Rent

Breaking down the cost of hosting the America’s Cup

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Breaking down the cost of hosting the America’s Cup

San Francisco’s Budget and Legislative Analyst has released a report outlining the costs and benefits of hosting the 34th America’s Cup in San Francisco. Bottom line: If the world-famous yacht race is held here, it will cost the city an estimated $42 million.

The Guardian will publish a more detailed report in coming weeks, but for now, here are a few highlights from the report, which was requested by Sup. Chris Daly and released to the media on Nov. 18.

* The overall cost breaks down like this: The Budget Analyst estimates that the city would receive an estimated $22 million in revenue, and incur new costs of $64 million, resulting in a net loss of $42 million.

* The city would receive an estimated $3.6 million from property tax revenues from new development (probably luxury condos) if the event organizers built on the port properties they’d receive as part of the deal. Billionaire Larry Ellison, who has the ultimate say in selecting the venue for the America’s Cup, would receive several port properties rent-free for 66 to 75 years, under leases which haven’t yet been formally approved. However, if the city obtained a private developer through a competitive process instead, it could receive increased tax revenues of $89.8 million. According to the Budget Analyst, this estimated net loss of $86.2 million “is in addition to the estimated net loss … of $42.1 million.”

* The major benefit to hosting the prestigious yacht race in San Francisco would be an estimated $1.2 billion in new spending in San Francisco’s economy, and the Budget Analyst predicts a range of $928 million to $1.6 billion in economic activity – undoubtedly a good thing for a troubled economy.

* However, the creation of “9,000 jobs” you may have heard about isn’t as simple as it sounds. According to the report: “All ‘jobs’ predicted … are not permanent full time jobs, and therefore would not result in hiring 8,840 employees.” Instead, the Budget Analyst prefers to frame it in terms of work hours, noting that the additional work would be either absorbed by the existing workforce (as in a server waiting on more customers per hour), greater overtime for the existing workforce (think police), or temporary jobs.

The Budget Analyst is careful to state that the report is not meant as a recommendation one way or another for hosting the America’s Cup. “However,” it states, “it is the responsibility of the Budget and Legislative Analyst to report the facts to the Board of Supervisors.”

Radical diplomacy: an interview with Guillermo Gómez-Peña

Andrew Lam
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“It welcomes hipsters, but advocates for a more intelligent hipsterism.”

Performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña is sitting in his unexpectedly luxurious Outer Mission live-work space, surrounded by walls of fake masonry, stacks of props for his work, and velvet paintings of lucha libre wrestlers, police officers, and John Wayne that have accumulated in the 16 years that Gómez-Peña has rent-controlled the place. In anticipation of his upcoming performance at Galeria de la Raza‘s 40th anniversary gala (Sun/21), we’re trying to figure out a few minor details about life in 21st century America.

On the table is our two shot glasses of cachacha (he’s recently returned from a performance in Brazil) immigration politics, the fate of artistic San Francisco, the role of current events in art – just the sort of small talk one always embarks upon when meeting a stranger best known to you for crucifying himself on Ocean Beach and spending time in traditional indigenous Amerindian garb, trapped in a cage stationed in the lobbies of fine art museums’. Gómez-Peña is letting me hold his chihuahua Babalú while he (Gómez-Peña, that is) chain smokes, wearing a black cowboy shirt, bolo tie, and traces of kohl smudged along his lower eyelids.

His hipster comment is about la Galeria. Gómez-Peña has been involved there for 26 years, ever since moving up from Mexico City via Los Angeles. He had heard San Francisco was good for artists, and in Galeria de la Raza, he found spiritual resonance.

“It is one of the most original Chicano-American spaces in the country,” he tells me. Gómez-Peña, whose wife, Carolina Ponce de León, is now the executive director of the gallery, says that he feels a “sentimental connection” with the place. Ever since 1984, when then-director Rene Yañez invited his Border Arts Workshop to stage their first performance in the gallery, he has made a point to bring some version of each of his projects at la Galeria. 

“The Chicano Vampire” shreds border politics, Sun/21

It’s the space’s anti-nationalist viewpoint that draws him. Gómez-Peña, a native of Mexico City, is a man who has made his life on the border, examining the border, erasing the border. In the mid ’90s, the fake masonry that now dominates his ruby-red living room formed a part of “Temple of Confessions,” for which the artist, attired in tribal splendor, and a man dressed as a cholo gang member, sat ensconsed in Plexi-glass – end of the century saints incarnate. They encouraged visitors to approach their “confessionals” and divulge their secret thoughts about Mexico, Mexicans, race, nation.  

I ask him what secrets they told him, how he thinks those secrets would be different now, in the age of SB 1040 and yet another peak of anti-immigrant hysteria. “At that time,” he begins, drawing on his Marlboro, “the pop culture views about Mexico were much more varied. Nowadays the dominant opinion is one of a country of ingovernability, a potential trampoline for drug smugglers and terrorists. There are no longer any redeeming mythologies.”

Gómez-Peña tells me that he thinks that in the age of strife in the Middle East and grave problems within both their interiors, the United States and Mexico are no longer looking at each other. “There is a lot of silence, indifference at the border,” says the man who has staged elaborate stunts at the nations’ fracture point, including a “border wedding” in which the bride and groom stood on either sides of the wall separating us from our neighbors to the south. He says people can’t – or don’t – tell the difference between narco traficantes and migrant workers.

It’s this miasma which makes the art done at Galeria de la Raza all the more important. The space has always been a place where cultures mixed, and where Latinos found ways to enter the psyche of the American zeitgeist. Gómez-Peña says the Chicano spoken word movement got its start there on the corner of 24th Street and Bryant, as did Frida Kahlo-mania. 

But things have been changing, even for this stalwart of the San Francisco neighborhood art scene. For one thing, it’s not so neighborhood anymore. The Mission has transformed into what Gómez-Peña calls, in his typically luminous style, “a bohemian theme park.” Many of the young Chicano artists that “inform the Galeria’s aesthetics” have hightailed it out of here for the easel space and relatively easy rent checks of the East Bay and beyond. 

Obama has disappointed Gómez-Peña. In the wake of a campaign that everyone believed in, wanted to believe in, the arts funding promised hasn’t been delivered. Nowadays, the artist sees fellow creatives having to work two times as hard for their paycheck, even a brain drain of people leaving for the more affordably fertile soils of Buenos Aires and Lisbon. It’s one of the subjects of his performance piece on Sunday, which he calls Strange Democracy. The program will also honor Yañez, House on Mango Street author Sandra Cisneros, and Tomas Ybarra-Frausto, the acclaimed Chicano Studies professor.

But through the slings and arrows of political misfortune, Gómez-Peña has found ways to be proactive. His Pocha Nostra group is one way, a program that hosts artists in both Tempe, Arizona and Oaxaca in forming multi-cultural, politically striking performance pieces – and, as he riffs, contributes to the “trafficking of artists across the border – we’re intellectual coyotes!” 

And on Sunday, he can contribute his unique style to that of Galeria — a place where he says there is “radical cultural diplomacy, a place for different cultures to meet in a time in which the whole country is becoming divided ideologically and when Latinos are being demonized.” A place where we can all meet and talk in the kingdom of confessions, cachaca, and Babalú.

 

“40 Years Adelante!”: Galeria de la Raza benefit performance and awards ceremony

Sun/21 4-9 p.m., $40-65

Brava Theatre Center

2781 24th St., SF

(415) 826-8009

www.galeriadelaraza.org

 

Down on the farm

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Down on the farm

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Sherman Island may barely register for motorists traveling over the Antioch Bridge and through the delta on Highway 160. Almost wholly owned by the Department of Water Resources, the roughly 10,000-acre patch of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta flatland is barely developed, and probably home to more cows than people. It lies at the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, where freshwater mixes with the salty seawater of the San Francisco Bay.

What isn’t obvious at first glance is that Sherman Island was once host to highly productive agriculture — but as delta water quality diminished, farmers saw their crop yields plummet. Larry Del Chiaro, who formerly headed the Sherman Island Landowners Association, used to grow asparagus, wheat, barley, safflower, milo, hay, and other crops on the island. But today, like nearly all the others who previously raised crops there, he no longer has property there and has moved on. His story illustrates how California water policies have benefited one group while affecting the livelihoods of the people who live in the state’s central water hub, the delta.

“I was a third-generation farmer on the island,” Del Chiaro told the Guardian on a hot August day in the city of Pittsburg. “My grandfather started it. My father, his brothers, my cousins were all on the island farming.” Del Chiaro majored in soil science in the 1970s and was interested in increasing crop yields, so he set up test plots and was closely monitoring their progress.

But by 1987, the yields were plummeting dramatically — a drought had hit the state, and Sherman Island farmers weren’t getting enough fresh water to sustain their crops. Instead of going to irrigate farmland in the delta, much of the scarce freshwater was being pumped south through the State Water Project to agricultural lands in the arid San Joaquin Valley, causing the delta water to get saltier and saltier.

It presented a problem that was particularly acute in that location. “Sherman Island, to use a cliché, is the plug for the Sacramento Delta,” Del Chiaro said. “We’re the last one to get the freshwater, and the first one to get the saltwater intrusion.”

The North Delta Water Agency, a regional water body, had a contract on behalf of the island’s landowners with the Department of Water Resources (DWR) that guaranteed a certain level of water quality. But DWR’s contractual obligations weren’t met that year. “As the drought continued, our water quality diminished, and diminished, and diminished, till it got to the point where we had to rely on Mother Nature for rainfall,” Del Chiaro said. “And when we didn’t get rainfall, our crops suffered.”

Under state water law, Sherman Island landowners had riparian water rights, which allowed them use of the freshwater that flowed past their land. The overarching problem, he said, was that DWR couldn’t meet contractual obligations to both the delta farmers and the San Joaquin Valley farmers in a dry year because it had over-promised water deliveries through the State Water Project. “We have no control over what Mother Nature gives us in terms of rainfall and the snow pack,” he said. “So they were being overly optimistic in terms of all those contracts.”

With the help of consultant Patrick Porgans and a San Francisco attorney, Del Chiaro and the 26 other Sherman Island landowners sued DWR for damages. In 1991, the state settled for $3.6 million, and the farmers were paid for not drawing water out of the delta. Soon after, DWR bought up the island. Once the water agency took control, it eliminated the need for DWR to satisfy contractual obligations to provide freshwater to the Sherman Island farmers. The farmers had cleared out, and the agency’s problem was solved.

“Compared to the San Joaquin Valley, the vast amount of acreage out there, the people that they employ, and the business compared to the delta, we’re kind of a drop in the bucket,” Del Chiaro noted. “Still, there are the businesses in the delta that basically survive off of our farming operation.”

Sherman Island is more well-known to recreational boaters and travelers, and Chris and Dawn Gulick provide a place for delta vacationers at Eddo’s Harbor & RV Park, located on Gallagher Slough on the east side of the island. Eddo’s wasn’t always a harbor and RV park — when Chris Gulick’s father started the business in 1967, fishing was the primary attraction and the small harbor maintained a fleet of fishing boats for rent. The State Water Project came online around the same time, marking the beginning of freshwater pumping out of the delta.

As delta water quality worsened over the years, there were fewer fish to be caught, so over the decades it became less practical to maintain the fishing vessels. Today, the fishing boats have been sold, and Eddo’s primarily gets its business from recreational boaters looking for guest slips or travelers who find their way to the quiet waterfront park to stay in their RVs.

Chris Gulick emphasized the larger picture during an interview about water issues in the delta, but he acknowledged that his business had been affected by what he saw as the state’s misguided water policies. “When we got here, the striped bass fishery was robust,” he said, “and it slowly has declined, and it steadily has declined.”

Gulick said countless experts and researchers had been in and out of the delta over the years, but he felt that the core problem had to do with governance of the system and the fact that water agencies had over-promised the water.

“The problem with the delta, or the water situation, is that the people that are in policy and are writing these guidelines don’t have a vested interest,” he said. “A lot of them don’t know a whole lot about this, but they’re the experts. They’re the ones who are supposed to be writing the plans. They don’t have a clue — and that is a prevalent attitude to the experts who come out and talk to us.”

Fall election ’10 clip out guide

Andrew Lam
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Fall election ’10 clip out guide

Click here for the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s complete endorsements — and happy voting. CLICK HERE for the printable PDF from our home page.


 

NATIONAL RACES

U.S. Senate

Barbara Boxer

 

Congress, 6th District

Lynn Woolsey

 

Congress, 7th District

George Miller

 

Congress, 8th District

Nancy Pelosi

 

Congress, 9th District

Barbara Lee

 

Congress, 13th District

Pete Stark

 

STATE RACES

Governor

Edmund G. Brown

 

Lieutenant governor

Gavin Newsom

 

Secretary of state

Debra Bowen

 

Controller

John Chiang

 

Treasurer

Bill Lockyer

 

Attorney general

Kamala Harris

 

Insurance commissioner

Dave Jones

 

Board of Equalization, District 1

Betty Yee

 

Superintendent of public instruction

Tom Torlakson

 

State Senate, District 8

Leland Yee

 

State Assembly, district 12

Fiona Ma

 

State Assembly, District 13

Tom Ammiano

 

State Assembly, District 14

Nancy Skinner

 

State Assembly, District 16

Sandré Swanson

 

STATE BALLOT MEASURES

Prop. 19: YES, YES, YES

Prop. 20: NO

Prop. 21 YES

Prop. 22: NO

Prop. 23: NO, NO, NO

Prop. 24: YES

Prop. 25: YES, YES, YES

Prop. 26: NO, NO, NO

Prop. 27: YES

 

SAN FRANCISCO CANDIDATES

Supervisor, District 2

Janet Reilly

 

Supervisor, District 4

No endorsement

 

Supervisor, District 6

1. Debra Walker

2. Jane Kim

3. Glendon “Anna Conda” Hyde

 

Supervisor, District 8

Rafael Mandelman

 

Supervisor, District 10

1. Tony Kelly

2. DeWitt Lacy

3. Chris Jackson

 

Board of Education

Margaret Brodkin

Kim-Shree Maufas

Hydra Mendoza

 

Community College Board

John Rizzo

 

BART Board, District 8

Bert Hill

 

Assessor-Recorder

Phil Ting

 

Public Defender

Jeff Adachi

 

San Francisco Superior Court, Seat 15

Michael Nava

 

SAN FRANCISCO BALLOT MEASURES

Prop. AA: YES

Prop. A: YES Prop. B: NO, NO, NO

Prop. C: YES

Prop. D: YES

Prop. E: YES

Prop. F: NO

Prop. G: NO

Prop. H: NO

Prop. I: YES

Prop J: YES

Prop. K : NO

Prop. L : NO, NO, NO

Prop. M: YES

Prop. N: YES

 

EAST BAY ENDORSEMENTS

BART Board District 4

Robert Raburn

 

Berkeley City Auditor

Ann-Marie Hogan

 

Berkeley City Council District 1

Linda Maio

 

Berkeley City Council District 4

Jesse Arreguin

 

Berkeley City Council District 7

Kriss Worthington

 

Berkeley City Council District 8

Stewart Jones

 

Berkeley Rent Board

Asa Dodworth

Lisa Stephens

Jesse Townley

Pam Webster

Dave Blake

Katherine Harr

 

Oakland City Auditor

Courtney Ruby

 

Oakland Mayor

1. Rebecca Kaplan

2. Jean Quan

 

Oakland City Council District 2

Jennifer Pae

 

Oakland City Council District 4

Daniel Swafford

 

Oakland City Council District 6

Jose Dorado

 

EAST BAY BALLOT MEASURES

Berkeley Measure H: YES

Berkeley Measure I: YES

Berkeley Measure T: YES

Oakland Measure L: YES

Oakland Measure V: YES

Oakland Measure W: YES

Oakland Measure X: NO

Oakland Measure BB: YES

 

The. Rent. Is. Too. Damn. High!

