto of “Out of the shadows, into the light,” this place is like the Costco of pot — a huge, airy facility with a dizzying number of selections and even a “rewards card” program.

All new members are given a tour, starting with sign-up sheets for daily free services that include yoga, chiropractic, acupuncture, reiki, consultations with herbalists, and classes on growing. Then we moved to a section with the clones of dozens of pot plant varieties available for purchase (limit of 72 plants per visit), along with a potted marijuana plant the size of a tree.

Harborside is also blazing the trail on laboratory services, testing all of its pot for contaminants and THC content, labeling it on the packaging just like the alcohol industry does. Some of the smaller clubs don’t like how over-the-top Harborside is, and they complain that its prices are high. But those profits seem to be poured back into the services at this unique facility.

Prepackaged buds

Open for: three years

Price: High

Selection: Huge

Ambiance: A big, open shopping emporium

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Tight

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SANCTUARY

The people who run Sanctuary (669 O’Farrell St.), the first club to fully comply with the new city regulations and get its permanent license, have been active in the political push for normalizing medical marijuana, as a wall full of awards and letters from politicians attests. Owner Michael Welch was commended for his work by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, where Sanctuary employee Tim Durning has been an active longtime member and former elected officer.

Sanctuary has a generous compassionate giving program and caters to lots of poor residents of the Tenderloin neighborhood. While the club is prohibited from allowing smoking, they fudge the restriction with a Volcano vaporizer. “A lot of patients are on fixed income and live in the SROs, where they can’t smoke, so we let them vaporize here whether they buy from us or not,” Durning told us.

Those who do buy from them find a huge selection — including 20 different kinds of hash and 17 varieties of buds — at a wide price range. Staffers know their products well and take their business seriously, giving a regular spiel to new members about responsible use, which includes maintaining neighborhood relations by not smoking near the business.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: five years

Price: Low to moderate

Selection: High

Ambiance: Campaign headquarters for the marijuana movement

Smoke On Site: No, but vaporizing OK

Thug factor: Low

Access/Security: Easy

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GREEN DOOR

If low prices or a huge selection of edibles are what you seek, Green Door (843 Howard St., www.greendoorsf.com) could be the club for you.

Eighths of good green buds start at a ridiculously low $25 and go up to just $50 (the cheapest price for eighths at many clubs and also the standard black market price). If that’s not low enough, super-broke users can buy a quarter-ounce bag of high-grade shake for $40.

If you didn’t already have the munchies going in, you’ll get them perusing the huge menu of edibles: from weed-laced knockoffs of Snickers bars and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for just $5 to cupcakes, ice cream, or Chex party mix. They have lots of hash and other concentrates as well.

Somehow, the club also manages to have a strong compassionate giving program and contibutes to local civic organizations that include the Black Rock Arts Foundation, Maitri AIDS Hospice, and Friends of the Urban Forest.

The club itself is a little sterile and transactional, with an institutional feel and employees stuck behind teller windows. But even though that and the steady flow of tough-looking young male customers raise its thug factor a bit, the employees all seemed friendly and helpful, giving free edibles to first-time customers.

Prepackage buds

Open for: 8 years (4 here, 4 in Oakland)

Price: Cheap

Selection: High for edibles, moderate for weed

Ambiance: Like a community bank of cheap weed

Smoke On Site: No

Thug factor: Moderate

Access/Security: Easy access, high security

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RE-LEAF HERBAL CENTER

While I had heard good things about Re-Leaf (1284 Mission St.), my first impression was that it’s a little sketchy. As the door guy was checking my recommendation card and ID, I asked whether they allow smoking on site. He looked as if this was a difficult question, paused, and finally told me to ask the people behind the counter.

The small club was blaring gangsta rap when I entered, after a while lowering the volume to compete less with the blaring television set to an ultimate fighting match. It had two small fridges filled with tasty-looking edibles and lots of vaporizers and other merchandise for sale, but only eight varieties of marijuana.

But the service was good, and after knocking $5 off my gram of Jim Jones (a variety I only found here) because I was a first-time customer, he told me it was OK to smoke on site. I sat down on the couch, but there were no bongs, vaporizers, pipes, or even ashtrays to use.

Buds weighed on purchase

Open for: two years (three years at previous SF location)

Price: Fairly low

Selection: Limited

Ambiance: A loud head shop that also has some weed

Smoke On Site: Yes and no

Thug factor: Moderate to high

Access/Security: Easy

Some Muni layoffs postponed for a month

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By Rebecca Bowe

Two dozen Muni parking control officers (PCOs) can hold onto their jobs for another month, the Municipal Transportation Agency Board decided Tuesday. The PCOs are those ever-popular uniformed workers who go around issuing parking citations (maybe you’ve seen the bumper-sticker slogan — “Good people, Tough jobs” — just after getting slammed with an outrageous parking ticket). A round of 24 PCO layoffs was previously scheduled to go into effect at the end of this week, as part of midyear cuts made to balance the city budget. But the MTA Board agreed to push the layoff date back to Feb. 26, according to Steve Stallone, a spokesperson for Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which represents the workers. MTA spokesperson Judson True confirmed that the layoffs were postponed.

The PCO layoffs represented a hot topic at last Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, when a long line of city employees formed during public comment to raise objections. Abraham Davis, a PCO, told supervisors that each officer issues an average of 30 citations a day, which he said brings in roughly $2,000 for the city. Accounting for all 24 workers, “that’s $960,000 a month,” he said, “and that’s a low average.” He described one of his own bad days: “That’s the day I got spit on, almost run over, and came back to the hall with 60 citations,” he said. “Do the math.”

Stallone says today’s MTA Board decision was made because SEIU Local 1021 presented new figures outlining why cutting city workers who generate revenue for the city is a bad business decision. “We crunched the numbers differently,” he told the Guardian. “[MTA] staff just plain had it wrong.” We haven’t heard back yet on how SEIU’s numbers differ from MTA’s numbers — but it’s clear that the MTA Board is willing to look at what the union brought to the table.

At Sup. Chris Daly’s request, a hearing will be held at Wednesday’s Budget & Finance Committee meeting to discuss Muni layoffs and “the impacts on public health and safety concerns,” according to the meeting agenda. Some of those concerns revolve around the fact that PCOs direct traffic in emergency situations or special events when they aren’t issuing parking tickets, Stallone explained. And since another group of affected Muni workers includes the people who clean the buses, maybe the case will be made that riding around in grimy buses won’t exactly help San Franciscans combat swine flu and other contagious maladies. That’s just a guess. “It’s a good guess,” Stallone said. But he took a broader view, saying, “You’re going to lose ridership if the buses suck.”

The next budget battle

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The next budget battle

EDITORIAL There is some good news — in a manner of speaking — about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed midyear budget cuts: they don’t just affect Muni, recreation and parks, human services, and public health. The departments that have been hammered hardest in the past year still face spending reductions — but so do police and fire. The $6 million in Police Department cuts and $1.7 million in Fire Department cuts actually exceed the $7.4 million that the Department of Public Health will have to absorb.

That, of course, requires some context — over the past few budget cycles, DPH has lost far more money than public safety. And the Fire Department has far more fat than its modest cut reflects. And the Human Services Agency is still taking a $3.3 million hit. And the mayor is still keeping five press secretaries. And it’s not at all clear how much of the cuts will involve paring the bloated management ranks, and how much will be the further elimination of front-line services.

And this is just the start — the budget deficit for next year is more than $400 million, and the blood on the floor by the time that’s resolved will make this round look easy.

But the very fact that some of the sacred cows of San Francisco are facing their own financial pain sends an important message: this budget crisis won’t be solved just by screwing the poor — and the unions representing the cops and firefighters are going to have to step up and work with the rest of organized labor to push for some new revenue. And they’ll need to put up some money and reach out to the more conservative voters to promote the tax increases San Francisco desperately needs.

Now it’s up to the supervisors to put in motion the process to take substantial changes in the way the city is funded out of the discussion stage and into the policy arena.

When Newsom was running for governor, it was almost impossible to get him to talk seriously about raising revenue; he clearly wanted to be the candidate who could talk about balancing a city’s budget without raising taxes. Now that he’s not looking for votes in the Central Valley, he’s been a little more open to the idea that a cuts-only budget won’t work the next time around.

Unfortunately, the two main ways he wants to raise money are both terrible ideas. Newsom is talking about gutting the condominium conversion limits and allowing anyone who pays a fee to get a permit to turn an apartment into a condo. That would have a devastating impact on the city’s rental housing stock. He also wants to sell off taxicab permits — a plan that would undermine the city’s longstanding policy of allowing working cab drivers to use the permits at a modest fee and create a structure where the right to drive a cab would be determined at auction and given to the highest bidder.