Andrew Lam
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The. Rent. Is. Too. Damn. High!

 

As continued reports of unprecedented, record-breaking amounts of cash from corporate real estate developers and big landlords flood the Board of Supervisor races, the damaging impact of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is becoming more and more clear. But even worse, Thomas J. Coates, a far-right extremist Republican real estate developer and landlord, is trying to buy the Board of Supervisors so that he can end rent control. Last week, Coates made the largest donation to supervisors races in the 150-year history of San Francisco.

Who is Coates? He spent more than $1 million on Proposition 98 in 2008 trying to repeal rent control statewide. He was the largest single contributor to that campaign, which was so extreme that even Gov. Schwarzenegger and former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson opposed it. Coates gave the maximum contribution allowed by law to George Bush and Dick Cheney’s campaign and funded GOP candidates across the country. Now he’s spending more than $200,000 to elect anti rent control San Francisco supervisors: Mark Ferrell in District 2, Theresa Sparks in District 6, Scott Wiener in District 8, and Steve Moss in District 10.

With this one donation, the stakes in this election for every San Franciscan — especially renters and progressives — became even higher. By spending his fortune here, Thomas Coates hopes to erode San Francisco’s strong rent control laws by electing supervisors who are less sympathetic to renters. Through influencing the election of the supervisors, he also influences the selection of the interim mayor (since the supervisors will choose the next mayor by a majority vote if Gavin Newsom is elected lieutenant governor), which would result in an anti rent control mayor.

To make matters worse, workers and their families are already on the defense fighting Jeff Adachi’s anti-labor ballot initiative proposal (Proposition B), which would make city workers pay huge increases in their health care coverage. Adachi is mischaracterizing his initiative as pension reform even though the bulk of the cuts will come from forcing low-wage workers to pay for their children’s health care.

Wall Street speculators crashed the stock market, causing workers’ pension funds to lose billions and wiping out retirement savings. The losses require local and state governments to spend more to keep the funds solvent. So who do Gov. Schwarzenegger, Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, and Adachi blame? The victims: the workers.

Renters and city workers aren’t the only ones under attack. Newsom’s cynical sit/lie initiative (Proposition L) demonizes young homeless kids. Many of these youth are queers who ran away to San Francisco because it is a queer haven, and others are abused kids who left home because it wasn’t safe. If Prop. L passes, for 12 hours a day these kids will be criminalized if they sit or lie on the sidewalk.

All this in one of the most progressive cities in America? If we are under attack from conservatives in San Francisco on some of the most fundamental issues of our city, it’s no wonder the Tea Party is raging in the rest of the country.

Now more than ever we need labor, progressives, and renters to come together to fight back by voting Tuesday, Nov. 2. Harvey Milk once said, “Give ’em hope.” Show us that hope on Election Day by voting for progressive supervisors, rejecting Adachi’s so-called pension reform, and opposing the so-called sit/lie ordinance. Remember to vote and vote for Debra Walker in District 6, Rafael Mandelman in District 8, No on B, No on K, No on L, and Yes on J and N.

Gabriel Haaland is a local queer labor activist.

 

 

Cash not care

Andrew Lam
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Cash not care

sarah@sfbg.com

With the general election just days away, campaign disclosure reports show that downtown interests are spending huge amounts of money to create a more conservative San Francisco Board of Supervisors and to pass Proposition B, Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s effort to make city workers pay more for their pensions and health insurance.

Much of the spending is coming from sources hostile to programs designed to protect tenants in the city, including rent control and limits on the conversion on rental housing units to condominiums. An ideological flip of the board, which currently has a progressive majority, could also have big implications on who becomes the next mayor if Gavin Newsom wins his race for lieutenant governor.

At press time, downtown groups were far outspending their progressive counterparts through a series of independent expenditure committees, most of which are controlled by notorious local campaign attorney Jim Sutton (see “The political puppeteer,” 2/4/04) in support of supervisorial candidates Mark Farrell in District 2, Theresa Sparks in District 6, Scott Wiener in District 8, and Steve Moss in District 10.

Prop. B has also been a big recipient of downtown’s cash, although labor groups have pushed back strongly with their own spending to try to kill the measure, which is their main target in this election.

But the biggest spender in this election appears to be Thomas J. Coates, 56, a major investor in apartments and mobile homes and a demonstrated enemy of rent control. He alarmed progressive groups by giving at least $250,000 to groups that support Farrell, Sparks, Wiener, Moss, and Prop. G, legislation that Sup. Sean Elsbernd placed on the ballot to cut transit operator wages and change Muni work rules.

Although Coates declines to identify with a political party on his voter registration, he donated $2,000 to President George W. Bush in 2004. More significantly, he was the biggest individual donor in California’s November 2008 election, when he contributed $1 million to Prop. 98, which sought to repeal rent control in California and limit the government’s right to acquire private property by eminent domain.

Coates, who is also a yachting enthusiast and sits on San Francisco’s America’s Cup Organizing Committee (ACOC), donated $100,000 on Oct. 20 for Farrell, $45,000 for Sparks, $45,000 for Moss, and $10,000 for Wiener through third-party independent expenditure committees such as the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth.

The group has already received thousands of dollars in soft money from the San Francisco Police Officer’s Association, the Building Operators and Managers Association, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers, which supports a high-end hospital and housing complex on Cathedral Hill.

Those downtown groups have spent close to $200,000 on English and Chinese language mailers and robo calls in support of Sparks, Wiener, and Moss in hopes of securing a right-wing shift on the board.

Progressive groups including California Nurses Association, the San Francisco Tenants Union, and the SF Labor Council have tried to fight back in the supervisorial races. While downtown groups spent more than $100,000 promoting Sparks in D6, labor and progressive groups spent $13,000 opposing Sparks and $72,000 supporting progressive D6 candidate Debra Walker.

In D8, progressive groups that include teachers, nurses, and transit riders have outspent the downtown crowd, plunking down $40,000 to oppose Wiener and $90,000 to support progressive candidate Rafael Mandelman. So far, downtown groups have spent about $100,000 to support Wiener.

But in D10, the district with the biggest concentration of low-income families and communities of color, downtown interests spent $52,000 supporting Moss and $5,000 on Lynette Sweet while the Tenants Union was only able to summon $4,000 against Moss. The SF Building and Construction Trades Council spent $4,000 on Malia Cohen.

But that’s small potatoes compared to what downtown’s heavy-hitters are spending. The so-called Coalition for Sensible Government, which got a $100,000 donation from the San Francisco Association of Realtors, has already collectively spent $96,000 in support of Sparks, Wiener, Moss, Sweet, Rebecca Prozan in D8, Prop. G and Prop. L (sit-lie) and to oppose Prop. M (the progressive plan for police foot patrols) and Prop. N (a transfer tax on properties worth more than $5 million).

The Coalition for Responsible Growth, founded by Anthony Guilfoyle, the father of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ex-wife, Kimberly Guilfoyle (who now works as a Fox News personality), has received $85,000 from the Committee on Jobs, $60,000 from the Realtors, and $35,000 from SF Forward. It has focused on spending in support of Prop. G and producing a voter guide for Plan C, the conservative group that supports Sparks, Wiener, Sweet, and Moss

Coates’ donations raise questions about his preferred slate’s views on tenant and landlord rights. A principal in Jackson Square Properties, which specializes in apartments and mobile homes, Coates is the founding partner of Arroya & Coates, a commercial real estate firm whose clients include Walgreens, Circuit City, and J.P. Morgan Investment Management. In 2008, when he backed Prop. 98, Coates told the San Francisco Chronicle that rent control “doesn’t work.”

Ted Gullicksen, director of the SF Tenants Union (SFTU), which has collectively spent $30,000 opposing Sparks, Wiener, and Moss, is disturbed that Coates spent so much in support of this trio.

“Coates was the main funder of Prop. 98,” Gullicksen explained. “His property is in Southern California. He’s pumping a lot of money into supervisors. And he clearly has an agenda that we fear Moss, Sparks, and Wiener share — which is to make the existence of rent control an issue they will take up in the future if elected to the board.”

That threat got progressive and labor groups to organize an Oct. 26 protest outside Coates’ San Francisco law office, with invitations to the event warning, “Be there or be evicted!”

Sparks, Moss, and Wiener all claim to support rent control, despite their support by someone who seeks to abolish it. “I answered such on my questionnaire to the SFTU, which chose to ignore it,” Sparks told the Guardian via text message. “In addition, I’ve been put out of apartments twice in SF, once due to the Ellis Act. They ignore that fact as well.”

Records show that in May 2009, Moss — who bought a rent-controlled apartment building near Dolores Park in D8 for $1.6 million and he lived there from the end of 2007 to the 2010, when he decided to run for office in D10 — served a “notice to quit or cure” on a tenant who complained about the noise from Moss’ apartment. Ultimately, Moss settled without actually evicting his tenant.

“I read about Coats’ [sic] contribution in Bay Citizen,” Moss wrote in an e-mail to the Guardian. “This donation was made to an independent expenditure committee over which I have no control and almost no knowledge. I have stated throughout the campaign, and directly to the Tenants Union, that I believe current rent control policy should remain unmolested.”

But Moss is with downtown on other key issues. He supports Newsom’s sit-lie legislation and the rabidly anti-tenant Small Property Owners Association, whose endorsement he previously called a “mistake.”

Yet Moss, who sold a condo on Potrero Hill in 2007 for the same price he paid for the entire building in 2001, seems to voice more sympathy for property owners than renters, who make up about two-thirds of city residents. He told us, “Landlords feel that they are responsible for maintaining costly older buildings and that they are not provided with ways to upgrade their units in ways that share costs with tenants.”

Another realm where downtown seems to be trying to flip the Board of Supervisors on a significant agenda item is on health care, particularly the California Pacific Medical Center proposal to build a high-end hospital and housing project on Cathedral Hill in exchange for rebuilding St. Luke’s Hospital in the Mission.

The project has divided local labor unions. UHW supports the project and a slate of candidates that its parent union, Service Employees International Union, is opposing through SEIU Local 1021, which is supporting more progressive candidates. The California Nurses Association also opposes the project and candidates such as Wiener who back it.

“A recent mailer by CNA falsely says that CPMC is closing St. Luke’s and Davies,” CPMC CEO Warren Browner recently complained in a letter to the Board of Supervisors. “We are not. We are committed to building a state-of-the-art, high-quality replacement hospital at St. Luke’s and continuing to upgrade Davies.”

But the CPMC rebuild is contingent on the board approving the Cathedral Hill project. So the CNA mailer focused on what could happen if the city rejects the CPMC project: “We could lose two San Francisco hospitals if Scott Wiener is elected supervisor.”

SEIU-UHW’s alliance with downtown groups and its use of member dues to attack progressive candidates places it at odds with SEIU Local 1021 and the SF Labor Council, which has endorsed Janet Reilly in D2, Walker in D6, Mandelman in D8, and Cohen (first choice) and Chris Jackson (second choice) in D10.

“We’re really disappointed that there are labor organizations that feel they have to team up with Golden Gate Restaurant Association, which is against health care [it challenged the city’s Healthy San Francisco program all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court], and with CPMC, which is working to keep nurses from joining a union,” Labor Council Director Tim Paulson said. “This alliance does not reflect what the San Francisco labor movement is about.”

Paulson said that the Labor Council values “sharing the wealth … So we don’t want Measure B [Jeff Adachi’s pension reform] or K [Newsom’s hotel tax loophole closure, which has a poison pill that would kill Prop. J, the hotel tax increase pushed by labor] or L [Newsom’s sit-lie legislation],” Paulson said.

CPMC’s plan is headed to the board in the next couple months, although Sup. David Campos is proposing that the city create a health services master plan that would determine what city residents actually need. Hospital projects would then be considered based on that health needs assessment, rather than making it simply a land use decision as it is now.

Moss told the Guardian that UHW endorsed him because of his positions on politicians and unions. “I agreed that politicians should get not involved in union politics,” Moss said. “The United Healthcare Workers seem to be a worthy group,” he added. “All they said was that they wanted to make sure that they had access.”

But CNA member Eileen Prendiville, who has been a registered nurse for 33 years, says she was horrified to see UHW members recently oppose Campos’ healthcare legislation. “I was shocked that they were siding with management,” she said.

Prendiville believes UHW is obliged to support CPMC’s Cathedral Hill plan, which is why it is meddling in local politics. In his letter to the board, Browner noted that his company and its parent company, Sutter Health, can’t legally do so directly. “The fact is that CPMC and Sutter Health are 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, nonpartisan organizations, and we neither endorse nor contribute to candidates,” Browner wrote.

“When UHW settled its contract with its members [as part of its fight with the rival National Union of Healthcare Workers], they had to publicly lobby for Cathedral Hill,” Prendiville claimed.

SEIU 1021 member Ed Kinchley, who works in the emergency room at SF General Hospital, is also furious that UHW is pouring money into downtown’s candidates and measures. “UHW isn’t participating in the Labor Council, it’s doing its own thing,” he said.

Kinchley said UHW, which is currently in trusteeship after a power struggle with its former elected leaders, is being controlled by SEIU’s national leaders, not its local membership, which explains why it’s aligned with downtown groups that have long been the enemy of labor.

“Sutter wants a monopoly on private healthcare and people like Rafael Mandelman and Debra Walker have been strong supporters of public healthcare,” Kinchley said. “I want someone who can straight-up say, here’s what’s important for families in San Francisco, especially something as important as healthcare. But it sounds like UHW is teaming up with the Chamber and supporting people who are not progressive.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Moss: the big duck

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68
Steve Moss: the big duck

WORKING DOGGEDLY TO PIN DOWN THE EDITOR OF THE POTRERO VIEW WHO IS ALSO A CANDIDATE FOR SUPERVISOR FROM DISTRICT 10

We’ve been trying to pin Steve Moss down on some key questions.  Over the weekend, I sent him some questions by email.  He responded, but ducked or ignored the real points and never gave us any straight answers.

Here’s our exchange, my questions and his answers — unedited,  followed by some comments from me as we doggedly try to make sense of where Steve Moss really stands on key issues in the district.

 

Dear Steve,

In your October, pre-election issue of the Potrero View, your signed column
compares the Guardian with Fox News and states that we are both  “advocacy groups disguised as news purveyors” who “whip mostly anonymous commentators on their websites to call political candidates ‘weasle, lying, doucebags’ and worse.” You also state that “these same outlets barely take the time to edit–much less fact check–their stories.”

As you know, our reporter Sarah Phelan has done factual reporting on you and your campaign (http://www.sfbg.com/2010/09/14/five-things-you-should-know-about-steve-moss) and she and I have both checked with you to respond to our points before publication.  We will continue our policy by submitting these email questions to you in advance of publication. Our deadline is 5 p.m. on Monday

l. What specific facts do you find inaccurate in our previous reporting on you and your campaign? (You mixed up a comment on a blog with Phelan’s actual story and reporting. Was this intentional?)

2. How much money have you and your various profit and nonprofit enterprises accepted from PG&E during this past year?

How much money have you accepted in total from PG&E during your many years of operating  your profit and nonprofit enterprises? Why did you change the pro-public power View of Ruth Passen to a PG&E-friendly View under your ownership?  (For example, Passen always supported public power but you as the new owner  refused to support the last public power initiative and said it was “too contentious.”)

3. Campaign finance records show that Thomas Coates, a Republican who spent $l million trying to overturn rent control in California in 2008, has just dumped
$45,000 into the so-called Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth in support of your candidacy.  Public records also show that you served a cure or quit notice
to a tenant in your rent-controlled building in District 8. Would you comment on this? And would you state whether you support or oppose rent control?