The condo conversion plan is unlikely to get six votes, and the progressive supervisors should make it clear that a taxi privatization proposal isn’t the best way to solve the budget crisis, either. Then the mayor and the board can start working on a progressive tax plan to put before the voters next year.

The Budget Committee will be ground zero for the debate. Sup. John Avalos chaired that committee through last year’s harrowing budget battles, but in the past the job has rotated. If Board President David Chiu intends to appoint a new chair for next year, he should name one of the two qualified progressives with background on the committee. Either Sup. Ross Mirkarimi or Sup. David Campos would be an excellent choice.

The Big Zero – SF version

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By Steven T. Jones
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I can’t stop thinking about Paul Krugman’s wonderfully biting recent commentary, “The Big Zero,” and his persuasive point that in the last decade, “we achieved nothing and learned nothing.” The Nobel laureate economist was talking about the national economy, but I think his point can also be applied to other realms as well, and specifically to San Francisco.

Sprawl development and over-reliance on the automobile have strained public resources and contributed to global warming, bad air quality, and diminished quality of life. The bursting of the housing bubble and its related lies shows clearly that most people can’t afford to buy a home and must rent. Stagnant wages, decimated 401Ks, and the dead promise that we’ll be OK if we work hard and play by the rules show that we’re all in the same boat, equally vulnerable to hard times and ultimately dependent on government and each other if things really get bad.

So what are we doing with these lessons learned? The core of this city’s housing policy is to simply let an untrustworthy, financially weak corporation, Lennar, build 16,000 homes – the vast majority for sale at pricey market rates – in the two most isolated parts of the city: southeast SF and Treasure Island (which will need to be severely hardened against rising seas). And to make it worse, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s big revenue idea is to let rich people buy their way out of the condo conversion lottery, further depleting the rental stock relied on by two-thirds of city residents.

We’re promoting shitty private sector jobs at all cost (including refusing to adequately tax big corporations) and cutting public sector jobs that have good pay and benefits without a thought, in the process hurting our public health and social service functions. Newsom is still taking his cues from the realtors, landlords and Chamber of Commerce – who have all been so obviously wrong in their advocacy this decade – and refusing to even meet with advocates for tenants, immigrants, environmentalists, and the working class, the very people who most need the help and attention of the Mayor’s Office.

To me, being a progressive simply means that we can do better, that we can progress, that we can learn from the past to improve the future. So Krugman’s insightful column should be a wake-up call, a needed reminder that the economic conservatives like Newsom have been dangerously wrong and that we need to chart a new course.

The next budget battle

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The next budget battle

EDITORIAL There is some good news — in a manner of speaking — about Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed midyear budget cuts: they don’t just affect Muni, recreation and parks, human services, and public health. The departments that have been hammered hardest in the past year still face spending reductions — but so do police and fire. The $6 million in Police Department cuts and $1.7 million in Fire Department cuts actually exceed the $7.4 million that the Department of Public Health will have to absorb.

That, of course, requires some context — over the past few budget cycles, DPH has lost far more money than public safety. And the Fire Department has far more fat than its modest cut reflects. And the Human Services Agency is still taking a $3.3 million hit. And the mayor is still keeping five press secretaries. And it’s not at all clear how much of the cuts will involve paring the bloated management ranks, and how much will be the further elimination of front-line services.

And this is just the start — the budget deficit for next year is more than $400 million, and the blood on the floor by the time that’s resolved will make this round look easy.

But the very fact that some of the sacred cows of San Francisco are facing their own financial pain sends an important message: this budget crisis won’t be solved just by screwing the poor — and the unions representing the cops and firefighters are going to have to step up and work with the rest of organized labor to push for some new revenue. And they’ll need to put up some money and reach out to the more conservative voters to promote the tax increases San Francisco desperately needs.

Now it’s up to the supervisors to put in motion the process to take substantial changes in the way the city is funded out of the discussion stage and into the policy arena.

When Newsom was running for governor, it was almost impossible to get him to talk seriously about raising revenue; he clearly wanted to be the candidate who could talk about balancing a city’s budget without raising taxes. Now that he’s not looking for votes in the Central Valley, he’s been a little more open to the idea that a cuts-only budget won’t work the next time around.

Unfortunately, the two main ways he wants to raise money are both terrible ideas. Newsom is talking about gutting the condominium conversion limits and allowing anyone who pays a fee to get a permit to turn an apartment into a condo. That would have a devastating impact on the city’s rental housing stock. He also wants to sell off taxicab permits — a plan that would undermine the city’s longstanding policy of allowing working cab drivers to use the permits at a modest fee and create a structure where the right to drive a cab would be determined at auction and given to the highest bidder.

The condo conversion plan is unlikely to get six votes, and the progressive supervisors should make it clear that a taxi privatization proposal isn’t the best way to solve the budget crisis, either. Then the mayor and the board can start working on a progressive tax plan to put before the voters next year.

The Budget Committee will be ground zero for the debate. Sup. John Avalos chaired that committee through last year’s harrowing budget battles, but in the past the job has rotated. If Board President David Chiu intends to appoint a new chair for next year, he should name one of the two qualified progressives with background on the committee. Either Sup. Ross Mirkarimi or Sup. David Campos would be an excellent choice.

Do public health cuts make sense?

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By Melanie Ruiz

The Examiner’s front-page headline decries cuts to the San Francisco Police Department (it’s going to be harder to patrol North Beach with all that overtime reduced). But there’s been a lot less press attention to the midyear cuts to public health.

DPH proposed $7.4 million in cutbacks, with some of the biggest losses to be suffered by HIV prevention programs. The mayor, however, rejected these program cuts, instead using HIV/AIDS reserve money to the programs going.

So the cuts will come elsewhere — and may leave the city in worse shape over time.

Gregg Sass, chief financial officer of the public health department, presented the news to the Health Commission Dec. 15th, arguing that the proposed plan operated in large part by increasing program efficiencies and reducing or eliminating San Francisco’s support for programs cut in the state budget bloodbath. Sass said “there are a few, isolated instances of some very targeted program reductions.”

Those targeted programs reductions include two substance abuse residential treatment programs, yet to be named, which will be closed. The plan also cuts the backfill funds for state proposition 36 services, which are “provided to individuals charged with non-violent drug violations who choose drug treatment and counseling in lieu of incarceration,” according to the health department’s program change request.

The people who run these programs that will be cut testified for more than an hour, making the case that the cuts are financially foolish — because prevention is cheaper than treatment.

Representatives from the Homeless Youth Alliance (HYA), a harm reduction coalition for homeless youth in the Haight-Ashbury, were out in full force. “Twice a year our budget is up for cuts, and twice a year we have to stand up here and beg you to keep allowing us to save lives,” said Lani Riccobuono. Supporter after supporter came up, cheered on by an entire back section of the room, to testify to the vital role the HYA plays in the future of at-risk individuals. It’s a thriving, supportive community of people who explained that they have only found help and hope after walking through the drop-in center’s doors.

And the infuriating level of the cuts was on display, too — It costs only $58,729 to keep HYA’s doors open – less than the cost of just one of Newsom’s five press spokespeople.

To be fair, the mayor’s office is taking cuts, too — a total of $201,520. Those reductions will come through attrition, unfilled vacancies and salary reductions for top earners.

Supervisor Chris Daly has been drawing attention to the different growth rates of the police and health departments’ budgets. According to Daly, the health department received $410 million in General Fund money last year, which fell to $343 million this year. The police department received $332 million, which rose to $345 million. In other words, public health received 16 percent less – and the police received four percent more.

Newsom’s proposed cuts include $6 million in reductions for the police department — which is hardly enough to balance out past years of health cuts.

At the onset, Commission President James Illig noted that this was only a small step: “We want to hear how we’re going to face the future, because more cuts are going to have to be made.” Next year the health department faces $101 million in cuts.

The main idea offered by speakers for the next round of cuts was simple – look elsewhere.

As Riccobuono sees it, the current strategy “is not only bad public health, it is balancing the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable population in San Francisco.”

Cleaner air for Oakland — but no one wants to pay for it

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Cleaner air for Oakland — but no one wants to pay for it

news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY On Jan. 1, the Port of Oakland and surrounding areas will get cleaner air — and as many as 1,000 truck drivers may lose their jobs.

That’s when the port’s Clean Truck Management Plan (CTMP) takes effect, setting strict requirements for trucks operating in the port. The new rules are an effort to address the public health crisis in communities near the port, where diesel exhaust fumes have been contributing to rampant asthma and increased cancer rates.

While no one questions the need for cleaner air, there’s still a raging battle over who should pay to overhaul old, dirty trucks — and how to make it possible for small independent truckers not to lose their livelihoods.

The new regulations, set by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), ban all trucks older than 1994 from entering the port. Trucks built between 1994 and 2003 are allowed if they’re retrofitted with a special filter, which by most estimates costs between $20,000 and $25,000.

Eventually CARB’s regulations will reduce diesel particulate matter emissions by 90 percent in areas most affected by the noxious pollution.

The problem — at least for some of the drivers — is that two-thirds of the trucks running cargo in and out of the Oakland port are run by independent owner-operators, who say they don’t make enough money on the cargo runs to pay for cleaner trucks or upgrades.

The Coalition for Clean and Safe Ports of Oakland (CCSP) is campaigning with Teamsters Union members and some truckers and Congress members to take the burden off independent owner-operators. But some say the industry model itself is the problem — that all the drivers should be employees of larger trucking firms that can pay for the latest equipment.

"The lack of resources among [independent owner-operators] and the inefficiencies in the current system strongly favor a more employee-oriented drayage sector," states an economic impact report on the issue commissioned by the port and prepared by Beacon Economics.

Currently the drivers wait, engines idling, an average of 3.6 hours at or in the terminal. That’s in part because they don’t get hourly pay — which gives the shippers and trucking contractors little incentive to hurry things.

As independent trucker Abdul Khan puts it: "Everybody certainly wants to have clean air. I might not be happy with this law, but I’m the one in this business being affected by this pollution." Still, with a 2003 engine in his truck, he expects to be out of a job come Jan. 1.

Khan has been a driver at the Port of Oakland for five years. He and his wife and child had to leave their home of 15 years to move in with his brother after fuel prices rose by 300 percent last year.

Khan has been without health insurance for his entire trucking career. The Beacon report states that "most [independent owner-operators] do not have health insurance from any source." Yet they are among those who suffer most from breathing the polluted air all day at work.

In some ways, the problem is the result of the 1990s-era deregulation of the trucking industry. In November, 24 members of California’s Congressional delegation, including East Bay Democratic Reps. Barbara Lee, Pete Stark, and George Miller, signed an open letter to the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee encouraging members of the House to "consider making changes to [federal law] so that California ports can successfully implement and enforce needed truck management programs."

The Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act was supposed to standardize the regulation of cargo carriers and encourage competition. But mistreatment of drivers and detrimental working conditions are, says CCSP director Doug Bloch, some of the consequences of deregulation, which essentially bars local or state governments from legisutf8g industry working conditions.

The Port of Oakland, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District set up a grant fund to help drivers retrofit their equipment to meet the new standards, and some did. But others who sold their older trucks and bought upgradeable models lost out when the money ran dry.

Robert Bernardo, spokesperson for the port, told us the grants were unusual: "Typically, whenever a regulation comes into effect, by CARB or DMV, it’s incumbent upon business owners to purchase any upgrades," he explained.

That’s not a simple story, though, since the finances of port shipping are immensely complex. In theory, the bigger players in the industry — the large trucking companies and the corporations doing most of the shipping — have the access to capital for creating an ecologically-sound fleet and more power to negotiate shipping prices.

When items are shipped from overseas, shipping lines set the prices. Since the commerce is international, there’s no regulation of anything, including prices. The shipping lines set the prices for the trucking companies, which in turn tell the independent truckers what they’ll pay per load. The independently-contracted drivers have no leverage at all.

Matt Schrap, an intermodel transport expert at the California Truckers Association, notes that international shipping rates "are negotiated somewhere in Shanghai and set by steamship lines. Then you go into contract for two to three years at locked-in rate." Since the steamship lines aren’t subject to antitrust laws, he warns of their ability to collude in price-setting.

So the debate has become as much about labor issues as the environment. Some activists argue that the entire economic model of independent drivers contracting with trucking firms is unworkable, and would prefer to see all the drivers become employees. Not all drivers want that; some are happy with being independent. And the trucking contractors love the current system, since they pay no benefits.

Valerie Lapin, spokesperson for the Coalition of Clean and Safe Ports in Oakland, says that that port drivers are misclassified as independent. She explains that typically they can only work for one company, which tells them where and when to go. With the current classification, trucking companies "skirt all responsibility for paying taxes and benefits. Drivers have to pay for everything — trucks, fuel, maintenance, registration, and parking. And [the trucking companies] pay them really low wages."

The fate of the new regulations may depend on what happens to a legal battle at the Port of Los Angeles. L.A. has sought to mandate that trucking companies hire drivers as employees, and the port would allow only newer, cleaner trucks to enter.

But the American Trucking Association sued the port under FAAAA, saying the law bars the city from requiring employee-drivers. The courts put the program on hold until further hearings, scheduled for May 2010.

Paying with our Health, a 2006 report by the Pacific Institute assessing the practicality of "ditching dirty diesel" to improve health in the communities suffering from freight transport pollution, concluded that "the industry is quite capable of standing on its own and paying for cleaner technologies, instead of standing on the backs of California’s poor and minority communities."

It’s not clear what the truckers who own banned trucks will do come Jan. 1. Some say they will look for work elsewhere.

And there’s still the issue of whether the port will have enough clean trucks to haul all the cargo. Bernardo insists that won’t be a problem. Others, including Wayne Steinberg, terminal manager at Horizon Lines, an all-employee based trucking company with a fleet in full compliance, says the company is "extremely concerned about not having enough drivers Jan. 1."

Losing hope even faster

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By Steven T. Jones
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For more than a year, I’ve been defending President Obama against his critics on the left. They’d complain that he’s enabling hyper-capitalism and the military-industrial complex, and I’ve always urged them to give him time. The problems are huge and the political climate is stormy, so we needed to keep our immediate expectations reasonable and be patient.

But I’m beginning to lose hope.

The escalation of war in the Afghanistan was his third strike. First, he bailed out Wall Street, preserving an inequitable and unsustainable economic system. Then he abandoned his past support for a single-payer health care system, propping up the costly and corrupt insurance-based system. And then he decided to perpetuate the dangerous delusion that our military can make the world safe and secure and turn Afghanistan into a functional, modern state.

And now, as icing on the cake, it looks like Obama is backpedaling on his Afghanistan exit strategy and working with Senate Democrats to give up on the public health care option, leaving a “reform” bill whose most notable characteristic is that we’ll all be required to buy overly expensive health insurance from a profit-driven corporation.

Hope – it was nice while it lasted.

Pedaling forward

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Pedaling forward

steve@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY San Francisco’s top elected and appointed officials made the city a little greener — literally — Dec. 3. And they say the recent removal of restrictions on bicycle-related improvements will make San Francisco a lot greener over the long term.

A festive mood was in the air when officials and activists gathered at the intersection of Oak and Scott streets to paint the city’s first green bike box (marking a safe spot for cyclists to wait in front of cars at intersections) and celebrate the first bike lanes to be created in more than three years.

In the week since Superior Court Judge Peter Busch partially lifted an injunction that had banned all projects mentioned in the city’s Bicycle Plan — the court ruled that they needed to be studied with a full-blown environmental impact report, which the city completed earlier this year, although it has been challenged by another lawsuit set for trial in June 2010 — city crews worked at a blistering pace on bike improvements.

They created three new bike lanes (of the 10 Busch is allowing to move forward before the trial, holding up another 50 for now) and installed barriers between the bike and car lanes on Market Street near 10th Street. "So now we have the first separated bike lane in San Francisco," San Francisco Bicycle Coalition director Leah Shahum told the Guardian, happy over a safety improvement that encourages children and seniors to ride.

The crews also have been installing about five new bike racks and 20 shared traffic lane markings (known as "sharrows") each day. Mayor Gavin Newsom praised the rapid implementation and told the crowd, "You’re going to see more than you’ve seen in years be done in the next few months. The goal is to get from 6 percent of commutes in San Francisco up to 10 percent of all commutes by bicycle — and I think that is imminently achievable in the next few years."

Also on hand were Sups. Ross Mirkarimi, Bevan Dufty, and Sophie Maxwell, Department of Public Works head Ed Reiskin, San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) board chair Tom Nolan, and SFMTA director Nat Ford, who declared the goal of making "San Francisco the preeminent city for bicycling in North America."

Mirkarimi, the only elected official to ride a bicycle to the event, told the crowd: "This is a delightful day…. We are all unified in the mission statement of making San Francisco bike-friendly."

Dufty, who chairs the Transportation Authority and pushed for the rapid implementation plan, said, "There’s a really great community here. First, my hat’s off to the Bicycle Coalition and all of their thousands of members who really keep the city honest and keep us moving forward."

Nolan also praised bike activists who pushing his agency to prioritize bike projects and prepare for the end of the injunction: "It was a very effective campaign. You did such a great job at making your case."