4.  On the front page of the October View, your lead story reported on the troubles of the Neighborhood House under the headline, “NABE Reeling Under City Budget Cuts.” Your story noted that the Nabe had lost “nearly $400,000 in funding from the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families” and that individual donations had dropped by 75 per cent. The result, your story noted, was that the NABE “has been forced to eliminate teen-focused programming, reduce elementary school offerings by 25 per cent, lay-off staff and impose pay cuts.”

Each year, the NABE sponsors the Potrero Hill festival as a benefit to raise much-needed funds. This year the benefit was more critical than ever to reduce its  crippling deficit. Just as the View was going to press earlier this month,  I got a call at the Guardian from a representative of the festival with a startling bit of information. I was told that you, as the owner and editor-publisher of the View, and a candidate for supervisor from our district, were  refusing to run a full page ad for the festival, a key piece of the NABE’s promotion on the hill,if the ad contained the logo of the Guardian as a festival sponsor. 

The representative was concerned that, if you wouldn’t run the NABE ad, that the Guardian as a media sponsor wouldn’t run a NABE ad in the Guardian.
(I told him not to worry, do what he had to do to get the ad in the View, and that the Guardian would run the ad and double up on its promotion for the festival. The Guardian logo did not appear on the Nabe ad in the View but did appear on all other NABE promotions.)

Why did you make this threat to the NABE and its festival benefit? Were you serious?

5. You said in your endorsement interview at the Guardian that, if you were elected supervisor, you would give up the View. Do you still plan to do that, if elected? If so, how would you do that?

 
 Steve Moss responds:

1.  The entire way you’ve covered the District 10 election has been slanted towards the candidate you prefer, and against the candidates you dislike.  From this perspective the Guardian is not serving the role of a newspaper, but rather is acting as an independent expenditure committee on behalf of its chosen candidates and causes.  I’d be happy to select a panel of five independent journalists — you pick two, I’ll pick two, and the four can pick one — to render an opinion about how you’ve run the Guardian during this election cycle, and how I’ve run the View.

2.  In 2010 I believe SF Power has received less than $25,000 in payments related to the small business demand-response program it operates, as sanctioned by the California Public Utility Commission.  I’ve already provided you and your reporter with multiple responses to your requests about SF Power’s successfull advocacy related to CPUC orders requiring PG&E to fund programs focusing on working families and small businesses, all of which, as I’ve repeatedly pointed out, are a matter of public record.

The View has published several articles about community-based energy systems, and effective ways to achieve local control over the power grid, during my tenure as publisher. They are available on our website.

3.  I read about Coats’ contribution in Bay Citizen.  As you know, this donation was made to an independent expenditure committee over which I have no control and almost no knowledge.  I have stated throughout the campaign, and directly to the Tenants Union, that I believe current rent control policy should remain unmolested.

4.  I made no threat to the NABE.  In fact, the festival was featured on the front page of the November issue, with a story inside, and a full page ad.

5.  Yes.  A new editor will be found to run the View if I’m elected to office.

 

Okay, You aren’t responsive.   Let me try again, point by point:

l. I am not running for office. You are.  Please tell me where we are factually wrong in any of our reporting on you and your campaign.

As you know, we have contacted you in advance of publication for comment. And you have written us twice with generalities but no specifics on inaccurate reporting.

2. You defend your PG&E payments on the basis that it’s actually money from the California Public Utilities Commission that PG&E is required by law to put up for energy efficiency projects. However, Loretta Lynch, former president of the CPUC, told me that PG&E decides who gets the money and that fund recipients that “cross PG&E” are in danger of getting their funds cut off.

In other words, if  you  want to continue to fund your organization with upwards of more than $l million over three years, you must avoid angering the utility.  This may explain why the Potrero View under your ownership has switched from its historic position supporting public power under former owner Ruth Passen to going easy on PG&E and ducking a position on the most recent public power initiative (Proposition H).

The background: Your  non profit collected  $1,290,000 from the CPUC for energy efficiency projects over the past three years, according to SF Power’s annual revenues and estimated budgets from 2008 to 2010 as provided on its website.

The breakdown: $500,000 in 2008, $440,000 in 2009, $350,000 in 2010.

You  also got $150,000 from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission in 2008 and $125,000 in 2009.  Your  non profit also got $50,000 chunks each year from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman fund, where his wife Debbie Findling works.   The Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund kicked in $5,000 in 2008 and 2009.  The  Potrero View contributed $5,000 in 2008, $4,500 in 2009, and $5,000 in 2010.  A footnote stated that SF Power “is also informally negotiating with the California Air Resources Board, San Francisco’s Office of the Mayor, Mirant Corporation, and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, among others, for project funding support.”  Did you get any additional money from Mirant, PG&E,  the Mayor, or anybody else? Are you still negotiating? If not, when did you stop?

Lynch explained that “all energy efficiency programs in California are funded by ratepayer dollars that are collected by the utilities as part of each ratepayer’s utility bill.  Thus, California ratepayers, big and small, pay for all energy efficiency programs and each and every program is funded by ratepayers, not utilities.”

She said that the CPUC “sets broad parameters for each utility concerning the amount of overall energy efficiency savings to be achieved and in what customer classes (residential, small business, large business,etc.). But the utilities choose the program providers. The CPUC simply reviews the overall package provided by the utilities to check to see whether the energy efficiency savings targets are met.”

Thus, PG&E each year decides  the amount of money going to SF Community Power. Lynch noted that  some non profit people told her, when she was a commissioner, that “if you crossed PG&E, they would stop the funding.”
 
Lynch mentioned a meeting with you  that showed  PG&E’s influence on you, your non profit and the View. .
She said that, shortly after she was termed out as a CPUC  commissioner in 2009, you  asked her to meet with  him at Farleys coffee shop and asked her to serve on the board of his nonprofit. “I thanked him and said that he should consider my relationship with PG&E before making that offer if he was funded through PG&E, as PG&E and I have a very contentious relationship,  and that they would not be happy if I were on the board. He thanked me for telling him and agreed that I should not serve on the board.”  Lynch lives on Potrero Hill.

3. I followed up my rent control question:  “If state law were amended to allow it, would you support extending rent control to vacant apartments?”  No answer.

4. I got a call from Keith Goldstein, president of the Potrero Hill Association of Merchants and Businesses and co-chair of the festival. He had gotten an email from you  that read: “Please have the festival’s pr agent remove the Guardian’s logo from any complimentary ad the View is providing the festival in this month’s paper.” Why did you make  such an unprofessional move?   Would you have backed out of sponsoring this event if the Guardian logo had remained? Is that how you would behave as a supervisor?

5. If elected, do you plan to sell the View?  Will you continue to operate your non profit and take chunks of money from PG&E? If elected, would your income from PG&E disquality you from voting on PG&E and energy issues? At what point would you sever your relations, if at all,  with your non profit and PG&E?

6. If  you lose, will you (as your wife suggested in an email to friends) move back to your house on Liberty St in Distict 8?

We anxiously  await your response. B3

Rev. Billy exorcises the demon sit-lie measure

Sasha Cuttler
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17
Rev. Billy exorcises the demon sit-lie measure

This afternoon in the Mission District, a crowd gathered to bear witness to an exorcism. Reverend Billy had come from New York City to banish the demon from SF. That demon was Prop L, an unholy measure to ban people from communing on San Francisco’s sidewalks.
“The only fundamentalism is the absence of fundamentalism!” bellowed the Rev. Bill, a former San Francisco performance artist turned pastor of NYC’s Church of Life After Shopping (which was in town to perform tonight (Mon/26) at the Victoria Theater for its Earth-a-llujah, Earth-a-llujah Revival Tour).

Rev. Billy cited constitutional dicta on behalf of civil rights: that we are all, even those without addresses, equal. The good reverend followed with a defense of the unadulterated and often unpredictable daily experience out there on the streets of San Francisco, apt to shape a human in good and thoughtful ways, that would find itself stifled if city regulations seep onto our sidewalks.

Rev. Billy’s choir ended his sidewalk sermon with a song that repeated, “Speaking freely sets us free,” and whose chorus built to:
“Standing up in public space…
Breaking in to public space…
Shouting out in public space!”

Sup. John Avalos spoke after Rev. Billy, and no sooner had he taken the mic than he accused Police Chief George Gascon of suffering a demon of his own: “hubris.” Avalos referred disapprovingly to Gascon’s previous attempts to tackle drugs and Critical Mass, the city’s monthly bicyclist phenomenon.

In reference to Prop L, Avalos shared that when he came to San Francisco, he knew “three people, had $1,000 in my pocket,” but would have been sleeping on the street if not for a friend’s couch and kindness. He called San Francisco a “sanctuary city,” where people can “find a pathway in life to something better, like I did.”

Gabriel Haaland, a Haight neighborhood resident and labor leader, took the mic and proclaimed that “I am, we are, you are, the riff raff! Because the rent is too damn high.” He questioned whether some have taken to the streets partially because of San Francisco’s high cost of living.

SF resident Selina Gomez Sutton said of Prop L: “a San Francisco without street performers and musicians? Crazy.”
But Prop L is also about something other than civil rights, street-side music, and “cleaning up” Haight Street. It’s also about tolerance.

Tellingly, just a few feet away from, and entirely throughout, Rev. Billy’s sermon, a man sat nearby barking and shouting gruffly at apparently nothing but for what (he must have thought) were good reasons indeed. I was there the entire time, and can say that not one attendee told him to stop. Perhaps they were simply jaded to such conduct — or perhaps it was because they respected his right to exist.

Republican who wants to overturn rent control pumps $200,000 into district elections

Mary Magee
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Republican who wants to overturn rent control pumps $200,000 into district elections

Thomas J, Coates, a big time investor in apartments and mobile homes, has dropped a total of $225,000 into five independent expenditure committees that are trying to push conservative-friendly candidates and measures over the victory line this fall.

Coates, a 56-year-old Republican (he donated $2,000 to George Bush in the 2004 presidential election) and yacht racing enthusiast, was the biggest single spender in the November 2008 election, when he contributed nearly $1 million to Prop. 98, a statewide measure that sought to repeal rent control in California and limit government’s right to seize private property by eminent domain.

And with only 11 days until the election, Coates has given local Republican war chests an enormous last-minute boost: He plunked $100,000 into Common Sense Voters, a committee in support of Mark Farrell in D2. He plunked $10,000 into the Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth’s committee in support of Scott Wiener in D8. He plunked $45,000 into the Alliance’s committee in support of Theresa Sparks in D6. He dropped $45,000 into the Alliance’s committee in support of Steve Moss in D10. And he dropped another $25,000 into San Franciscans for a Better Muni, a committee in support of Measure G, which attempts to reform Muni by focusing on transit operator wages.

As the Guardian previously reported, this Alliance has received thousands from the SF Police Officer’s Association, the Building Operators and Managers Association, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers, which supports a mega-hospital on Cathedral Hill.

But Coates’ donation raises questions about his choices’ commitment to rent control. As Coates told the Chronicle in an interview in 2008, “There is a reason why 35 of 50 states expressly prohibit rent control by law – and the reason is it doesn’t work.”

Coates, who is a principal in Jackson Square Properties, which specializes in apartments and mobile homes, is also the founding partner of Arroya & Coates, a commercial real estate brokerage and investment firm whose clients include Walgreens, Circuit City, and J.P. Morgan Investment Management. And as campaign disclosures show, he’s dumped a large part of his money into the same conservative alliance that has already collectively spent almost $170,000 on Moss, Sparks and Wiener.

So far, labor has countered the Republican money by spending $70,000 in support of Debra Walker in D6 and $90,000 on Mandelman in D8, and the SF Tenants Union has spent a total of $20,000 on mailers opposing Moss, Sparks and Wiener. But collectively the downtown money, which is also being funnelled into several other independent expenditure committees, continues to massively outweigh the progressive bucks.

Coates’ phone line continues to register a “busy” signal, making it impossible to leave him a message, but I’d be happy to include his comments here, if and when I talk to him.

But Gullicksen said he was disturbed by Coates’ heavy spending on the supervisors’ races.

“Coates is the main funder of Prop. 98, his property is in Southern California, he’s pumping a lot of money into supervisors and he clearly has an agenda that we fear Moss, Sparks and Wiener share, which is to make the existence of rent control an issue the Board will take up, if those supervisors are elected.”

It will be interesting to see if Moss, Sparks and Wiener are prepared to pledge that they have no intention to attack rent control….so, stay tuned.

Meanwhile, labor is organizing a protest outside Coates office at 500 Washington Street at 5 p.m on Tuesday, Oct. 26.

“Be there or be evicted!” labor warned.

 

Hold onto yer Wiggs, change comin’ to Western Addy

Andrew Lam
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0
Hold onto yer Wiggs, change comin’ to Western Addy

Morgan Fitzgibbons isn’t thinking small when it comes to goals for his Western Addition sustainability group, the Wigg Party. “We want to make our community a leader in the transformation in resilience,” he tells me during our coffee date to discuss the group’s upcoming anti-boycott “carrotmob” at Matching Half Cafe (Sat/23). 

It’s no coincidence that his language sounds a little new age-y. The basis for Fitzgibbons’ vision for the Wigglers seems grounded in the PhD of Philosopy, Cosmology, and Consciousness he received at California Institute for Integral Studies. “We’re these sacred beings,” he tells me earnestly of his San Francisco community. “This is a sacred movement – I want people to look back in a hundred years and see that.”

Woo-woo? Well yeah, but hold your jaded mutterings until you hear what the guy’s done with his convictions in “cosmological evolution,” as he puts it. Fitzgibbons has assembled a core group of Western Addition residents who operate in four different arenas of turning the area around SF’s “Wiggle” (the well-trafficked bike route through the Panhandle and between the hills in Lower Haight and Duboce Triangle) into a leader in scaled-back, neighborhood-focused living.

Bicycling barristers: Morgan Fitzgibbons and Wigger Dave Bryson on a city-wide urban farms bike tour. Photo by Jenny Sherman

Their areas of attack, you ask? There’s a sustainable business group, who works on incentives for local outfits that find ways of greening their ways. For example, this Saturday’s carrotmob (you can read more about the nationally recognized concept here) is a concentrated effort to storm Matching Half’s doors with business in support of their pledge to buy a bike trailer to transport farmer’s market-purchased goods, switch to organic milk, and chuck the plastic wrap for reusable food containers. 

There’s also a local food group who works with local markets to freecycle unpurchased produce at the neighborhood’s Hayes Valley Farm, a “rescaling” group focusing on ways to limit commercial consumption, and the Wiggle Transformers, who are collaborating with the SF Bike Coalition on the Wiggle portion of their Connecting the City Initiative, a comprehensive plan to improve bike passage throughout San Francisco.

Like I said, comprehensive. And most of the core group – which Fitzgibbons pegs at around 20 party members – are under 30 years old. Which is neat-o, and most likely made possible by the group’s party ethos when it comes to fighting for what they believe. I mean, I say fighting but I think I really mean loving, or something equally hippie. A bunch of them live in a place called the Sunshine Castle, for god’s sakes, where they throw “shenanigans” (according to Fitzgibbons) after-parties for their events, like the recent 10/10/10 day of action that saw the Wigglers conduct a 50-60 person bike tour of the city’s urban farms and a coordinated garden plant in collaboration with Kitchen Garden SF. 

In the works are plans for a Bernal Bucks-esque local currency, which the group hopes will inspire Western Addition residents to patronize more heavily the wealth of small businesses along the Divisadero Corridor and surrounding areas (holler, happy hour at Bean Bag). 

Fitzgibbons says the hyper-localism of the Wigg Party is perfectly suited for the history and relative youth of the Western Addition neighborhood.