While anti-bike activist Rob Anderson, who sued the city along with attorney Mary Miles, regularly derides the "bike nuts" as a vocal minority pushing an unrealistic transportation option, the event showed almost universal support for bicycling at City Hall.

"I can say this is the best relationship we’ve had for years with the advocacy community, with the Bicycle Coalition," Newsom said. "We’ve begun to strike a nice balance where this is not about cars versus bikes. This is about cars and bikes and pedestrians cohabitating in a different mindset."

Bicycling in San Francisco has increased by 53 percent in the last three years, so Shahum said the plan’s projects and the growing legion of bicyclists will help the city in myriad ways in coming years.

"We know we can do this," she said. "We know the climate change goals this city has laid out, the public health goals, the livability goals that the city has laid out, will not be met without shifting more trips to bicycling, walking, and transit. And that’s why this day is so important."

Or as Maxwell said, "This is a great opportunity for San Francisco to finally take its place among world cities that recognize that cars are not the only mode of transportation."

Editor’s Notes

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Editor’s Notes

The people aren’t that weird in Oregon. They drink the same coffee we do, and the same beer, and they’re just as surprised as we are that a team from the land of Beavers and Ducks will be playing in the Rose Bowl. It rains a lot, so they don’t worry about water the way we do — in some places, you can actually take a shower with an old-fashioned spigot that pours an unconstrained and luxurious flow that would be illegal in most of California — but generally speaking, it’s not like an alien territory.
But the Oregon government took a radically different approach to the state’s budget problems over the summer. The governor and the Legislature passed measures to raise taxes on households with incomes of more than $260,000 a year and corporations with profits of more than $10 million. The bills also cut taxes on unemployment benefits. The deal would bring in $737 million and avoid deep cuts in essential public services.
Of course, some things don’t stop at state lines: antitax activists have forced a referendum on the new taxes, and in January, in a vote-by-mail ballot, Oregonians will decide whether to reject the tax plan. The newspapers are full of discussions on the impact, and the message is clear: Scrap the taxes and teachers will face layoffs, schools will face serious problems, and other public services will suffer.
I was up visiting over Thanksgiving, and I asked a friend what he thought would happen. He was pretty confident that the taxes would be retained: “I don’t know anyone who makes more than $260,000 a year.”
Of course, they don’t have a two-thirds majority requirement to raise taxes — and while Republicans all over have become little more than obstructionist troglodytes, Oregon Republicans haven’t all signed the “no-new-taxes” pledge required of every GOP legislator in California.
Even so, you have to wonder: Why can’t we do that here?
The answer, I think, is that we can — not necessarily on a statewide level (where anything progressive seems almost impossible today) but right here at home in San Francisco.
A poll commissioned by SEIU Local 1021, which came out while I was away, showed that a majority of San Francisco voters would support a broad range of new taxes, from a five-cent-a-drink tax on alcoholic beverages to a $10 a car tax on motor vehicles to an increase in the hotel tax. The poll didn’t ask about a tax on incomes of more than $260,000, but I bet the results would be about the same.
So what’s headed for the June ballot? Well, at this point all I hear is that the mayor wants to fund the expansion of Moscone Center with $140 million in revenue bonds — and might want to designate a hike in the hotel tax to pay for it. That’s a great way to set priorities — the health care system is in total collapse, Muni lines are getting shut down … and we’re going to use new tax revenue for a convention center expansion.
This comes just after the mayor announced he wasn’t going to spend the money to save critical public health services. Perhaps he’ll find some spiritual guidance on his trip to India.

Time for serious budget reform

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Time for serious budget reform

EDITORIAL Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, likes to say that politicians should never let a crisis go to waste — but that’s what happened in San Francisco last summer, when the mayor and the supervisors approved a budget deal that didn’t involve any real structural reform, didn’t solve any long-term problems, and didn’t even last six months.

Now there’s a new crisis, one that, if anything, is worse. Cutting almost a half-billion dollars from the city budget last year was absolutely brutal. But cutting another half-billion, which is what the controller is now talking about, seems almost inconceivable.

It’s time to quit with the patches, quit with the one-time solutions and fee hikes. And with the mayor missing in action, the supervisors simply have to take the lead here and begin working on major systemic changes that shift the way the city is financed and the way money is spent.

The biggest problem with last summer’s deal was the lack of any serious attempt at bringing in new revenue. Newsom and his advisors all said that tax hikes weren’t looking good in the polls and probably wouldn’t get voter approval, but election results around the Bay suggest otherwise: In city after city, voters approved new taxes to fund essential public services.

And Newsom never gave the revenue side of the equation a fighting chance. He never made any personal effort to lobby the three supervisors he had appointed to the board, who were all reluctant to put emergency tax measures on the ballot. He just let the idea die.

And now the city is paying the price. Everyone with any sense knew last summer that the recession wasn’t going to magically end in time to make this budget work. It was clear that property tax and sales tax revenue would drop even further — and that the only way to avoid brutal midyear cuts was to look for new sources of money. Now the mayor and the board have to slice close to $50 million to keep the red ink at bay, and next year’s deficit is pegged at 10 times that much.

The other glaring problem with the mayor’s budget approach is that it sought to cut only from the front lines. But the highest-paid workers, the folks who make way more than $100,000 a year, the management ranks that have become very well staffed in recent years, were largely untouched. And frankly, there are a lot of people in that category who don’t do much of anything that’s essential to the functioning of the city.

During the dot-com boom, when Willie Brown was mayor and the city was awash in cash, the ranks of the politically appointed managers grew dramatically. Some of those folks are still around. Newsom has added his own. And the structure of management and organization in this city has never been a model of efficiency. So if the mayor wants another round of deep cuts — 20 percent from every department — he should start with a management audit of some of the biggest departments and take a hard look at exactly what all those senior employees do all day — and whether their work might be less important than, say, nurse aides who take care of the sick elderly.

As a simple show of good faith, Newsom shouldn’t replace Nate Ballard, the press secretary, or Kevin Ryan, his criminal justice advisor. There are still four other people in the mayor’s press office, more than any mayor in modern history has ever needed. And the city already has a police chief, police commission, district attorney, and sheriff. Why the mayor needs his own criminal justice office is a mystery to us.

There are other policy issues that need to be examined. The current budget shortfall memo from the city controller notes that some departments are already over budget — the Sheriff’s Office, for example, needs an additional $2.7 million dollars. The public defender and the courts need and additional $4.9 million. Why? Well, one reason is the new police chief’s crackdown on drug sales in the Tenderloin — which is packing the jails. "We’re defiantly looking at a lot of new drug cases," Sheriff Mike Hennessey, who has had to open three new housing units to fit all the prisoners, told us. The crackdown may be good public policy (or not) — but there was never any discussion of how much it would cost. And the mayor and the chief never asked the supervisors to authorize adequate spending for it.

So as a matter of policy, the mayor apparently thinks it’s worth $7 million to arrest drug dealers — but not worth $7 million to keep public-health workers who save lives every day on the job. That’s a policy decision that was made arbitrarily — and that kind of discussion needs to happen on a dozen or more fronts.

The mayor told his department heads Nov. 19 to expect 20 percent cuts — and to prepare for as much as 30 percent. But that’s not going to happen across the board. Unless the police stop arresting people, for example, the sheriff won’t be able to cut 20 percent of his budget without letting prisoners go. The mayor won’t take the political heat for cutting that much from cops and fire. So the burden will fall on public health, Muni, human services, recreation and parks, and other smaller departments. And the level of cuts will render those agencies unable to provide basic services.

So let’s be honest: there is simply no way to close a deficit this large without new taxes. That’s just reality, and anyone who denies it is refusing to face facts. San Francisco can’t survive with basic services — like police, fire, and public health — intact on the amount of money the controller projects the city will collect in the next year.

Newsom will be guilty of destroying the entire social service infrastructure in this city if he refuses to push tax hikes. And he’ll be damaging the local economy if he does it piecemeal.

We’ve been clamoring for years for an overhaul of the city’s tax structure, and now there’s a hurricane-force fiscal storm forcing the issue. If Newsom doesn’t announce plans to hold open, public discussions and draft a new tax policy for the city (and we doubt that will happen) then the supervisors must act, now. Board President David Chiu already had a broad-based committee work on tax reform. Now the board needs to begin drafting comprehensive legislation to change the way the city collects money — with the aim of putting a measure on the ballot as early as possible next year.

The goal should be not only to bring in another $250 million (at least) in new revenue, but to shift the tax burden away from small businesses and the poor and middle class and onto the wealthy. A big first step: get rid of the flat business tax and replace it with a progressive gross receipts tax that charges the biggest companies a higher percentage. Other cities have found numerous other ways to raise money — such parcel taxes, which aren’t quite as fair as ad valorem property taxes, but at least tax property owners, who in general are a wealthier class. A properly written utility users tax would hit big companies that use (and sometimes waste) a lot of power. And of course, a tax on income earned in the city — which would cover commuters who use city services but don’t pay city taxes — is among the most progressive ways to bring in new money.