The Wiggle itself provides a apt symbol for the group. The Wiggle Transformers’ work is making bike traffic better for everybody, but also a physical passage that Fitzgibbons hopes will say “you’re stepping into a different place now” to bikers entering the Western Addition.

“San Francisco has always been a seed of revolution,” he reflects. “Of the younger neighborhoods – the Mission and Western Addition – Western Addition is a lot less nihilistic. With University of San Francisco near the area, there’s always going to be a lot of young people living out here, and that’s who our message resonates with. It’s such a new community.”

This last comment raises a red flag in my mind. The parties, the bike tours, it all sounds grand, but given that all this is coming from a twenty-something guy with a complicated mullet and a hoody, how much does the Wigg Party truly represent the Western Addition, an area that’s been wracked by recurring waves of gentrification and is subject, like everywhere else in the city these days, to ever-increasing rent prices and displacement of long time residents? Despite the free food at Hayes Valley, are we being sustainable, or are we being hipster-sustainable? 

“To be a truly successful movement, we’ll have to organize everybody,” Fitzgibbons says, who himself has lived in the neighborhood for three years. Among those that regularly attend Wigg meetings, there is but one long-time resident, he tells me, who plays an active role advising on how to better integrate with the neighborhood’s ongoing goals and activities. Past that, “there’s tacit support among the long-term residents, and we get a lot of family participation in our Wiggle events,” Fitzgibbons tells me.

But I trust that he’s learning as he goes. After all, in explaining his philosophy on activism to me, Fitzgibbons appropriates that sustainability champion himself: Socrates. “The only thing I know is I don’t know everything,” he smiles. “We don’t have to have all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted, but we can whip up excitement and hopefully inspire people to do this in their communities. Create that showcase.” And if figuring it all out looks like a party in the streets, sayeth the Wigglers, so be it. 

Wigg Party Carrotmob

Matching Half Cafe

Sat/23 3-6 p.m., free

1799 McAllister, SF

www.wiggparty.org

 

On the margins

Andrew Lam
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3
On the margins

Sarah@sfbg.com

Franklin is a 20-something computer programmer who shares an apartment with 10 other people around his age, an arrangement that helps him and his housemates come up with $3,500 each month for rent in the Mission, a rapidly gentrifying part of town.

“Everyone is pretty much working, but they are in and out at different times so the house isn’t ever really empty. But there’s usually only three or four of us at a time, ” Franklin told the Guardian, speaking on his cell phone as he rode his bike to work.

But how does an apartment that officially has only one bedroom sleep 10 people? Franklin said there are other rooms in the house — including a dining room and a double parlor that splits into two with sliding doors — and that each of these spaces has a couple sleeping in it. “And there is one person sleeping in a closet and another sleeping in a space atop the bathroom.”

While overcrowding has been a problem in immigrant communities in San Francisco, it’s reaching a new area: young people who have for generations flocked to the city to escape uncomfortable home lives, find a supportive community, and make a new start in life.

Ted Gullicksen, director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, said at least 1,250 housing units annually were lost to condominium and tenancy-in-common conversions in the dot.com and housing bubble years, a loss rate that has slowed only slightly since then.

“Right now, it’s about 1,000 units a year,” he said.

It’s become more common for young people to struggle to pay rent in a town where well-paying jobs are scarce and educational programs have been cut — a triple whammy that means youth with additional challenges are at risk of becoming homeless and getting trapped in vicious cycle of abuse and incarceration.

COMPOUNDING THE PROBLEM

Sherilyn Adams, executive director of Larkin Street Youth Services, which provides housing, medical, social, and educational services to at-risk homeless and runaway youth, says all young people in San Francisco face the same basic challenges.

“And if, in addition, these youth are part of a group like LGBTQ youth, or are youth of color, or immigrant youth, documented or not, then the circumstances and barriers are much more exacerbated,” she said.

Adams said San Francisco has done a lot to add resources for transitional age youth, a group that traditionally has been defined as ages 12 to 24. “But there is still a significant gap in resources, especially for the more disenfranchised groups, because the longer you’ve been on the street, the more complex your issues in terms of substance abuse and mental health.”

Civic leaders, including California Assembly member Tom Ammiano, recently held a rally and candlelight march to raise awareness of the tragic rise in homelessness and suicides among LGBTQ youth. Shortly after, Adams told us, “Youth who came here escaping homophobia in their family or city then face the harsh reality of San Francisco.”

Adams understands that some people see Proposition L, legislation on the November ballot to criminalize sitting or lying on city sidewalks, as a way to address disruptive and aggressive behavior on the streets. “But it becomes part of the larger divide, because youth who come here and are on the street are mostly there because they have no other place. So penalizing them in the absence of services, housing, and education is ineffective at best and really harmful at worst,” Adams said.

Many young people on the brink of homelessness are “somewhat invisible,” and therefore at high risk, she said. “Youth will double, triple up. They will couch surf as a way to be off the streets. And we hear the stories where youth are faced with a Sophie’s choice: Do you sleep on the street, or do you barter with what you have available so as to get shelter? And LGBTQ youth are at particular risk because the more disenfranchised and disconnected you are, the more you have to make impossible choices to survive.”

Jodi Schwartz, executive director at Lyric, an SF nonprofit that focuses on building community and inspiring change in LGBTQ youth, said the group serves 500 youth and reaches out to 800 to 1,000 more each year. “We go into classrooms and talk about hate speech, putting it in the context of racism and other forms of oppression,” she said.

“There’s a misconception that because we live in San Francisco and have a lot more dialogue and interaction with the LGBTQ community, that young people’s experience here is so much better. It may be different, but I wouldn’t say it’s better,” Schwartz said, noting that harassment levels, especially for transgendered youth in local schools, are very high.

HELPING THOSE IN NEED

Young women are another at-risk group, especially if they are pregnant, have kids, or are in the foster or juvenile justice system.

As executive director of the Center for Young Women’s Development in San Francisco’s gritty SoMa district, Marlene Sanchez tries to stabilize at-risk young women, then engage them in policy work so they can advocate for other young people they know.

“We work with young women who are involved in the underground street economies, doing prostitution, drug sales, and selling stolen goods like clothes,” Sanchez said. “We try to reach them on the streets and inside Juvenile Hall, so we take an inside-outside approach.”

Leajay Harper, who coordinates CYWD’s Young Mothers United program, works with young pregnant women inside Juvenile Hall.

“We have all experienced poverty, parents on drugs, and having to take care of younger siblings,” Harper said. “When young moms get incarcerated, they are at risk of having their children taken away at much higher rates. So we started parenting classes that are age and culturally relevant.”

City records show that while only about 12 percent of Juvenile Hall detainees are female, they are twice as likely as their male counterparts to land back in custody for probation violations.

“There are lots of young women with felonies struggling to pay their bills and feed their kids who look out the window and see they can sell drugs. And that often seems like the only option,” Sanchez explained.

City statistics also show that of the overwhelmingly male population at Juvenile Hall, almost half is African American, and that many are inside for what appear to be gang-related offenses.

Easop Winston, a 35-year-old local musician, church pastor, and member of the Visitacion Valley Peacekeepers, regularly visits young men inside Juvenile Hall, where gangs are a topic of discussion every week.

“The same guys that they have been fighting with, they are now incarcerated with,” Winston observed. “So one of the approaches I try to take is rehabilitating how they think about their neighbor. You are killing/fighting with someone who lives one block over. It’s plain genocide”

He credits the juvenile justice system for doing its best, but worries that it fails to rehabilitate youthful offenders with jobs skills, education, and counseling before sending them back into society.

He blames the churches for not doing a better job of making youth feel welcome. “Churches are part of the fabric of our community,” he said. “They need to do more outreach and not have so many rules. They need to accept youth as they are, with their tattoos, piercings, and styles of clothing.”

Winston believes politicians need to do a better job of making sure community-based organizations deliver on their promises to help working class communities of color. At the same time, as he acknowledges, “We can’t cure the world in one day.”

“Over the last five to 10 years, the African American population in SF has shrunk,” he observed. “Everybody is moving to Antioch and Fairfield because people can’t afford to live here. People are losing their jobs. And San Francisco has almost become impossible to live in unless you have a college degree. A lot of what I hear from youth is about economics. They want jobs. They want to be trained.”

PUSHING THEM OUT

Political disputes over the city’s sanctuary city policies on undocumented immigrants — which have left in limbo the question of whether arrested immigrants will get their days in court before being turned over to the federal government for possible deportation — have also been a source of instability for immigrant teens, many of whom are homeless and/or LGBTQ.

Police Commissioner Angela Chan, a staff attorney with the Asian Law Caucus, decried Mayor Gavin Newsom for refusing to implement Sup. David Campos’ due process legislation, which the board approved in November 2009.

“It’s been a little bit upsetting for the many groups that took the democratic process seriously. But these groups are still very committed to these kids,” Chan said. “We are hoping to work with the new U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag to clarify this issue and explain that the top priority of the Obama administration is not to deport undocumented youth.”

Other so-called tough-on-crime initiatives also threaten local at-risk young people. In September, City Attorney Dennis Herrera secured an injunction against 41 alleged gang members in Visitacion Valley, a strategy that progressives fear will accelerate the ongoing displacement of the African American community.

Court documents show that 66 percent of the men named in the injunction are 18 to 25 years old and that many have children in public housing, where lease holders are predominantly women of color.

San Francisco City College Trustee Chris Jackson, 27, is running for the District 10 seat on the Board of Supervisors. Noting that the southeast SF district has some of the highest numbers of poor people and children citywide, Jackson said that youth issues are similar to challenges that other voters face.

“But the context is different,” said Jackson, who previously served on the San Francisco Youth Commission. “Young people care about safe streets because it’s us or our friends who are on them. We care about schools because we are in them and want to go to college. And we are concerned about the future of employment because how do you tell folks to go to school if there are no jobs?”

Jackson notes that in the Bayview-Hunters Point, home to the city’s largest remaining African American community, kids don’t come back if they leave for college. “We see a brain drain. It’s really difficult to retain young people, so it’s important to first make sure that youth’s housing needs are met. And they also need access to careers so that when they graduate, they know there is a job in the city. But right now, youth can’t even find a summer job because of the recession.”

He called for city policies that are based on the needs of current city residents rather than developers’ profits or the desires of well-off outsiders to move here.

“San Francisco is more of an opportunity for Silicon Valley residents than for youth who were born and raised here. And part of the problem is city policies, ineffective programs, and a failure to provide job opportunities for youth,” he said. “Everything for youth has been gutted.”

And those evaporating opportunities are compounded by punitive policies like Prop. L, Jackson said, further alienating young people. “It comes down to how much money you have,” Jackson observes. “If you are rich, you can enjoy the parks, the clubs, the transit. But if you are low-income, especially low-income youth of color, it’s very hard to take advantage of everything the city has to offer.”

Noting that both City College and the San Francisco Unified School District canceled their summer school program, Jackson said, “it doesn’t look like youth are prioritized.”

Jackson was recently at Double Rock (a.k.a. the Alice Griffith Public Housing Project) and he saw four kids under 10 who were at home while their parents were at work. “Why aren’t they in school or in child care? And don’t give me the line that these are hard to serve communities. We have to serve them.”

N’tanya Lee, executive director of Coleman Advocates, agrees that while all young people are struggling in the city, African American children and youth are having one of the worst times.

“We don’t need 5,000 different strategies and initiatives when 90 percent of these kids live in extreme poverty, mostly concentrated in public housing, and you could fit the city’s entire black high school student population into one auditorium,” Lee said.

She wants the city to create a database of these youth and develop specific strategies to help this population before it’s too late.

“No one in city government feels accountable for the outcomes for black children and youth,” she said. “Instead you have one group who are about young people and another who are about economic development — and they have nothing to do with each other. Meanwhile, we’ve lost half of all black families with children in this city in the past 20 years.”

Our 44th Anniversary Issue also includes stories by Rebecca Bowe on ageing out of the foster care system, Caitlin Donohue’s account of the Haight street kids, and Tim Redmond’s editorial on the issues facing our rising generation

The soul of the city

Andrew Lam
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23
The soul of the city

tredmond@sfbg.com

44th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL We all arrived in San Francisco broke: Paulo and me in the ’73 Capri, crawling over Donner Pass with a blown valve and three cylinders firing; Tracy and Craig in the back of a VW van, behind in the payments and on the run from the repo men; Tom and Sharon hitching across the Southwest after Tom, who could bullshit with the best, talked himself out a jail cell in New Orleans. Moak showed up in a rusty Datsun with the wheels falling off. Jane and Danny came on the old hippie bus, the Green Tortoise, $69 across the country.

But we all had a friend who knew a friend where you could crash for a little while. And in the early 1980s you got food stamps the first day and it only took a couple of weeks to get a job waiting tables or canvassing or selling trinkets on the Wharf. And once you’d scraped together a couple hundred dollars — maybe two weeks’ work — you could get a place to live. My first room in a flat in the Western Addition was $120 a month.

We did art and politics and writing and music. After a while, some of us went to law school, some of us became journalists, some of us went into government and education. A few of us fled, and Paulo died in the plague (dammit). But in the end, a lot of us were — and are — San Franciscans, part of a city that welcomed us and gave us a chance.

It was a very different time to be young in San Francisco.

I’m not here to get all nostalgic, really I’m not. There were serious problems in 1982 — raging gentrification was creating clashes in the Mission and the Haight and south of Market that were more violent than anything going on today. And frankly, broke as we were, most of my friends were from middle class homes and were college educated and had a leg up. We weren’t going to starve; we didn’t have to make really ugly choices to eat.

Most of the stories in this special anniversary issue are about marginalized youth — young people trying to survive and make their way against all odds in an increasingly hostile city and a bitter, harsh economy.

But there’s an important difference about San Francisco today, something earlier generations of immigrants didn’t face. The cost of housing, always high, has so outstripped the entry-level and nonprofit wage scale that it’s almost impossible for young people to survive in this town — much less have the time to add to its artistic and creative culture.

I met the 21-year-old daughter of a college friend the other day. She’s as idealistic as we all were. She wants to move to San Francisco for the same reasons we did and you did — except maybe she won’t. Because she felt as if she had to come visit first, to use her dad’s network, see if she could line up a job and figure out if her likely earnings would cover the cost of living. When I mentioned that I’d just up and left the East Coast and headed west, planning to figure it out when I got here, she gave me a look that was part amazement and part sadness. You just can’t do that anymore.

The odds are pretty good that San Francisco won’t get her — her talent and energy will go somewhere else, somewhere that’s not so harsh on young people. I wondered, as I do every once in a while when I’m feeling halfway between an angry political writer and an old curmudgeon: would I come to San Francisco today?

Would Harvey Milk? Would Jello Biafra? Would Dave Eggers? Would you?

If you were born here, would you stay?

Are we squandering this city’s greatest resource — its ability to attract and retain creative people?

The two people who started the Bay Guardian 44 years ago were young arrivals from the Midwest. Bruce Brugmann looked around the city room at the Milwaukee Journal, where he worked as a reporter, and realized there wasn’t any job he wanted there in 10 years. With two young kids and a dream of starting a weekly newspaper in one of the world’s most exciting cities, Bruce and his wife, Jean Dibble, settled in a $130-a-month flat. The Guardian’s first office was a desk in the printers shop. When they paper could finally afford its own space, Bruce and Jean moved the staff into a $60-a-month four-room place on Ninth and Bryant streets.

From the start, the paper was a “preservationist” publication — both in terms of environmental issues like saving the bay and in the larger political sense. The San Francisco Bay Guardian was out to save San Francisco.