Meanwhile, let’s remember: fee hikes (for Muni rides, for use of city pools and playing fields etc.) are just hidden taxes — on the poor and middle class.

State law makes it hard to raise taxes; any measure would have to go to the voters. But a major tax-reform overhaul that doesn’t just raise a few taxes on a targeted group but makes the entire system more fair for everyone, ought to be a ballot-box winner — particularly if the mayor is willing to raise money and lead the battle to pass it.


In a Nov. 18 interview with Hank Plante, the KCBS political editor, a testy and impatient Newsom ducked specific questions about how he was going to solve the budget shortfall. After saying that he doesn’t read the newspapers (which, frankly, is either a lie or utterly shameful for a big-city mayor, and leaves him looking as ill-informed as former President Ronald Reagan) he simply said the deficit would be "a lot of work."

That’s an understatement — and Newsom needs to do more than sit in his office and whine about the media. He needs to be out in public, addressing the budget crisis — and he needs to let reporters and residents and business people and the supervisors ask questions and get straight answers.

It’s fine to say that at this point, nobody knows how to solve the problem. It’s not okay to say: trust me, I’ll get back to you on that. This is a citywide crisis, and it’s essential that the public feels involved.

This is the biggest crisis since Gavin Newsom took office. It’s time he started acting like it.

Editor’s Notes

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Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

So the mayor of San Francisco says he doesn’t read the newspapers, which may be why he expressed so much surprise at the size of next year’s budget deficit. The rest of us — the ones who, you know, bother to check out publications that hire reporters to inform us about current events — pretty much knew that the recession wasn’t over, that city tax revenues were going to be below projections, and that next year would be a repeat of this year.

He also seems almost cavalier about it, telling reporters that this isn’t a crisis, that he simply has to work hard and come up with a solution. And if the past is any indication, his solution will be to cut Muni, public health, social services, and recreation and parks, lay off thousands more frontline workers (damaging the local economy even further), and complain that we aren’t getting more help from Sacramento and Washington.

It’s as if I’m reading Cat’s Cradle again: round and round and round we spin, with feet of lead and wings of tin. Wasn’t Einstein the one who said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result will be different?

The budget Newsom presented to the board in June, and the somewhat different one the board approved in July, didn’t solve the city’s budget crisis. Firing all the remaining recreation directors and laying off more health care workers and shutting down bus lines (while raising fares) and depending on condo-conversion fees — a one-time source of income — to prop us up won’t work either.

I remember listening to John Garamendi, then lieutenant governor, talking outside a University of California Board of Regents meeting at the Mission Bay campus a few months ago. He was complaining about budget cuts and insisting he wouldn’t vote to eliminate programs and raise fees. "How," I asked him, "do you recommend we balance the budget?" His answer: "California is a rich state and can afford public education."

That’s a little shy of suggesting a hike in the income tax rate for the very wealthy or an oil-severance tax, but it was the right point. Folks: San Francisco is a rich city. By millennial standards, it’s one of the richest cities ever, in one of the richest civilizations ever. We can afford public health and public parks and public transportation.

It costs money to run a city like San Francisco. Lots of money. The problems we face are immense — from moving more than 1 million people a day around town without making the streets impassible and contributing to global warming, to saving the lives of people who have been lost, to the state and federal safety nets, to preventing teenagers from shooting each other to death with automatic weapons, and the list goes on. And if you get rid of the patronage jobs and the embarrassing waste and then explain to people what we have to pay for and who’s going to be paying most of the tab — and you make sure that the ones paying the most can most afford it — then I think you can get even tax-weary voters behind you.

But you can’t solve a half-billion dollar budget problem — on top of last year’s half-billion dollar budget problem — without a clear vision of what this city needs, and how to pay for it. And that’s what’s missing in the mayor’s office.

Instead, Newsom blames the press for screwing up his campaign for governor and says there’s nothing really to worry about; the budget will get fixed, somehow, one of these days, and nobody who matters will have to suffer that much.

Round and round and round we spin. I think I’m going to be sick.

Supes vote to suspend public health layoffs for two months

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By Rebecca Bowe

Department of Public Health employees who are affected by budget cuts have reason to breathe a temporary sigh of relief after today’s Board of Supervisors meeting. Eight supervisors, the two-thirds majority needed to pass the item, voted to spend roughly $1.8 million in the Department of Public Health to push back pending layoffs until the end of January. Sup. David Campos suggested the compromise move, emphasizing that job loss is particularly bitter when it strikes during the holiday season.

Although the supervisors — excluding Sups. Carmen Chu, Sean Elsbernd, and Michela Alioto-Pier, who all voted no — have expressed their intentions to keep the public health workers in their jobs for now, many questions still remain.

The biggest one: What will Mayor Gavin Newsom do? He could veto the move, or, he could simply decide not to appropriate the money, as Sup. Elsbernd made very clear during the meeting.

In the corridor just outside the Board Chambers, City Controller Ben Rosenfield told the Guardian that he believes the layoffs will still go into effect. “Everything the mayor has indicated to me is that they do not intend to spend the funds,” he said. “This could be seen as partially an academic exercise.”

But several feet away, SEIU spokesperson Carlos Rivera sounded more optimistic: “Right now, we are just going to celebrate this, and hopefully the mayor will come around and not be the Grinch who Stole Christmas,” he said. “I know he has a big heart.”

Supes to vote on restoring DPH cuts (again)

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By Rebecca Bowe

This afternoon, a special meeting of the Budget & Finance Committee will be held to determine whether to take roughly $8 million out of the Department of Public Health reserve — money that’s already spoken for, but that some Supervisors say will be replenished before the next budget cycle — in order to stave off layoffs and salary cuts to front-line city workers in the Department of Public Health. Directly after the special meeting, the item will go before the full Board for a vote at today’s meeting.

SEIU Local 1021, the union representing city workers who’ve been pitted in an ongoing battle with mayor since the budget cuts were announced, has done its best to line up the eight votes needed to restore the cuts, leaning heavily on Sup. Sophie Maxwell to reverse her prior position by robo-calling in her district and encouraging political heavyweights to urge her to support the item.

On a conference call yesterday afternoon, Assembly Member Tom Ammiano said the city should count on stimulus dollars generated by Assembly Bill 1383 to refund the roughly $8 million.

“There seems to be a dispute about those funds, but we took the extra step to get the funding,” Ammiano said, noting that he worked with Assembly Member Dave Jones on the legislation that secures the money for public health services. “They pulled the trigger much too early here,” Ammiano said, referring to the layoffs. Noting that the mayor seemed to be disputing the purpose of the funding, Ammiano said, “I thought the purpose was to prevent layoffs.”

When asked what the Mayor Gavin Newsom thought the money should be used for, his press secretary, Joe Arellano, indicated that Newsom disagrees that it should be applied to stave off immediate layoffs. “The funds will ultimately will be used to prevent layoffs and other cuts, since, assuming it comes to us in time to apply toward next year’s deficit, it will reduce the cuts we need to make in order to balance,” Arellano said.

Check back here later for an update.

Newsom’s back — and so is the budget axe

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By Tim Redmond

The mayor is speaking to the press again. Oh goodie.

First, Hank Plante of KCBS TV gets a sit-down interview that’s stunning in its lack of substance. Newsom gets all pissy and defensive about his trip to Hawaii, says he doesn’t read the newspapers and complains about inaccurate reporting without ever saying what’s inaccurate. (I like Brock’ suggestion at sfist:

Why couldn’t Newsom tell CBS 5’s Hank Plante, “Yeah, I took off to Hawaii. And what, hooker? Somebody hold my earrings.”

Then when Plante finally starts asking about the budget deficit, the mayor totally ducks and won’t say anything except that it’s going to be a lot of work to resolve.

Then the mayor’s office kicks the press out of a department head briefing on the budget and follows it up with some brief public remarks that show:

1. Newsom would much rather downplay this and say it’s no big deal, and

2. There’s no serious talk about raising new revenues (except from selling off the city’s rental housing stock and creating lots of new condominiums) and

3. Every department is being asked to cut 20 percent and prepare for as much as 30 percent cuts — but that’s going to mean really, really ugly decisions that Newsom can’t possibly make. For example, the Sheriff can only cut 20 percent by letting people out of jail — many of them the same people who Newsom’s new police chief, George Gascon, just put in jail with his much-lauded Tenderloin busts. Then the Tenderloin crackdown will become a joke, because nobody arrested will actually do any jail time, because the city can’t afford to lock them up. Oh, and there won’t be enough cops to arrest them, anyway — unless Newsom has Gascon pull cops out of other, richer neighborhoods to patrol the Loin, which may be a fine idea but will create such political backlash among Newsom’s allies that he won’t dare do it.

And closing fire stations seems to be political poison, so the mayor won’t want to do that.

Which means public health and human services and rec-park will have to cut way more than 30 percent to save police and fire, which means we won’t really have much of a public health, human services or rec-park system any more.

4. The mayor is doing nothing to prepare the public to face the fact of life — we’re going to need significant tax increases, or we’re going to see the devastation of the public service sector in this city.

Welcome back, Gavin.

Oh, and by the way: The last chief executive I remember saying that he didn’t read the newspapers was Ronald Reagan. Great role model. Either Newsom is lying (which I suspect; I can’t believe the mayor of San Francisco actually avoids reading the daily newspaper) or the guy is more out of touch, arrogant and clueless than even I am willing to believe.

Editor’s Notes

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Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

You can see the city’s next fiscal crisis, and all the bloodshed it will involve, sticking up its ugly head at the Board of Supervisors these days.

The immediate issue on the table is a supplemental appropriation of $7 million to save the jobs of some 500 frontline public health workers who are scheduled to receive pink slips this month. But the deeper issue is how the supervisors are going to deal with the fundamental unfairness of the mayor’s budget — particularly as the issue gets reopened this winter. Because the city’s finances are not improving, and it’s almost certain that there will have to be midyear changes. And — sadly — there’s no indication that Mayor Gavin Newsom is going to be any more willing to work with the board and look for progressive solutions than he was in the summer.

The budget deal the supervisors signed off on in June wasn’t such a good deal at all, in part because it rested on Newsom’s promise to work toward a revenue measure for the November ballot. In retrospect, San Francisco missed an opportunity here — lots of Bay Area cities went to the ballot with tax increases to head off service cuts, and voters approved nearly all of them.

But Newsom never tried very hard to convince his allies on the board to go along with that plan and let the whole thing slide, putting the city in the position where layoffs that will cut deeply into the public health infrastructure are moving forward.

And now seven supervisors — all of the progressives plus Bevan Dufty — are ready to take an emergency step to stop the layoffs. They’re willing to put $7 million in reserve money up front, now. And if they can convince Sophie Maxwell to change her position and join them, the board will put the ball right back in the mayor’s court.

The thing is, the city’s budget crisis never really goes away. It’s a structural imbalance; save for the occasional boom years, San Francisco simply doesn’t bring in enough revenue to cover the costs of services people in this city want and need. It’s much worse in a recession, of course, but it’s always bad. And it’s going to remain an annual problem until the folks at City Hall make some major structural changes.

If, for example, we really want to avoid raising any new taxes — Newsom’s line — then we have to downsize, and the only fair way to do that is to start at the top. There are highly paid management–level people all over this city who don’t do nearly as much work in a week as a typical nurse’s aide does every day. The rampant cronyism slowed down after Mayor Willie Brown left office, but it never went away. A lot of Brown appointees still have cush jobs, and Newsom has added to the list. None of those folks ever get laid off.

With the layoffs scheduled this month, more than 1,000 members of SEIU Local 1021 — the union that represents frontline workers — will have been laid off. How many members of the Management Employees Association? Exactly 25.

And if we’re not going to look at radical restructuring, starting with department organization and management, then we have to bring in more money. That’s taxes, Gavin. In fact, to make this city solvent for the future we should probably do both.

Nobody wants to talk about that, though. So the women who hold the public health system together get canned, the wealthy enjoy low taxes, and the crisis goes one, year after year.

I hope Sup. Maxwell realizes what this is about — because if she votes the right way, it might actually force the mayor to make some of those tough choices he loves to talk about.

DPH Budget Cuts: The saga continues

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By Rebecca Bowe

The ongoing saga of budget cuts affecting a majority of people of color and women in the city’s Department of Public Health took yet another twist this afternoon.

For now, the Budget & Finance Committee has voted to restore the cuts, but it won’t be heard by the full Board of Supervisors until next Tuesday, when eight votes will still be needed to pass the $8 million supplemental appropriation. Meanwhile, in the wake of the city controller’s dramatic pronouncement yesterday that the Board wasn’t allowed to take anything out of the General Fund reserve, Sup. Chris Daly had to do some fancy footwork to come up with a new way to restore the cuts.

At a special meeting of the Budget & Finance Committee this afternoon, Supervisors voted to restore the cuts — but since City Controller Ben Rosenfield said he was unable to certify a spending decision that would draw approximately $8 million from the General Fund reserve, Supervisors voted to dip into the $45 million that the Board placed on reserve across major city departments at the 11th hour of budget deliberations back in July. In the Department of Public Health, it represents about $11.9 million in salaries and benefits. Since drawing from this pot of money wouldn’t render the budget out of balance, the city controller can sign off on it as a legitimate move.

The idea to use the DPH reserve, instead of General Fund reserve dollars, was suggested by Sup. Chris Daly after City Controller Ben Rosenfield announced yesterday afternoon that he would not allow the Board to vote on a supplemental appropriation that spent General Fund reserve dollars because the city is projected to be in dire straits financially. “The previously appropriated spending no longer appears to be supportable,” Rosenfield told the Supervisors this afternoon. “The difference exceeds the value of the General Fund reserve.”

The city controller has never barred the Board from taking a vote on a supplemental appropriation due to a budget deficit. But Rosenfield said this afternoon that in the handful of instances when the controller has had to notify the city of a projected budgetary shortfall, this was the first time that a vote was pending on a supplemental appropriation.

Controller, in radical move, defies supes

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By Tim Redmond

In a move that’s unprecedented in modern San Francisco history, city controller Ben Rosenfield appears poised to try to block the Board of Supervisors from approving a $7 million supplemental budget appropriation to prevent 500 layoffs of frontline health department workers.

It’s the latest twist in a convoluted battle that pits SEIU Local 1021 and the progressives on the board against the mayor, who wants to lay off nurses aides and clerical workers.

In a budgetmessage posted today, Rosenfield says that the city is running $53 million in the red, and that “until this shortfall is addressed, the Controller’s Office will not be able to certify funds from the General Fund Reserve for other appropriations.”

Rosenfield, a Newsom appointee, is apparently relying on a very old City Charter section that looks like this:

S.F. Charter Sec. 9.113 (d) “General Fiscal Provisions”

No ordinance or resolution for the expenditure of money, except the
annual appropriation ordinance, shall be passed by the Board of
Supervisors unless the Controller first certifies to the Board that
there is a sufficient unencumbered balance in a fund that may legally be
used for such proposed expenditure, and that, in the judgment of the
Controller, revenues as anticipated in the appropriation ordinance for
such fiscal year and properly applicable to meet such proposed
expenditures will be available in the treasury in sufficient amount to
meet the same as it becomes due.

But in my 25 years of covering City Hall, I have never once seen this happen. There have been bad budget deficits before, and supplemental appropriations, and the controller has never told the supervisors that they can’t spend reserve money.

“About the only thing Rosenfield and I agree on is that this has never been done before,” Sup. Chris Daly told me this evening.

The controller’s report notes that several city departments are running over budget — but interestingly, Human Services and Public Health, the targets of the layoffs, are running a surplus of $8.1 million (exactly what the supervisors want to spend).

Among those departments facing shortfalls: The Sheriff’s Office, which is in the red because of “an increase in jail population” — possibly due to the new police chief’s crackdown on drug dealing in the Tenderloin.

I couldn’t reach Rosenfield tonight, but Daly notes that the same legislation was before the board last week, and Rosenfield didn’t object. “So he’s already certified it,” Daly said. “And I’m not sure how he can decertify it now.”

I’m not going to argue that the city has money to burn, but there are always mid-year budget changes in bad times. The supes and the mayor are going to have to make some budget adjustments. But there’s also unanticipated money coming in — for example, San Francisco stands to get about $33 million in federal stimulus money for the Department of Public Health in April, and that funding will be retroactive to the previous year. So this year’s shortfall will actually be $33 million less.

Tina Johnson, a legislative affairs staffer for the state Department of Health Care Services, confirmed the near-certain availability of that money in a Nov. 16th letter to state Sen. Leland Yee.

In any other year, I suspect the controller would follow the normal practice of informing the mayor and the supes that the budget was out of line (as it is, in one way or another, almost every year) and then allow them to come up with some mid-year corrections. But this battle between Local 1021 and the mayor has gotten ugly, and I’m sure there was pressure on Rosenfield.

Look for a showdown at the board meeting tomorrow (Nov. 17). Daly told me that whatever Rosenfield says, “we’re going to have a vote on this.”