The city was under assault — by the developers who were making fast money tossing high-rises into downtown; the speculators making fast money flipping property, ducking taxes, and driving up rents; the unscrupulous landlords who were letting their buildings fall apart while they charged ever higher rent. For the Guardian, fighting this urbicide meant protecting San Francisco values, preserving the best of the city from what Bruce liked to call “the radicals at the Chamber of Commerce.”

For the Guardian, progress wasn’t measured in the number of new buildings constructed, but in the ability of the city to remain a place where artists and writers and community organizers and hell-raisers — and the young people who were always bringing new life to the city — could survive. We supported rent control, and growth limits, and affordable housing policies, and limits on condo conversions, and minimum-wage and sanctuary city laws — and a long list of other things that together amounted to a progressive agenda.

And in 2010, the assault on the young, the poor, the nonconformists, the immigrants, is still on, at full force. The mayor and his allies are pushing a ballot measure that would make it illegal just to sit on the sidewalk. He’s also turning the local juvenile authorities into immigration cops, breaking up families in the process. He’s cut funding for youth services, and wants to make it easier for speculators to evict tenants, take affordable rental housing (especially the flats that young people share to save money) off the market, and create high-priced condos. Virtually all of the new housing he’s pushing is for rich people. He’s shutting down parties and arresting DJs and, in effect, declaring a War on Fun.

What he’s doing — and what the downtown forces want — is the transformation of San Francisco from a welcoming city where the weird is the normal, where the young and the crazy and the brilliant and the broke can be part of (or even drivers of) the culture, to one where profit and property values are all that matter. And that’s a recipe for urban doom.

Richard Florida’s 2004 bestseller The Rise of the Creative Class shook up political thinking by pointing out that cities thrive with iconoclasts, not organization people. Everyone likes to talk about that now, even Mayor Gavin Newsom. But the missing piece, from a policy perspective, is that the creative class — particularly the young people who are going to be the next generation of the creative class — needs space to grow. And that means the most important thing a creative city can do is nurture the very people Newsom and his allies want to drive away.

If Prop. L, the “sit-lie” law, passes, if the rental flats in the Mission that have been home to several generations of young artists, writers, musicians and future civic leaders vanish in the name of condo conversions, if 85 percent of all the new housing in San Francisco is affordable only to millionaires, if the money that helps foster kids and runaways and at-risk youth dries up because this rich city won’t raise taxes, if nightlife becomes an annoyance to be stifled…then we’re in danger of losing San Francisco.

Our 44th Anniversary Issue also includes stories by Sarah Phelan on SF’s disadvantaged youth, Caitlin Donohue’s account of the Haight street kids, and Rebecca Bowe’s look at ageing out of the foster care system

On the edge

Andrew Lam
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0
On the edge

rebeccab@sfbg.com

It’s a strange and daunting time for anyone just starting out, but youth who age out of foster care are up against particularly harsh challenges.

In July, the national unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds reached a staggering 51 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A recent article in The New York Times Magazine described how, in the face of a bleak job market, 20-somethings today are far more likely than those in past generations to go back to school, travel, volunteer, or complete unpaid internships — extending a phase of impermanence and financial dependency for years beyond what used to be considered the norm. Studies show that nearly half of youth between ages 18 and 25 move back home with their parents at least once.

But young people aging out of the foster care system typically have to face this world of churning uncertainty without the benefit of a safety net. Many post-foster care youth don’t have the luxury of “failing to launch,” embarking on an early career path without pay, or landing back home if nothing else pans out. Foster youth lose their support base at 18, when the state ceases to be their legal guardian. For these young people, who are often the least equipped to achieve financial self-sufficiency, becoming emancipated as a legal adult is no cause for celebration; rather, it’s a source of anxiety.

Most foster youth lack the skills, connections, and resources they would need to transition to independence at age 18 — a prospect that would be difficult even for youth with greater access to resources and no major family history problems. Studies measuring the outcomes for this population paint a grim picture: many wind up homeless, incarcerated, or at risk of losing children of their own by the time they reach their early 20s.

There’s a growing awareness that many of the approximately 5,000 youth who age out of foster care in California every year are slipping through the cracks. Local and state programs have been initiated to improve their chances of achieving independence, but efforts on both fronts have run up against obstacles.

In Sacramento, Assembly Bill 12 — which extends key services for foster youth to age 21 — was signed into law several weeks ago, but the intentions behind it were undermined when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued a line-item veto of $80 million in funding for child welfare programs. In San Francisco, a housing facility designed for youth at risk of homelessness seems to hold promise as an effective model, yet it has encountered resistance from local neighborhood organizations.

The plight of these young people is both a measure of our compassion and potentially a harbinger of larger societal problems to come.

HIGH STAKES

Kirsten Johnson-Bell is an emancipated youth who turned 18 in January. She has six siblings still in foster care in the East Bay, and she says she has been in more than 20 foster care placements since 2007.

Johnson-Bell told the Guardian that she has housing assistance that will last for 18 months — but she’s already beginning to wonder what will happen after that. “Where am I supposed to go?” Johnson-Bell wondered. If the experience of her peers who’ve exited the system is any indication, her concern is well founded.

Nationwide, nearly 40 percent of post-foster-care youth have been homeless at some point by the time they turn 24, according to survey results released by the University of Chicago and Partners for Our Children at the University of Washington. Just 6 percent had completed college degrees by that age, and only 48 percent were working — mostly in low-wage jobs. More than half of the young men had been convicted of crimes, and roughly three-quarters of the young women had received government benefits to meet basic needs. Teen pregnancy is statistically higher among young women exiting foster care.

Most youth in foster care aren’t housed continuously with a single caregiver, but bounce from place to place, making it tough to form long-lasting relationships. “It’s a fairly rare experience that youth stay in one home, and that means moving schools and moving friends,” notes Rachel Antrobus, executive director of Transitional Age Youth San Francisco (TAY SF), a city-funded nonprofit. Many foster kids take medication for behavioral problems, and it’s common for them to experience emotional upheaval.

“It’s practically inevitable that they’re going to have long-term emotional impacts,” Antrobus said, noting many bear the long-term scars of abuse, neglect, or forced separation from their families for some other reason. “It’s a much longer road, and they have to do it with deeper wounds. Even the kids that are the most together … will likely experience some really dark places in their 20s.”

In San Francisco, there are 1,400 young people in the foster care system, and all but about 500 are in placements outside the city. Lynette Davis, who turned 18 this year, moved from San Francisco to Oakland when she first entered foster care in the eighth grade. Davis acknowledges that she was one of the lucky ones. Rather than move in with a stranger, she went to live with her godmother and remained there until her 18th birthday.

Davis is now living with her boyfriend and his family in Oakland — and the household was in the process of moving when the Guardian spoke with her. Her godmother offered to continue housing her after she turned 18, Davis noted. “But she’s got her own kids. I felt like I should be able to go off and do my own thing.” The requirement in either housing situation is that she must work, go to school, or both, Davis said. She’s attending classes at Oakland’s Merritt College. In the meantime, she’s mired in the frustrating exercise of applying for job after job.

“It’s been pretty ridiculous,” Davis said of her fruitless job hunt. “Sometimes it makes me want to stop and give up. But as long as you’ve got people around you who care about you, it’s okay.”

Many foster kids who didn’t have the support network that Davis did are up against alarmingly high stakes as they age out. “Some people are mothers and they have to pay rent and are looking for more than two jobs,” she said. Asked what she thought were the greatest challenges facing foster youth in San Francisco, she mentioned poverty, gangs, and a lack of job opportunities.

“To be successful, you have to be financially stable,” she said. “With some youth, that’s hard. They don’t have jobs, or they can’t get jobs. They want to find an easy way out.” That’s when they become more susceptible to gangs or drugs, she said. Davis says she was a “rebellious youth” at a younger age, but now she’s focused on her goal of obtaining a degree in psychology so that one day she can go into counseling. When she became a member of California Youth Connections, which aids youth with transitional support, she met other foster youth and realized she could really have an impact.

HELP OR HARM?

The difference between ages 18 and 21 can be critical, so foster youth advocates throughout the state cheered Sept. 30 when AB12, California’s Fostering Connections to Success Act, was signed into law. It allows California to make use of federal matching funds to provide transitional support for qualifying foster youth until age 21. It also authorizes the state to take advantage of a federal subsidy for an existing guardianship program for relatives of foster youth who want to become caregivers. Many foster youth advocates have thrown support behind the kin caregiver model — it can be less traumatic for youth to move in with a grandparent than being suddenly dropped into a strange place.

A major sponsor of A 12 was the John Burton Foundation for Children Without Homes, and policy director Amy Lemley hailed its passage as “the biggest child-welfare improvement in 20 years.” Studies show that youth who receive support beyond 18 are 200 percent more likely to be working toward completion of a high school diploma, 65 percent less likely to have been arrested, and 54 percent less likely to have been incarcerated than those who exit with no support. The benefits could also generate savings by reducing the number of people in prison, on welfare, or in need of publicly funded health and human services. The law will be implemented in 2012.

The law also will provide new housing options. The federal government will chip in to cover more placements in the Transitional Housing Program Plus — nearly axed during the last budget cycle — which offers supervised transitional housing for emancipated youth. Youth may also receive a rent subsidy that could apply in a dorm, a shared-living situation, or another arrangement that fits the youth’s needs. This flexibility is a positive change, Lemley noted. “We’re not telling young people ‘it’s our way or the highway,'<0x2009>” she said.

“If a state like California can do this in the context of its current fiscal deficit, it sends a strong signal to other states,” Lemley said. However, an unexpected line-item veto put a damper on the landmark achievement. Schwarzenegger dealt a blow to the child-welfare system by cutting $80 million in funding for programs the California Legislature had restored, which actually amounts to more like $133 million due to the loss of federal matching funds.

“It’s really just a schizophrenic policy on the governor’s part,” Lemley said. “We were hoping he would have a legacy of the foster care governor, but now it doesn’t seem as if he will have that legacy at all.”

While the deep budget cut isn’t aimed at AB12 directly, Lemley said, it erodes funding for child-welfare workers and forces counties to make painful funding cuts. The overarching effect is that abuse and neglect may go undetected more often, and youth in the system will have fewer available resources once they’re placed.

ANOTHER CHANCE

Of all the challenges facing foster youth who age out of the system, housing is among the most critical, particularly in San Francisco. A partnership between the city, Larkin Street Youth Services, and nonprofit developer Community Housing Partnership (CHP) aims to address this by providing a space for transitional-age youth who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford housing in the city. Located at the King Edward II Inn near Cow Hollow and the Marina district, the facility would house 24 young people, ages 18 to 24, who are at risk of homelessness.

“By definition, that includes youth aging out of foster care,” explains David Schnur of CHP. The nonprofits are working in tandem with the city’s Human Services Agency and Mayor’s Office of Housing.

Youth housed at Edward II would have access to physical and mental health care, substance abuse and HIV-related services, education and job training, coaching in basic life skills such as budgeting and personal hygiene, and case management, Schnur said. They would be required to contribute a portion of their income, whatever the amount, toward rent.

However, an organized force of opposition has already surfaced from the surrounding community, which comprises one of San Francisco’s wealthiest neighborhoods. “I think people are just nervous about what it means to have a building of this type in the neighborhood,” Schnur noted. To assuage neighborhood concerns, the nonprofits have set up a project advisory committee in hopes of talking it out and bringing everyone on board.

Patricia Vaughey, with the Marina-Cow Hollow Neighbors, is actively opposed to the project but insists that it isn’t out of NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) concerns. “We are not NIMBYs,” she told the Guardian. “We want to find a location that’s suitable. We want to make sure those kids are safe.” She said that criminal activity in the neighborhood made the inn a poor choice. Yet advocates insist that for the youth, the program could mean the difference between a lifetime of hardship and a chance to get their lives on track at a crucial age. “The safety net for these young people is so thin,” Lemley noted. “You might have one person, you might have another. But then the winds of change blow and suddenly the bloom falls off the rose.”

Our 44th Anniversary Issue also includes stories by Sarah Phelan on SF’s disadvantaged youth, Caitlin Donohue’s account of the Haight street kids, and Tim Redmond’s editorial on the issues facing our rising generation

On the cheap listings

David Talbot
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0

Events listings are compiled by Caitlin Donohue. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 20

hell strung and crooked Release Party The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, SF; www.thebeatmuseum.com. 6pm, free. The Beat Museum helps to present a night of intensely creative bards from the world over in anticipation of the release of their new poetry tome.

Smack Dab Open Mic Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF; wwwmagnetsf.org. 8pm, free. All ages and genders are welcome to this open mic, which sets a medley of musicians and poets onstage to the tune of five minutes a piece. No open mic traumas here, people.

THURSDAY 21

Art Attack One Year Anniversary supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF; www.visualsby3.com. 9:30 pm, $8. The flopsy, floozy art performance group celebrates its first 365 days on this earth with a burlesque-off featuring Alotta Boutté, Scotty the Blue Bunny, and more local A-listers from the world of tassels and tease.

"Graphic Details: Confessional Comics by Jewish Women" Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF; (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org. 7pm, $5. Beyond the kvetch and kibitz, female Jewish cartoonists have proven themselves adept at a stark, honest rendering of life in the 21st century. Hear them discuss their art at this panel discussion.

Jo Scott-Coe Books Inc., 2275 Market, SF; (415) 864-6777, www.booksinc.net. 7:30 pm, free. An ex-public school teacher exposes the subtle and overt forms of violence in the education system in her latest book, which she’ll discuss at this bookstore klatch.

BAY AREA

Homeless Connect Health Fair Multi Service Center, 2362 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 809-8516, www.sites.google.com/site/bfhphealth. Noon, free. Vision screenings, STD tests, flu shots, therapist and addiction referrals, haircuts, and more at this gathering of service providers for the homeless.

FRIDAY 22

UN-65 Muir Woods Walking Tour Cathedral UN Grove, Muir Woods, Sausalito; (415) 267-1866; www.una-sf.org. 11am, free. Advance registration requested. Mark 65 years of the United Nations’ brand of global collaboration with this trek through the redwoods, a cup of tea, and some Qi Gong — a path braved by UN founders in 1945.

Fog City Necropolis 354 5th St., SF; (415) 606-2503. 7pm, 10pm. Take a tour through SF’s interactive haunted house, whose theme this year is a truly scary trope: eviction! Evade the undead grasp of Jack Kerouac, Frida Kahlo, the crazy cat man of the Presidio, and more so that you can live to pay rent again.

BAY AREA

"Analysis of the Tea Party Movement" UC Berkeley Alumni House, Bancroft and Telegraph, Berk; www.ccsrwm.berkeley.edu/conferences. 8:30am-5:30am, free. Political scientists and sociologists take a look at America’s most grating political movement: are the Tea Partiers part of a grass roots campaign, a media-driven construction, or something in between?

SATURDAY 23

Actors Theatre Season Kick-Off Actors Theatre, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287; www.actorstheatresf.org. 7 pm, $10. A cabaret to celebrate the new stage season, featuring the psychedelic tropes of comedian Wil Franken, and the world premiere of William Blake Sings the Blues, penned by the theater’s own company member.

Bernal Yoga Literacy Series Bernal Yoga, 461 Cortland, SF; (4125) 643-9007, www.bernalyoga.com. 8pm, $5 suggested donation. Tsering Wangmo Dhopma and Stephen O’Connor, writers both, will fill the chakras of this neighborhood ayurvedic space with readings from their recent publications.

Bring Your Own Queer Festival Music Concourse, Golden Gate Park, SF; www.byoq.org. Noon-6pm, free. Pack a gay in your rucksack for this community collaboration of art, performance, and music, featuring DJ collectives Honey Soundsystem and Hard French, the Bay Area Derby Girls, and a rescue dog fashion show.

Drag Racing Day Velma’s, 2246 Jerrold, SF; (415) 824-4606. Noon, by donation. A Bayview family needs help raising funds for their drag racing team. They make their own motors and transmissions! Grab a bite at this neighborhood restaurant while you watch racing footage and dad Mike Henery’s presentation to interested young people.

Potrero Hill History Night International Studies Academy, 655 De Haro, SF; (415) 863-0784. 5:30 pm barbeque, $6; 7 pm historical program, free. A movie on Potrero Hill public housing, urban gardening in the neighborhood, and hood tales from 50-year residents like "Goat Hill Phil."

Seismic Safety Fair San Francisco General Hospital, 1001 Potrero, SF; www.sfdph.org/dph/rebuildsfgh. 9am, free. Feeling a little shaky? SF General’s setting aside a day to explain the base-isolated design of its new earthquake retrofitting. It’s meant to be the most seismically-resistant plan available today, so go on and get grounded.

BAY AREA

Cal Science and Engineering Festival Haas Pavilion, Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-0352, www.scienceatcal.berkeley.edu/festival. 10am, free. Kids been clamoring to touch a real human brain? Bring ’em to this hands-on extravaganza of natural science — for free.

Fantastic Fountain Thistle Recovery Work Party Highway 92-W and I-280-N, San Mateo. 9am, free with RSVP. Remove invasive pampas grass and Australian tea tree so that our small bristly friend the fountain thistle can continue to live long and prosper in the Bay Area.

SUNDAY 24

Sunday Streets: Civic Center and Tenderloin Civic Center Plaza, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 10 am- 3pm, free. The last Sunday Streets car-free community event takes the action to the heart of downtown, with clear biking and walking from a roller disco outside the Asian Art Museum to the Tenderloin National Forest.

Tricycle Music Fest West Various libraries and times, SF; www.sfpl.org/tricycle. Free. Three wheel from library to library or plunk the kiddies in front of a show of their choosing for this day of kids’ music, that effervescent establisher of early literary skills.

East Bay endorsements 2010

Andrew Lam
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31
East Bay endorsements 2010

BART BOARD DISTRICT 4

ROBERT RABURN

Incumbent Carole Ward Allen has been a disappointment, part of the moribund BART establishment that wastes money on pointless extensions, ignores urban cores, and can’t control its own police force. Robert Raburn, a bicycle activist with a PhD in transportation and urban geography, would be a great replacement. If he’s elected, and Bert Hill wins in San Francisco, BART will have two more progressive transit activists to join Tom Radulovich. Vote for Raburn.

 

BERKELEY CITY AUDITOR

ANN-MARIE HOGAN

Hogan’s running unopposed and we see no reason not to support her for another term.

 

BERKELEY CITY COUNCIL

DISTRICT 1

LINDA MAIO

Maio in the past has had a decent progressive track record, but lately she’s been something of a call-up vote for Mayor Tom Bates. We’re not thrilled with her more recent positions years (against raising condo conversion fees and for new high-rises downtown), but she has no strong credible opponents. Green Party Jasper Kingeter has never run for elective office before and needs more seasoning.

DISTRICT 4

JESSE ARREGUIN

Arreguin and Kriss Worthington hold down the progressive wing on the City Council. He’s pushed the Berkeley police to stop impounding the cars of undocumented immigrants and is a foe of the development-at-all costs mentality of the mayor.

DISTRICT 7

KRISS WORTHINGTON

It’s disappointing that Mayor Tom Bates and his allies are trying to get rid of Worthington, who by our estimation is the best, hardest-working, and most progressive member of the City Council. He’s been willing to stand up to the mayor when he’s wrong — and has managed to force developers to build more affordable housing. He’s against the mayor’s downtown plan, but sees a way forward to a compromise that includes all the positive elements without big high-rises. Vote for Worthington.

DISTRICT 8

STEWART JONES

Gordon Wozniak, the incumbent, is the most conservative member of the City Council and has been a bad vote on almost everything. He’s going to be tough to beat in this district, but we’re giving the nod to Jones, a teacher, Green Party member, and neighborhood activist. He lacks experience, but almost anyone would be better than Wozniak.

 

BERKELEY RENT BOARD

ASA DODWORTH

LISA STEPHENS

JESSE TOWNLEY

PAM WEBSTER

DAVE BLAKE

KATHERINE HARR

There’s a six-person tenant slate running, with endorsements from Worthington, Arreguin, and other progressive leaders. The members couldn’t find an easy mnemonic, so they’ve used the last letters of their last names, which, in the right order, add up to SHERRY. We’ve listed them in the order they’ll appear on the ballot.

 

OAKLAND CITY AUDITOR

COURTNEY RUBY

Ruby’s moved the office forward a bit, and we don’t see any argument to replace her.

 

OAKLAND MAYOR

1. REBECCA KAPLAN

2. JEAN QUAN

The danger in this race is Don Perata, the former state Senate president, longtime power broker, and friend of developers who has, at the very least, a checkered ethical record that led at one point to a five-year federal corruption investigation (the investigation ended with no charges filed). Perata wants to use the mayor’s office to continue his role as a regional kingpin, and he has the support of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and the big developers. No thanks.

Two strong progressive challengers are taking him on. Our first choice is Rebecca Kaplan, an at-large City Council member who is full of great, innovative ideas for Oakland. She wants to enforce an Oakland-first hiring law, work on transit-oriented development, and encourage small businesses that can attract some of the $2 billion a year Oakland loses in retail sales from local residents who shop out of town.

Kaplan told us she thinks that if Proposition 19 passes and local government has the right to regulate legal marijuana, Oakland is perfectly situated to take advantage of the new law. By combining pot sales and possibly on-site consumption with new restaurants, bike lanes, and street-level amenities, the city could revitalize neighborhoods and bring in significant new tax revenue.

She’s a big bicycle advocate, would consider a progressive city income tax, and is a strong supporter of public power. She also has a practical sense of how to solve problems.

Jean Quan has been active in Oakland politics for decades. She served 12 years on the school board, eight on the City Council, and has the experience, skills, and vision to run the city. She’s also almost tied in the polls with Perata, despite being outspent dramatically (and being the subject of some nasty, inaccurate Perata hit pieces). She told us she wants to be a cheerleader for the public schools, to work with local businesses, expand the high school internship program, and add city wrap-around services to public schools. She’s had a long, impressive record on environmental issues (she worked with San Francisco on a plastic bag ban and wrote Oakland’s Styrofoam ban). She recognizes that much of the city’s budget problem comes from the police department and police pensions. But she’s a little less aggressive than Kaplan about raising new revenue, and while she fully supports Prop. 19 and the Oakland plan for allowing commercial marijuana operations, she is, in her own words, “relatively conservative” on how far Oakland should go to allow sales and use in the city.

Kaplan’s got more of the cutting-edge progressive vision. Quan’s got more experience and a longer track record. They’re the two choices to beat Perata and save Oakland’s future, and we’re happy that ranked-choice voting allows us to endorse them both.

 

OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL

DISTRICT 2

JENNIFER PAE

Patricia Kernighan is among the most conservative votes on the council. She’s also representing a wealthy, conservative hills district and will be hard to beat. We’re endorsing Jennifer Pae, community outreach director for the East Bay Voter Education Consortium. She has the backing of progressives like Supervisor Keith Carson and Berkeley City Council Member Kriss Worthington (as well as the Alameda County Green Party). She’s a long shot, but better than the incumbent.

DISTRICT 4

DANIEL SWAFFORD

The front-runners in this race are probably Libby Schaaf, a former aide to Ignacio de la Fuente; Melanie Shelby, a small business owner; and Daniel Swafford, a business consultant. Schaaf is too close to her old boss. We liked Shelby, but she’s awfully vague on solutions to Oakland’s problems — and she voted for Prop. 8. She now says her position on same-sex marriage is “evolving,” and she supports equal rights for all couples. But that’s an awfully big issue to have taken an awfully wrong stand on just two years ago.

This leaves Swafford, a neighborhood activist who grew up in Oakland and was City Council Member Jean Quan’s appointee to the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council and is a strong advocate of community policing. He gets the nod.

DISTRICT 6

JOSE DORADO

Conventional wisdom says Desley Brooks is almost certain to get reelected to this seat. Her only competition comes from Nancy Sidebotham, whose platform is all cops all the time, and Jose Dorado, a bookkeeper with little political experience. Brooks is a fierce advocate for her district and has been tough on banks and good on pushing local hiring, but has too many ethical problems to merit our endorsement. She has never denied that she kept her boyfriend’s daughter on as a $5,000-a-month aide while the young woman was a full-time student at Syracuse University in New York. When San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson challenged some of her ethical lapses, she sued him for libel (the case was dismissed).

Dorado is a neighborhood activist who is running a grassroots campaign and, while he needs more experience, he’s raising good issues (like public financing of elections). And unlike Sidebotham, he’s supporting the revenue measures on the ballot.

 

East Bay Ballot Measures

BERKELEY MEASURE H

SCHOOL FACILITIES TAX

YES

The East Bay cities have done a much better job than San Francisco at using parcel taxes — a poor substitute for property taxes but still a relatively progressive form of revenue — to support schools and other public services. Measure H would continue an existing tax on residential and commercial buildings — 6.3 cents per square foot on residences and 9.4 cents on businesses — to pay for maintenance on public school buildings. Vote yes.

 

BERKELEY MEASURE I

SCHOOL BONDS

YES

Measure I is a $210 million bond act to expand and upgrade the public schools. Vote yes.

 

BERKELEY MEASURE T

CANNABIS PERMITS

YES

Measure T is on the ballot as part of Berkeley’s effort to implement Prop. 19, the statewide pot-legalization measure. Berkeley and Oakland are both ahead of San Francisco in planning for legal marijuana. Prop. T would allow six medical cannabis clinics with cultivation permits, but restrict future industrial pot uses to industrial districts. Vote yes.

 

OAKLAND MEASURE L

SCHOOL TAX

YES

Another parcel tax for schools, this one $195 a year for 10 years, essentially to offset state cuts. There’s an exemption for low-income taxpayers. Vote yes.

 

OAKLAND MEASURE V

CANNABIS TAXES

YES

If Oakland goes ahead with its plans to allow large-scale cultivation and passes this tax hike on pot sales (to $50 per $1,000 of gross revenue for medical pot and $100 per $1,000 for recreational pot) the city could take in as much as $30 million a year — almost enough to offset the budget deficit. Vote yes.

 

OAKLAND MEASURE W

PHONE LINE TAX

YES

Another creative — if imperfect — way to raise some revenue, Measure W puts a modest $1.99 a month tax on phone lines to raise money for the general fund. Vote yes.

 

OAKLAND MEASURE X

POLICE PARCEL TAX

NO

We typically support any reasonable tax on property to pay for public services, but we can’t back this one. Measure X would impose a fairly high ($360 a year) parcel tax on single-family homes — entirely to pay for cops. The police union has been intractable, refusing to give back any of its generous pension benefits to help solve the budget deficit. We can’t see raising taxes for that department alone when so much of Oakland is hurting for money.

 

OAKLAND MEASURE BB

POLICE FUNDING

YES

Measure BB would allow Oakland to continue collecting violence-prevention money under a previous ballot measure even if the police department falls below a mandated staffing level. It would give the City Council more flexibility in addressing public safety. Vote yes.

 

>>VIEW OUR COMPLETE ENDORSEMENTS FOR THE 2010 ELECTION

D8 debate: “Filling Harvey’s Shoes”

Zelda Bronstein
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0
D8 debate: “Filling Harvey’s Shoes”

Editors note: I ran out of space for opinion pieces this week (endorsements just ran too long) so I’m posting this timely oped here.

By Jeff Sheehy

Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, a public elementary school in the heart of the Castro, is hosting a debate between the four candidates for District 8 Supervisor on Friday, October 8 at 7 pm.   The school, formerly Douglass Elementary, was named for Milk in 1996. 

The community that comprises the school has adopted an unique mission to honor Milk’s life: to empower student learning by teaching tolerance and non-violence, celebrating our diversity, achieving academic excellence, and fostering strong family-school-community connections.
 
The theme of the debate—“Filling Harvey’s Shoes”— centers on the values inspired by Harvey Milk’s life that have now been enshrined in the mission of the school named after him. Cynthia Laird, the editor of the Bay Area Reporter, and Christina Velasco, principal of Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy, will moderate, asking questions themselves, taking questions from the audience and reading questions submitted by Harvey Milk students.

One of the candidates was quoted in this paper a couple of weeks ago saying about the race: “It’s a definitional fight about what the queer community is about in 2010.”  This debate offers the candidates the opportunity to directly address this “definitional” question.

In many ways, the LGBT community is at a crossroads. For those with good jobs and good incomes and the means to rent or own a house in District 8, much of the struggle for LGBT civil rights in San Francisco must feel more like history than a critically important issue for someone who seeks election in his former district.

However, I wonder if Harvey’s oft-referenced kid from Altoona hopping a bus to San Francisco in search of freedom would feel the same way. The kids arriving here are much more likely to be kids of color, transgender or undocumented. To what degree does District 8 or even San Francisco offer a place to live or real economic opportunity? Is Harvey’s legacy a gentrified Oz, great for those who can afford it, but little solace to those desperately seeking haven?

Plus, what is Harvey’s larger legacy?  Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy defines one vision. Kids from under-resourced areas and under-represented communities are actively recruited to the school as part of its commitment to teaching tolerance and diversity. The LGBT experience is presented as one among the many struggles that communities of color, women, the undocumented and working people have fought in America to create a more just and tolerant society. Consciousness of shared struggle and the necessity of creating community amongst the disenfranchised and marginalized are crucial values inculcated at the school. The school’s pledge sums up this vision of Harvey’s legacy:  “I pledge allegiance to the world, to cherish every living thing, to care for earth and sea and air with peace and freedom everywhere.”

My husband and I thought deeply about community and values when we were deciding where to send our daughter to school. We felt that our daughter should begin to understand the world and how to act in it in the context of struggles for civil rights and social justice.  

I hope others in the LGBT community will take a moment and think about their values, hopefully attend the debate on Friday, and recognize that the election for this seat is about the future direction of the community.

Indeed, next May would have been Harvey’s 80th birthday and one wonders which candidate he would have endorsed and in what direction he would have advised the LGBT community to take had he lived.

Sheehy is the parent of a kindergartener at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy 

The debate will be held in the auditorium at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy at the corner of 19th and Collingwood, in the Castro.

Get a clue, Randy Shaw

Zelda Bronstein
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29
Get a clue, Randy Shaw

I read BeyondChron every day, and Randy Shaw, who operates the site, and Paul Hogarth, his managing editor, often have interesting commentary. But I’m constantly annoyed by people who run what by any stretch is a journalistic operation, but don’t follow the basic rules of (even alternative, activist) journalism: When you’re going to say something nasty about somebody, you call that person for comment.


Randy never called me, or Steve Jones, or Bruce Brugmann, before he launched an attack on the Guardian as part of a political machine. If he had — or if he’d done any reporting work and called around town — he might have learned something.


Randy’s argument is that the “machine” — including the Bay Guardian — is trying to block Jane Kim’s election as D6 supervisor. Let’s examine that for a minute.


There are plenty of people in San Francisco who would love to have a political machine. But it’s just not happening. The very fact that Jane Kim has the support of so many progressives — including the Board president, David Chiu, and Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos (all part of what Shaw calls the “machine”) suggests that nobody has to clout — not even me — to tell a candidate whether she can run for office, to control (or cut off) campaign contributions, or to wire an election.


In the days when Willie Brown ran San Francisco, the machine really did keep people from running for office. It really did close off avenues to political advancement. And if the machine was against you, it was really hard to raise money. If Brown were still the boss, and he didn’t want Kim to run, she would have been frozen out of much of the support and money she has today. Instead, Brown was at her campaign kickoff — and nobody’s manged to intimidate her many supporters and campaign contributors.