Sophie Maxwell’s big test

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By Tim Redmond

Shortly after the new supervisors were elected last fall, Sup. Sophie Maxwell came by the Bay Guardian to talk about the board presidency. She was a candidate, and she knew she needed progressive support to get the job. So she told us about her political views and accomplishments and asked why we didn’t consider her a “progressive.”

Well, we’ve had some (respectful) disagreements with Sup. Maxwell over redevelopment and Home Depot. But what really concerned us, then and now, was whether Maxwell was willing to defy the mayor and take a hard line on city budget issues.

And now comes a major test.

The progressives on the board — along with Sup. Bevan Dufty, who is often a more moderate vote — are pushing to force the mayor to rescind the layoffs of 500 front-line health-care workers.

The nurses aides and clerical workers are almost all people of color, mostly women, and mostly making less than $50,000 a year. Sup. John Avalos has proposed that the city take $7 million out of reserves to save their jobs. That’s a temporary fix — in the long run, San Francisco needs to raise taxes to get some more revenue in, or at least do layoffs more equitably.

The Avalos legislation requires eight votes. Union activists say Maxwell appeared to be on their side last week, but after meeting with the mayor’s chief of staff, Steve Kawa, she voted against the measure Nov. 10th. That left it one vote short of passage.

It also sparked a fight between Maxwell and Sup. Chris Daly, which isn’t doing anyone any good.

But it’s not over. The Avalos bill is back in committee, and will come before the board again in the next two weeks. And Maxwell has to face a tough decision.

The argument that there’s no money available to save these jobs doesn’t make sense to me. The city’s likely to receive $33 million in extra public health money next year through a state bill known as AB 1383.

Besides, the entire city budget is out of whack already; revenue isn’t up to expectations and the deficit is growing for next year, so the mayor could (and should) make some mid-year changes — like layoffs at the top.

I haven’t been able to reach Maxwell by phone. But this one’s going to go down as a litmus test: When it comes to saving the jobs of working-class people of color, or siding with the mayor, where will she come down?

It’s clear where all the progressives on the board are. And that’s where Maxwell should be.

Inside the mayor’s office with SEIU Local 1021

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By Rebecca Bowe

Yesterday, around 4 p.m., 22 union members rushed into the mayor’s office (the plush reception area on the other side of those stately double doors) and demanded to meet with Mayor Gavin Newsom. Immediately blocked by security from continuing all the way to the mayor, they vowed to wait — and remained there for about two hours. The protesters were there as representatives or supporters of SEIU Local 1021, which has launched a months-long fight against Newsom in the wake of layoffs and deep salary cuts in the Department of Public Health inflicted by city budget cuts.

In the City Hall corridor just outside the mayor’s office, scores of other SEIU members gathered in support of those inside the reception area. Chants, cheers, and the refrain from Bob Marley’s “Get Up, Stand Up” could be heard from outside. The SEIU members inside, meanwhile, circled up and prepared to be arrested. Meanwhile, the clerks working in the reception area continued diligently working away at their desks. (Each of the mayoral staffers declined to comment. At one point, mayoral spokesman Nathan Ballard walked through the room, and the union members hollered at him to please ask the mayor to show some leadership. “Will do,” he said with a smile, and disappeared behind a door.)

The mayor never showed. Nor did any clash take place between the union members and the plainclothes security officers who were coolly guarding the doors leading out to the corridor and back to the mayor’s actual office. The union members stayed until approximately 6:15 p.m., chanting, singing, delivering impromptu speeches, and resolving that they would keep up the fight. Here’s what it was like in there.

They finally negotiated an exit with the security officers, and joined the others outside the doors.

Then, they flooded into the street outside City Hall with the other workers and proceeded to circle around the intersection of Polk and McAllister. Sup. Chris Daly joined them and thanked them for their work, vowing to do what he could to restore the cuts.

At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, supervisors voted seven to four to dip into the General Fund reserve to restore the jobs of certified nursing assistants and unit clerks in the city’s Department of Public Health.

But after it was announced that the ordinance had passed on first reading, and the SEIU workers who’d packed the Board Chambers let out a celebratory whoop, some one pointed out that eight votes were needed for approval. The measure had actually failed — and the disappointment in the room was palpable.

Listen to the community

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Listen to the community

news@sfbg.com

The HIV/AIDS support community celebrated when President Barack Obama recently lifted the 22-year long U.S. travel ban against people infected with HIV. But officials say the federal government is still deaf to local needs and not making the best use of scarce resources.

The U.S. Conference on AIDS, held Oct. 29-31 at the Hilton San Francisco Hotel, attracted more than 3,000 AIDS treatment and prevention professionals and emphasized the unmet needs of the most at-risk communities.

"By extending the Ryan White Care Program and by lifting the ban, Obama has made a lot of people very happy," said Ravinia Hayes-Cozier, director of government relations and public policy for the National Minority AIDS Council, which sponsored the conference. "But we have to continue to do things differently here, to do things better, and to let the rest of the country know about the epidemic that is in all of our communities."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 56,000 Americans become infected with HIV each year — one every nine-and-a-half minutes — and more than 1 million people living with HIV in the U.S.

Despite these figures, community workers said little movement has been seen on the domestic side in the last eight years and that federal funding often fails to fund the full range of services people need.

"The CDC wants to see deliverable results in the fight against AIDS, which is understandable," said Alfred Forbes, a holistic consultant who led a workshop at the conference on how support and quality of life services have been neglected. "But I believe it has come to the point where we have missed our missions. A lot of organizations are more in touch with the federal funding in their pockets than their own communities."

While Obama’s 2010 budget request includes an estimated $25.8 billion for HIV/AIDS activities, only 4 percent of that is allocated toward domestic HIV prevention, thanks to the emphasis on more traditional care services.

"In the early days of epidemic, most of the work was done by the community, and we would try everything," said Karl Knapper, a program manager at the SF-based nonprofit Shanti. "But while it’s easy to look at results for providing care for people with HIV and AIDS, preventing it is very hard to prove — it’s like trying to prove a negative."

An organization that understands this problem well is the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, an agency that offers one of the oldest syringe exchange services in the country, a program banned from receiving federal funds.

"There is proof this program is saving lives. Before these services were available, 16 to 19 percent of new HIV-infections were caused by sharing syringes. But now in San Francisco, less than 1 percent of new infections are caused this way," said interim vice president of programs and services Keith Hocking.

Of the 28,114 cumulative AIDS cases in San Francisco at the end of 2008, 94 percent were male, 4 percent were female, and 1 percent were transgender persons. Seventy percent of male AIDS cases were among men who have sex with men.

Yet when a San Francisco group working to prevent HIV transmission among all gay and bisexual men created what it thought was a powerful publicity campaign five years ago, it got vilified in Congress and lost its federal funding. "We produced materials that we thought were appropriate for our constituents, and it was a disaster," said Kyriell Noon, executive director of the STOP AIDS Project. "They called it pornography and indecent. But to be perfectly honest, community norms when talking about sex are different in gay and bisexual communities.

"We have to meet the community if we are going to have any effect on the epidemic," Noon continued. "But there is a real disconnect between what we know is effective and what the government wants to fund."

The federally funded Ryan White Program, which covers underinsured individuals living with HIV/AIDS, got $2.3 billion this fiscal year, a $54 million increase over last year. While the CDC has increased funds for HIV prevention by the same amount, many community-based organizations must rely on the San Francisco Department of Public Health to fund less traditional services.

In July of this year, SFDPH allocated $11.5 million for HIV prevention, with $5 million coming from city and state funds. Dr. Grant Colfax, director of HIV Prevention and Research at SFPDH, said community partnership is crucial when tackling the disease.

"We work closely with the community planning council and base our priorities on what communities want and need," he said. "But I really do think it’s progressive to be able to hold ourselves accountable for the preventive methods we use. We do have to show it works."

"There are lots of different opportunities for funding, but we can’t afford to fund everyone," said CDC spokesperson Nikki Kay. "Community-based organizations must apply competitively."

Chop from the top

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Chop from the top

rebeccab@sfbg.com

At the Oct. 23 groundbreaking ceremony for the rebuild of San Francisco General Hospital, Mayor Gavin Newsom sang the praises of the public hospital’s staff.

"To all the men and women who work in this remarkable place that changes people’s lives each and every day … every time I come here, I realize you’re not just saving patients, you’re taking care of families," the mayor said. "It’s so difficult to see someone in pain. But to see the smile and the pride their loved ones have because of the job you guys have done is something magical."

Yet some health care workers, marked by their signature purple and yellow T-shirts, clearly weren’t feeling the magic. As Newsom waxed poetic onstage, they stood clustered in the audience displaying a banner proclaiming, "Keep Public Health Healthy." It was meant as a reminder that SEIU Local 1021, the union that represents certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and clerical workers facing significant slashes in pay in the wake of a city budget cuts, is still pushing to have their salaries restored.