And guess what? The Guardian — the axis of the machine evil trying to freeze out Kim — endorsed her as our second choice.


I stand by what I said months ago — there’s nobody in San Francisco today — and no cadre or group — with the clout to operate as a political machine.


Nobody can line up six automatic votes on the Board of Supervisors. Even the progressives on the Democratic County Central Committee can’t always seem to get it together (note that Aaron Peskin, the chair and supposed machine honco, supported Tony Kelly for supervisor, and the DCCC didn’t put Kelly on its slate).


Right now, power in this city is fairly diffuse. That’s both a good and a bad thing. Good because machines are exclusionary, bad because it means the progressives can’t always function on a level that gets the right candidates elected and the right legislation through. Good because the left in this city is aggressively, almost happily disorganized and politically diverse, full of characters, voices, interest groups, candidates and elected officials who don’t always agree with each other and take orders from nobody. Bad because when we’re disorganized, we tend to lose.


Jane Kim didn’t get the DCCC endorsement. Nobody talked to me about that; I’m not on the panel and none of the members called to ask my advice. I would have said what the Guardian said in our endorsement package: There are exactly two progressive candidates who are qualified to be the next D6 supervisor, and their names are Debra Walker and Jane Kim. I still don’t understand why Kim entered the race against an established candidate with whom she has no substantial policy disagreements; I think that, before Kim moved to the district and entered the race, Walker was the clear consensus candidate of progressives, and as a matter of strategy, since Kim and Walker are both on the same side on the key issues, it might have made more sense for the left to unite behind one candidate.


But that’s not the issue anymore; Kim had every right to run, and now any cogent, honest ranked-choice voting strategy includes both her and Walker.


That statement alone makes clear that the Guardian’s not exactly in synch with the DCCC or any of Shaw’s other “machine” operations. The DCCC decided that the top candidate in D10 should be DeWitt Lacy, and left Tony Kelly off the slate entirely. We endorsed Tony Kelly as our first choice. The labor activists on the DCCC (and in the “machine”) are dead set against Margaret Brodkin winning a seat on the Board of Education; we endorsed her.


I would have explained our positions to Randy Shaw if he’d called or emailed me; I’m really easy to reach. And slapping people around without talking to them is bad journalism and bad progressive politics. Randy and I have disagreements, but I don’t consider him the enemy; we’re both part of a larger progressive community, and while I love (and thrive on) disputes in that community, we ought to be civil about it.


(I always contact Randy before I write about him. I did that yesterday, and asked him a series of questions, including why he never called me for comment. His non-response: “I write 3-4 articles a week and have published three books. You are free to quote from anything I have written without asking me about it.”)


Herb Caen used to say (somewhat in jest) that if you “check an item, you lose it.” In other words, once you start talking to everyone involved in an issue, you sometimes find out that the story isn’t at all the way you heard it.


That’s what should have happened with Shaw’s completely inaccurate claim about Steve Jones.


BeyondChron says that Jones was trying to get Kim to challenge Carmen Chu in D4 because they’re both Asian-American, ” in effect saying that as an Asian-American Jane should run among ‘her people,’ implying that demographics prevailed over issues and political stands.”


I talked to Steve about it; he did, indeed, talk to Jane Kim when Kim was shopping around for a district to run in. What he told her — and would have told Randy Shaw — was that it would be great for Kim, a school board member with citywide name recognition, to knock off Carmen Chu and expand the progressive majority rather than going after a strong progressive candidate in a solidly progressive seat. Race had nothing to do with it.


In fact, just about everything we’ve written about Kim comes down to the same argument: Sometimes, you have to think about the larger progressive movement, not just about yourself.


I sometimes wish the all the people who say the Bay Guardian is part of a powerful Peskin Machine were right: I’d love to pass a city income tax, hit the wealthy up for about half a billion dollars a year, eliminate the budget deficit without cutting services, municipalize PG&E (and have municipal cable TV and broadband), ban cars on a lot of streets, create 25,000 units of affordable housing … I’ve got a great agenda. And the Guardian’s so powerful that none of it ever happens.


Randy Shaw and I were both around for the tail end of the Burton Machine, and I think he gives the brothers Phil and John Burton too much credit. They were great on national issues, progressive champions in Congress. But they weren’t progressive leaders on local issues.


The Burton Machine was nowhere on the fights against overdevelopment and downtown power. Phil Burton rarely used his clout to support progressive causes and candidates at home. The machine got Harvey Milk fired from a commission appointment when he announced he was going to run for state Assembly against Art Agnos. The machine came together to make sure that Nancy Pelosi, an unknown who had never held office, got elected to Congress instead of Harry Britt, the most progressive elected official in the city at the time. The machine never helped out on public power, the numerous anti-highrise initiatives, rent control, or much of anything else that challenged the real estate interests like Walter Shorenstein, who gave vast sums of money to the Democratic Party.


Yes, George Moscone, a Burton ally, supported district elections, but once he got elected he stopped challenging downtown power.


And, of course, when Willie Brown emerged as heir to the machine throne, he was a disaster for progressives. He also at one point controlled an unshakable majority on the Board of Supervisors; he could call up votes whenever he needed.


The progressives in San Francisco today share an ideology on local issues — tough local issues that involve powerful economic forces at home.


And honestly, Randy: It’s not all about Jane Kim.


 

Endorsements 2010: San Francisco candidates

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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53
Endorsements 2010: San Francisco candidates

SUPERVISOR, DISTRICT 2


JANET REILLY


Frankly, we were a little surprised by the Janet Reilly who came in to give us her pitch as a District 2 supervisorial candidate. The last time we met with her, she was a strong progressive running for state Assembly as an advocate of single-payer health care. She was challenging Fiona Ma from the left, and easily won our endorsement.


Now she’s become a fiscal conservative — somewhat more in synch with her district, perhaps, but not an encouraging sign. Reilly seems to realize that there’s a $500 million budget deficit looming, but she won’t support any of the tax measures on the ballot. She’s against the hotel tax. She’s against the real estate transfer tax on high-end properties. She’s against the local car tax. She opposed Sup. David Chiu’s business tax plan that would have shifted the burden from small to larger businesses (even though it was clear from our interview that she didn’t understand it).


She talked about merging some of the nonprofits that get city money, about consolidating departments, and better management — solutions that might stem a tiny fraction of the red ink. But she wouldn’t even admit that the limited tax burden on the very rich was part of San Francisco’s budget problem.


Her main proposal for creating jobs is more tax credits for biotech, life sciences, and digital media and more public-private partnerships.


It’s too bad, because Reilly’s smart, and she’s far, far better than Mark Farrell, the candidate that the current incumbent, Michela Alioto-Pier, is backing. We wish she’d be realistic about the fiscal nightmare she would inherit as a supervisor.


On the positive side, she’s a strong supporter of public power and she has good connections to the progressive community. Unlike Alioto-Pier, she’d be accessible, open-minded, and willing to work with the progressive majority on the board. That would be a dramatic change, so we’ll give her the nod.


We were also impressed with Abraham Simmons, a federal prosecutor who has spent time researching city finance on the Civil Grand Jury. But he supports sit-lie, Prop. B and Prop. S, and opposes most new tax proposals and needs more political seasoning.


 


DISTRICT 4


NO ENDORSEMENT


We’ve always wanted to like Carmen Chu. She’s friendly, personable, intelligent, and well-spoken. But on the issues, she’s just awful. Indeed, we can’t think of a single significant vote on which she’s been anything but a call-up loyalist for Mayor Newsom. She even opposed the public power measure, Prop. H, that had the support of just about everyone in town except hardcore PG&E allies.


She’s running unopposed, and will be reelected. But we can’t endorse her.


 


DISTRICT 6


1. DEBRA WALKER


2. JANE KIM


3. GLENDON “ANNA CONDA” HYDE


CORRECTION: In our original version of this endorsement, we said that Jim Meko supports the sit-lie ordinance. That was an error, and it’s corrected below.


A year ago, this race was artist and activist Debra Walker’s to lose. Most of the progressive community was united behind her candidacy; she’d been working on district issues for a couple of decades, fighting the loft developers during the dot-com boom years and serving on the Building Inspection Commission. Then School Board member Jane Kim decided to enter the race, leaving the left divided, splitting resources that might have gone to other critical district races — and potentially helping to put the most pro-business downtown candidate, Theresa Sparks, in a better position to win.


Now we’ve got something of a mess — a fragmented and sometimes needlessly divisive progressive base in a district that’s key to holding progressive control of the board. And while neither of the two top progressive candidates is actively pursuing a credible ranked-choice voting strategy (Kim has, unbelievably, endorsed James Keys instead of Walker, and Walker has declined to endorse anyone else), we’re setting aside our concern over Kim’s ill-advised move and suggesting a strategy that is most likely to keep the seat Chris Daly has held for the past 10 years from falling to downtown control.


Walker is far and away our first choice. She understands land use and housing — the clear central issues in the district — and has well thought-out positions and proposals. She says that the current system of inclusionary housing — pressing market-rate developers to include a few units of below-market-rate housing with their high-end condos — simply doesn’t work. She supports an immediate affordable housing bond act and a long-term real estate transfer tax high enough to fund a steady supply of housing for the city’s workforce. She told us the city ought to be looking at planning issues from the perspective of what San Francisco needs, not what developers want to build. She’s in favor of progressive taxes and a push for local hiring. We’re happy to give her our first-place ranking.


Jane Kim has been a great SF School Board member and has always been part of the progressive community. But she only moved into District 6 a year and a half ago — about when she started talking about running for supervisor (and she told us in her endorsement interview that “D6 is a district you can run in without having lived there a long time.”) She still hasn’t been able to explain why she parachuted in to challenge an experienced progressive leader she has no substantive policy disagreements with.


That said, on the issues, Kim is consistently good. She is in favor of indexing affordable housing to market-rate housing and halting new condo development if the mix gets out of line. She’s for an affordable housing bond. She supports all the tax measures on this ballot. She’s a little softer on congestion pricing and extending parking-meter hours, but she’s open to the ideas. She supports police foot patrols not just as a law-enforcement strategy, but to encourage small businesses. She’d be a fine vote on the board. And while we’re sympathetic to the Walker supporters who would prefer that we not give Kim the credibility and exposure of an endorsement, the reality is that she’s one of two leading progressives and would be better on the board than the remaining candidates.


Hyde, a dynamic young drag queen performer, isn’t going to win. But he’s offered some great ideas and injected some fun and energy into the race. Hyde talks about creating safe injection sites for IV drug users to reduce the risk of overdoses and the spread of disease. He points out that a lot of young people age out of the foster-care system and wind up on the streets, and he’s for continuum housing that would let these young people transition to jobs or higher education. He talks about starting a co-op grocery in the Tenderloin. He proposes bus-only lanes throughout the district and wants to charge large vehicles a fee to come into the city. He’s a big advocate of nightlife and the arts. He lacks experience and needs more political seasoning, but we’re giving him the third-place nod to encourage his future involvement.


Progressives are concerned about Theresa Sparks, a transgender activist and former business executive who now runs the city’s Human Rights Commission. She did a (mostly) good job on the Police Commission. She’s experienced in city government and has good financial sense. But she’s just too conservative for what remains a very progressive district. Sparks isn’t a big fan of seeking new revenue for the city telling us that “I disagree that we’ve made all the cuts that we can” — even after four years of brutal, bloody, all-cuts budgets. She doesn’t support the hotel tax and said she couldn’t support Sup. David Chiu’s progressive business tax because it would lead to “replacing private sector jobs with public sector jobs” — even though the city’s own economic analysis shows that’s just not true. She supports Newsom’s sit-lie law.


Sparks is the candidate of the mayor and downtown, and would substantially shift the balance of power on the board. She’s also going to have huge amounts of money behind her. It’s important she be defeated.


Jim Meko, a longtime neighborhood and community activist, has good credentials and some solid ideas. He was a key player in the western SoMa planning project and helped come up with a truly progressive land-use program for the neighborhood. But he supports Prop. B and is awfully cranky about local bars and nightlife.


James Keys, who has the support of Sup. Chris Daly and was an intern in Daly’s office, has some intriguing (if not terribly practical) ideas, like combining the Sheriff’s Department and the Police Department and making Muni free). But in his interview, he demonstrated a lack of understanding of the issues facing the district and the city.


So we’re going with a ranked-choice strategy: Walker first, Kim second, Hyde third. And we hope Kim’s supporters ignore their candidate’s endorsement of Keys, put Walker as their second choice, and ensure that they don’t help elect Sparks.


 


DISTRICT 8


RAFAEL MANDELMAN


This is by far the clearest and most obvious choice on the local ballot. And it’s a critical one, a chance for progressives to reclaim the seat that once belonged to Harvey Milk and Harry Britt.


Mandelman, a former president of the Milk Club, is running as more than a queer candidate. He’s a supporter of tenants rights, immigrants’ rights, and economic and social justice. He also told us he believes “local government matters” — and that there are a lot of problems San Francisco can (and has to) solve on its own, without simply ducking and blaming Sacramento and Washington.


Mandelman argues that the public sector has been starved for years and needs more money. He agrees that there’s still a fair amount of bloat in the city budget — particularly management positions — but that even after cleaning out the waste, the city will still be far short of the money it needs to continue providing pubic services. He’s calling for a top-to-bottom review of how the city gets revenue, with the idea of creating a more progressive tax structure.


He’s an opponent of sit-lie and a supporter of the sanctuary city ordinance. He supports tenants rights and eviction protection. He’s had considerable experience (as a member of the Building Inspection Commission and Board of Appeals and as a lawyer who advises local government agencies) and would make an excellent supervisor.


Neither of the other two contenders make our endorsement cut. Rebecca Prozan is a deputy city attorney who told us she would be able to bring the warring factions on the board together. She has some interesting ideas — she’d like to see the city take over foreclosed properties and turn them into housing for teachers, cops, and firefighters — and she’s opposed to sit-lie. But she’s weak on tenant issues (she told us there’s nothing anyone can do to stop the conversion of rental housing into tenancies-in-common), doesn’t seem to grasp the need for substantial new revenues to prevent service cuts, and doesn’t support splitting the appointments to key commissions between the mayor and the supervisors.


Scott Wiener, a deputy city attorney, is a personable guy who always takes our phone calls and is honest and responsive. He’s done a lot of good work in the district. But he’s on the wrong side of many issues, and on some things would be to the right of the incumbent, Sup. Bevan Dufty.


He doesn’t support public power (which Dufty does). He says that a lot of the city’s budget problems can’t be solved until the state gets its own house in order (“we can’t tax our way out of this”) and favors a budget balanced largely by further cuts. In direct contrast to Mandelman, Wiener said San Franciscans “need to lower our expectations for government.” He wants broad-based reductions in almost all city agencies except Muni, “core” public health services, and public safety. He doesn’t support any further restrictions on condo conversions or TICs. And he has the support of the Small Property Owners Association — perhaps the most virulently anti-tenant and anti-rent control group in town.


This district once gave rise to queer political leaders who saw themselves and their struggles as part of a larger progressive movement. That’s drifted away of late — and with Mandelman, there’s a chance to bring it back.


 


DISTRICT 10


1. TONY KELLY


2. DEWITT LACY


3. CHRIS JACKSON


District 10 is the epicenter of new development in San Francisco, the place where city planners want to site as many as 40,000 new housing units, most of them high-end condos, at a cost of thousands of blue-collar jobs. The developers are salivating at the land-rush opportunities here — and the next supervisor not only needs to be an expert in land-use and development politics, but someone with the background and experience to thwart the bad ideas and direct and encourage the good ones.