On Sept. 15, 500 CNAs and clerical workers received notice that they would be laid off, although some would be reclassified at lower-paying positions, effective Nov. 15. For the CNAs being demoted, the reductions amount to an average of $15,000 annual reduction in pay. For the clerical workers facing downgrades, the cuts reflect an average loss of $5,000.

It wasn’t the first time SEIU workers turned out at one of Newsom’s public appearances. Beginning in August, union members began vocally characterizing the layoffs and demotions as a civil ights issue because they disproportionately affect women and people of color. According to a Department of Public Health assessment, 96 percent of the affected employees are people of color and 79 percent are women.

Mayoral Chief of Staff Steve Kawa insisted this wasn’t an attack on the city’s comparable-worth policy, which guarantees equal pay for work done primarily by women. "We would not do anything against comparable worth, " Kawa told the Guardian. "Even with the change in status in the wage, these workers will be making 18 percent above market."

But Sup. John Avalos framed it differently. "These people are some of the lowest paid frontline workers in the city," he pointed out a recent Board of Supervisors meeting. "I have spoken to many of them in my district. They’re often single women who are raising children, who don’t know how they’re going to survive."

After angry SEIU members made a series of boisterous appearances at Newsom’s gubernatorial campaign events, the mayor finally agreed to meet with them in talks that were mediated by San Francisco Labor Council head Tim Paulson.

"[Newsom] complained at some length during the first meeting about us attacking him," noted SEIU member Ed Kinchley. "We responded that we’re really not attacking him. What we were criticizing was a policy that goes after classifications filled predominantly by women and people of color."

The ongoing flap took a new twist at the Oct. 22 Board of Supervisors meeting, when Sups. Avalos and Chris Daly each announced plans to find funding to restore the public health workers’ salaries. Avalos proposed skimming some excess from management positions, which have swelled in recent years.

"Before cutting vital city services … we should first look to those who have the most, not to those who have the least," Avalos noted. He said he plans to ask the city controller to draft an annual salary ordinance that would reclassify top management positions in order to free enough funding to stop the demotions and wage reductions for the CNAs and clerical workers.

According to a report issued by the city controller, citywide management positions have grown from 739 in budget year 1998-99 to 1,075 in 2008-09, a 68 percent increase. Some individuals were promoted with salary increases ranging from $20,000 to $40,000 annually.

"I don’t know how one does that," Kawa said when asked about Avalos’ proposal. "It doesn’t make any sense to me."

Daly, meanwhile, noted that Department of Public Health Chief Financial Officer Gregg Sass had highlighted a preliminary projection for an $8 million DPH budget surplus in a Sept. 15 memo. Daly announced that he plans to request the money be flagged to go back into the department to stave off deskilling of frontline workers.

When asked if this money was available to fund the CNAs and clerical workers, Sass responded, "I don’t think it is." Emphasizing that it’s a preliminary figure, he added that "any additional funding, should it exist, is a component of the city’s overall ability to stay on budget this year and offset any shortfalls in city revenue … and address the large projected deficit for next year. I don’t see how it could be seen as ‘available’ until the city has better projections of [other tax revenue]."

The union had planned for a lengthy session with mayoral staff to continue negotiations on the same day of the supervisors’ meeting. But when Kawa learned about Avalos’ proposed legislation, he got angry and walked out, according to one SEIU member.

Asked if proposed legislation detracted from the negotiations, Kawa told us that "it made the last one difficult because it was somewhat of a surprise. And usually when you’re in good-faith negotiations, you share with the other folks the activities you’re up to so that you know that they’re actually there to negotiate in good faith."

Back at SF General after the groundbreaking ceremony, Newsom posed for photos with top public health officials, scooping shovels full of loose dirt with golden spades. The giddy atmosphere dissipated when the mayor turned around to find himself ringed by a group of reporters vying for a chance to pepper him with questions. He responded to most of their queries in typical loquacious fashion. But when the Guardian asked him to comment on Avalos’ proposed legislation, his face darkened slightly. "I don’t have any comment," he responded gruffly. Then he was whisked away for more photographs.

Events listings

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Events listings

Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

FRIDAY 30

Bedbugs: Modern Vampires City College of San Francisco, Science Building, room 300, 50 Phelan, SF; (415) 239-3580. Noon, free. Hear Johnson Ojo, Ph.D. from the San Francisco department of health describe the life cycle of bedbugs, our 21st century vampires. Dr. Ojo will discuss the factors that have led to their reemergence and current public health measures to control infestations in San Francisco.

Ghost Walk Palace Hotel, 2 New Montgomery, SF; (415) 557-4266. 6:30pm, free. Learn about the spooky history of the historic Palace hotel, how King Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii, died there in 1891, how it was rebuilt after burning in the 1906 quake, how President Warren G. Harding died in office there in 1923, and more tragedies and heartbreaks that keep the halls buzzing with spectral visions and mysterious occurrences.

Postmortem Legion of Honor, 100 34th Ave., SF; (415) 750-3548. 8pm, $85. Dance among the undead at this "Ghoulish Gala," combining complimentary potions and witches brews with the current mummy exhibit featuring Irethorrou, a 2,500 year old Egyptian mummy.

BAY AREA

Hallowmas Orinda Masonic Temple, 9 Altarinda, Orinda; (925) 787-9247. 6:30pm, $29. Join other women and girls from the Bay Area to celebrate the Pagan New Year at this annual Womyn’s Ritual and Spiral Dance accompanied by an artisan and craftswomen marketplace.

SATURDAY 31

Classic Ghost Stories North Beach Library, 2000 Mason, SF; (415) 355-5626. 2pm, free. Be a part of the Sitdown Readers’ Theater and help read aloud classic ghost stories like "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James and "Thrawn Janet" by Robert Louis Stevenson or bring your own favorites.

Costume Walk Yerba Buena Children’s Garden, 4th St. at Howard, SF; (415) 543-1718. Noon, free. Children under 10 and their families are invited to participate in interactive performances and games for kids followed by a costume parade.

Creature Features Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, SF; (415) 561-0360. 3pm; $10-16, discount in costume. Begin your Halloween festivities with creepy creatures, plants, giant insects, a haunted Victorian house on wheels, and more. Including candy for the kids and a cash bar for adults.

Drop Dead Sexy Block Party Broadway between Montgomery and Columbus, SF; www.megahalloweensf.com. 8pm, $35. Buy a wristband and gain access to multiple clubs for costume contests and DJs spinning hip hop, R&B, mashups, top 40, electro, and more.

End of the Night Justin Herman Plaza, Market at Embarcadero, SF; journey.totheendofthenight.com. 7pm, free. Be a part of this city wide game of tag spanning

San Francisco’s haunted cityscape on Halloween. Players try to make it through six checkpoints on foot or by public transportation, without being caught by chasers. Those caught become chasers themselves.

Freakshow Terra Gallery, 511 Harrison, SF; www.terrasf.com. 9pm, $30. Attend a 1930’s circus big top Halloween party featuring a freakshow with aerialists, jugglers, clowns, DJs spinning indie, pop, and alternative sounds, and more.

Halloween Party Cat Club, 1190 Folsom, SF; (415) 703-8964. 9pm, $15 with costume. In response to years of violence in the Castro, Peaches Christ and Helinka are hosting a fright-night featuring a costume contest, midnight drag show, classic horror films projected on screens, and DJs spinning creepy dance music.

Make Drag, Not War Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF; www.againstmilitarism.org. 7:30pm, $20. Join Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW) for a night of activist drag and dance theater featuring the drag debut of more than a dozen Iraq veterans as a benefit for Dialogues Against Militarism (DAM).

Spider Ball Bently Reserve, 400 Sansome, SF; spiderball.com. 10pm, $55. Dress to impress at this decadent Halloween party and fundraiser for the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) and enjoy DJs, live acts, and more.

Spiral Dance Ritual Kezar Pavilion, 755 Stanyan, SF; www.reclaiming.org. 7:30pm, $20-100. Honor the dead and celebrate renewal at this spiral dance ritual happening on the day of the year when the veil is thin between the worlds of the living and the dead.

SUNDAY 1

Dia de los Muertos Concert San Francisco Symphony, Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; (415) 864-6000. 2pm, $15-65. Celebrate Latino culture at this family concert featuring music, dance, art, and storytelling from the traditions of the Day of the Dead.

MONDAY 2

Dia de los Muertos 24th St. and Bryant, SF; www.dayofthedeadsf.org. 7pm, free. Join thousands of families, community members, artists, and activists for the annual Day of the Dead procession and public altar exhibit. Procession ends at a Festival of Altars in Garfield Park, located at 26th and Harrison.


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