There’s no shortage of candidates — 22 people are on the ballot, and at least half a dozen are serious contenders. Two — Steve Moss and Lynette Sweet — are very bad news. And one of the key priorities for progressives is defeating the big-money effort that downtown, the police, and the forces behind the Van Ness Avenue megahospital proposal are dumping into the district to elect Moss.


Our first choice is Tony Kelly, who operates Thick Description Theater and who for more than a decade has been directly involved in all the major neighborhood issues. He has a deep understanding of what the district is facing: 4,100 of the 5,300 acres in D10 have been rezoned or put under the Redevelopment Agency in the past 10 years. Planners envision as many as 100,000 new residents in the next 10 years. And the fees paid by developers will not even begin to cover the cost of the infrastructure and services needed to handle that growth.


And Kelly has solutions: The public sector will have to play a huge role in affordable housing and infrastructure, and that money should come from higher development fees — and from places like the University of California, which has a huge operation in the district and pays no property taxes. Kelly wants to set up a trigger so that if goals for affordable housing aren’t met by a set date, the market-rate development stops. He supports the revenue measures on the ballot but thinks we should go further. He opposes the pension-reform measure, Prop. B, but notes that 75 percent of the city’s pension problems come from police, fire, and management employees. He wants the supervisors to take over the Redevelopment Agency. He’s calling for a major expansion of open space and parkland in the district. And he thinks the city should direct some of the $3 billion in short-term accounts (now all with the Bank of America) to local credit unions or new municipal bank that could invest in affordable housing and small business. He’s a perfect fit for the job.


DeWitt Lacy is a civil-rights lawyer and a relative newcomer to neighborhood politics. He speaks passionately about the need for D10 to get its fair share of the city’s services and about a commitment to working-class people.


Lacy is calling for an immediate pilot program with police foot patrols in the high-crime areas of the district. He’s for increasing the requirements for developers to build affordable housing and wants to cut the payroll tax for local businesses that hire district residents.


Lacy’s vision for the future includes development that has mixed-use commuter hubs with shopping and grocery stores as well as housing. He supports the tax measures on the ballot and would be willing to extend parking meter hours — but not parking fines, which he calls an undue burden on low-income people.


He’s an outspoken foe of sit-lie and of gang injunctions, and with his background handling police abuse lawsuits, he would have a clear understanding of how to approach better law-enforcement without intimidating the community. He lacks Kelly’s history, experience, and knowledge in neighborhood issues, but he’s eminently qualified and would make a fine supervisor.


Chris Jackson, who worked at the San Francisco Labor Council and serves on the Community College Board, is our third choice. While it’s a bit unfortunate that Jackson is running for higher office only two years after getting elected to the college board, he’s got a track record and good positions on the issues. He talks of making sure that blue-collar jobs don’t get pushed out by housing, and suggested that the shipyard be used for ship repair. He wants to see the city mandate that landlords rent to people with Section 8 housing vouchers. He supports the tax measures on the ballot, but also argues that the city has 60 percent more managers than it had in 2000 and wants to bring that number down. He thinks the supervisors should take over Redevelopment, which should become “just a financing agency for affordable housing.” He wants to relocate the stinky sewage treatment plant near Third Street and Evans Avenue onto one of the piers and use the area for a transit hub. He’s still relatively unseasoned, but he has a bright political future.


Eric Smith, a biodiesel activist, is an impressive candidate too. But while his environmental credentials are good, he lacks the breadth of knowledge that our top three choices offer. But we’re glad he’s in the race and hope he stays active in community politics.


Malia Cohen has raised a lot of money and (to our astonishment) was endorsed No. 2 by the Democratic Party, but she’s by no means a progressive, particularly on tenant issues — she told us that limiting condo conversions is an infringement of property rights. And she’s way too vague on other issues.


Moss is the candidate of the big developers and the landlords, and the Chamber of Commerce is dumping tens of thousands of dollars into getting him elected. He’s got some good environmental and energy ideas — he argues that all major new developments should have their own energy distribution systems — but on the major issues, he’s either on the wrong side or (more often) can’t seem to take a stand. He said he is “still mulling over” his stand on sit-lie. He supports Sanctuary City in theory, but not the actual measure Sup. David Campos was pushing to make the policy work. He’s not sure if he likes gang injunctions or not. He only moved back to the district when he decided to run for supervisor. He’s way too conservative for the district and would be terrible on the board.


Lynette Sweet, a BART Board member, has tax problems (and problems explaining them) and wouldn’t even come to our office for an endorsement interview. The last thing D10 needs is a supervisor who’s not accountable and unwilling to talk to constituents and the press.


So we’re going with Kelly, Lacy, and Jackson as the best hope to keep D10 from becoming a district represented by a downtown landlord candidate.


 


SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF EDUCATION


MARGARET BRODKIN


KIM-SHREE MAUFAS


HYDRA MENDOZA


Three seats are up on the School Board, and three people will get elected. And it’s a contested race, and in situations like that, we always try to endorse a full slate.


This fall, it was, to put it mildly, a challenge.


It’s disturbing that we don’t have three strong progressive candidates with experience and qualifications to oversee the San Francisco Unified School District. But it seems to be increasingly difficult to find people who want to — and can afford to — devote the time to what’s really a 40-hour-a-week position that pays $500 a month. The part-time school board is an anachronism, a creature of a very different economic and social era. With the future of the next generation of San Franciscans at stake, it’s time to make the School Board a full-time job and pay the members a decent salary so that more parents and progressive education advocates can get involved in one of the most important political jobs in the city.


That said, we’ve chosen the best of the available candidates. It’s a mixed group, made up of people who don’t support each other and aren’t part of anyone’s slate. But on balance, they offer the best choices for the job.


This is not a time when the board needs radical change. Under Superintendent Carlos Garcia, the local public schools are making huge strides. Test scores are up, enrollment is increasing, and San Francisco is, by any rational measure, the best big-city public school district in California. We give considerable credit for that to the progressives on the board who got rid of the irascible, secretive, and hostile former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and replaced her with Garcia. He’s brought stability and improvement to the district, and is implementing a long-term plan to bring all the schools up to the highest levels and go after the stubborn achievement gap.


Yet any superintendent and any public agency needs effective oversight. One of the problems with the district under Ackerman was the blind support she got from school board members who hired her; it was almost as if her allies on the board were unable to see the damage she was doing and unable to hold her accountable.


Our choices reflect the need for stability — and independence. We are under no illusions — none of our candidates are perfect. But as a group, we believe they can work to preserve what the district is doing right and improve on policies that aren’t working.


Kim-Shree Maufas has been a staunch progressive on the board. She got into a little trouble last year when the San Francisco Chronicle reported that she’d been using a school district credit card for personal expenses. That’s not a great move, but she never actually took public money since she paid back the district. Maufas said she thought she could use the card as long as she reimbursed the district for her own expenses; the rules are now clear and she’s had no problems since. We don’t consider this a significant enough failure in judgment to prevent her from continuing to do what she’s been doing: serving as an advocate on the board for low-income kids and teachers.


Maufas is a big supporter of restorative justice and is working for ways to reduce suspensions and expulsions. She wants to make sure advanced placement and honors classes are open to anyone who can handle the coursework. She supports the new school assignment process (as do all the major candidates), although she acknowledges that there are some potential problems. She told us she thinks the district should go back to the voters for a parcel tax to supplement existing funding for the schools.


Margaret Brodkin is a lightening rod. In fact, much of the discussion around this election seems to focus on Brodkin. Since she entered the race, she’s eclipsed all the other issues, and there’s been a nasty whisper campaign designed to keep her off the board.


We’ve had our issues with Brodkin. When she worked for Mayor Newsom, she was part of a project that brought private nonprofits into city recreation centers to provide services — at a time when unionized public employees of the Recreation and Parks Department were losing their jobs. It struck us as a clear privatization effort by the Newsom administration, and it raised a flag that’s going to become increasingly important in the school district: there’s a coming clash between people who think private nonprofits can provide more services to the schools and union leaders who fear that low-paid nonprofit workers will wind up doing jobs now performed by unionized district staff. And Brodkin’s role in the Newsom administration — and her background in the nonprofit world — is certainly ground for some concern.


But Brodkin is also by far the most qualified person to run for San Francisco school board in years, maybe decades. She’s a political legend in the city, the person who is most responsible for making issues of children and youth a centerpiece of the progressive agenda. In her years as director of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, she tirelessly worked to make sure children weren’t overlooked in the budget process and was one of the authors of the initiative that created the Children’s Fund. She’s run a nonprofit, run a city department, and is now working on education issues.


She’s a feisty person who can be brusque and isn’t always conciliatory — but those characteristics aren’t always bad. Sup. Chris Daly used his anger and passion to push for social justice on the Board of Supervisors and, despite some drawbacks, he’s been an effective public official.


And Brodkin is full of good ideas. She talks about framing what a 21st century education looks like, about creating community schools, about aligning after-school and summer programs with the academic curriculum. She wants the next school bond act to include a central kitchen, so local kids can get locally produced meals (the current lunch fare is shipped in frozen from out of state).


Brodkin needs to remember that there’s a difference between being a bare-knuckles advocate and a member of a functioning school board. But given her skills, experience, and lifetime in progressive causes, we’re willing to give her a chance.


We also struggled over endorsing Hydra Mendoza. She works for Mayor Newsom as an education advisor — and that’s an out-front conflict of interest. She’s a fan of Obama’s Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, whose policies are regressive and dangerous.


On the other hand, she cares deeply about kids and public education. She’s not a big supporter of charter schools (“I’ve yet to see a charter school that offers anything we can’t do ourselves,” she told us) and while she was on the wrong side of a lot of issues (like JROTC) early in her tenure, over the past two years she’s been a good School Board member.


There are several other candidates worth mentioning. Bill Barnes, an aide to Michela Alioto-Pier, is a good guy, a decent progressive — but has no experience in or direct connection to the public schools. Natasha Hoehn is in the education nonprofit world and speaks with all the jargon of the educrat, but her proposals and her stands on issues are vague. Emily Murase is a strong parent advocate with some good ideas, but she struck us as a bit too conservative (particularly on JROTC and charter schools.) Jamie Wolfe teaches at a private school but lacks any real constituency or experience in local politics and the education community.


So given a weak field with limited alternatives, we’re going with Maufas, Brodkin and Mendoza.


 


SAN FRANCISCO COMMUNITY COLLEGE BOARD


JOHN RIZZO


The San Francisco Community College District has been a mess for years, and it’s only now starting to get back on track. That’s the result of the election of a few progressive reformers — Milton Marks, Chris Jackson, and John Rizzo, who now have enough clout on the seven-member board to drag along a fourth vote when they need it.


But the litany of disasters they’ve had to clean up is almost endless. A chancellor (who other incumbent board members supported until the end) is now under indictment. Public money that was supposed to go to the district wound up in a political campaign. An out-of-control semiprivate college foundation has been hiding its finances from the public. The college shifted bond money earmarked for an arts center into a gigantic, expensive gym with a pool that the college can’t even pay to operate, so it’s leased out to a private high school across the street.


And the tragedy is that all three incumbents — two of whom should have stepped down years ago — are running unopposed.


With all the attention on the School Board and district elections, not one progressive — in fact, not one candidate of any sort — has stepped forward to challenge Anita Grier and Lawrence Wong. So they’ll get another term, and the reformers will have to continue to struggle.


We’re endorsing only Rizzo, a Sierra Club staffer who has been in the lead in the reform bloc. He needs to end up as the top vote-getter, which would put him in position to be the board president. Rizzo has worked to get the district’s finances and foundation under control and he richly deserves reelection.


 


BART BOARD OF DIRECTORS, DISTRICT 8


BERT HILL


It’s about time somebody mounted a serious challenge to James Fang, the only elected Republican in San Francisco and a member of one of the most dysfunctional public agencies in California. The BART Board is a mess, spending a fortune on lines that are hardly ever used and unable to work effectively with other transit agencies or control a police force that has a history of brutality and senseless killing.


Fang supports the suburban extensions and Oakland Airport connector, which make no fiscal or transportation sense. He’s ignored problems with the BART Police for 20 years. It’s time for him to leave office.


Bert Hill is a strong challenger. A professional cost-management executive, he understands that BART is operating on an old paradigm of carrying people from the suburbs into the city. “Before we go on building any more extensions,” he told us, “we should take care of San Francisco.” He wants the agency to work closely with Muni and agrees there’s a need for a BART sunshine policy to make the notoriously secretive agency more open to public scrutiny. We strongly endorse him.


 


ASSESSOR-RECORDER


PHIL TING


San Francisco needs an aggressive assessor who looks for every last penny that big corporations are trying to duck paying — but this is also a job that presents an opportunity for challenging the current property tax laws. Phil Ting’s doing pretty well with the first part — and unlike past assessors, is actually stepping up to the plate on the second. He’s been pushing a statewide coalition to reform Prop. 13 — and while it’s an uphill battle, it’s good to see a tax assessor taking it on. Ting has little opposition and will be reelected easily.


 


PUBLIC DEFENDER


JEFF ADACHI


Adachi’s done a great job of running the office that represents indigent criminal defendants. He’s been outspoken on criminal justice issues. Until this year, he was often mentioned as a potential progressive candidate for mayor.


That’s over now. Because Adachi decided (for reasons we still can’t comprehend) to join the national attack on public employees and put Prop. B on the ballot, he’s lost any hope of getting support for higher office from the left. And since the moderate and conservative forces will never be comfortable with a public defender moving up in the political world, Adachi’s not going anywhere anytime soon.


Which is fine. He’s doing well at his day job. We wish he’d stuck to it and not taken on a divisive, expensive, and ill-conceived crusade to cut health care benefits for city employees.


 


SAN FRANCISCO SUPERIOR COURT


SEAT 15


MICHAEL NAVA


To hear some of the brahmins of the local bench and bar tell it, the stakes in this election are immense — the independence of the judiciary hangs in the balance. If a sitting judge who is considered eminently qualified for the job and has committed no ethical or legal breaches can be challenged by an outsider who is seeking more diversity on the bench, it will open the floodgates to partisan hacks taking on good judges — and force judicial candidates to raise money from lawyers and special interests, thus undermining the credibility of the judiciary.


We are well aware of the problems of judicial elections around the country. In some states, big corporations that want to influence judges raise and spend vast sums on trial and appellate court races — and typically get their way. In Iowa, three judges who were willing to stand on principle and Constitutional law and declare same-sex marriage legal are facing what amounts to a well-funded recall effort. California is not immune — in more conservative counties, liberal judges face getting knocked off the bench by law-and-order types.


It’s a serious issue. It’s worth a series of hearings in the state Legislature, and it might be worth Constitutional change. Maybe trial-court elections should be eliminated. Maybe all judicial elections should have public campaign financing. But right now, it’s an elected office — at least in theory.


In practice, the vast majority of the judicial slots in California are filled by appointment. Judges serve for four-year terms but tend to retire or step down in midterm, allowing the governor to fill the vacancy. Unless someone files specifically to challenge an incumbent, typically appointed judge, that race never even appears on the ballot.


The electoral process is messy and political, and raising money is unseemly for a judicial officer. But the appointment process is hardly pure, either — and governors in California have, over the past 30 years, appointed the vast majority of the judges from the ranks of big corporate law firms and district attorney’s offices.


There are, of course, exceptions, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been better than his predecessor, Democrat Gray Davis. But overall, public interest lawyers, public defenders, and people with small community practices (and, of course, people who have no political strings to pull in Sacramento) have been frustrated. And it’s no surprise that some have sought to run against incumbents.


That’s what’s happening here. Michael Nava, a gay Latino who has been working as a research attorney for California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, was going to run for a rare open seat this year, but the field quickly got crowded. So Nava challenged Richard Ulmer, a corporate lawyer appointed by Schwarzenegger who has been on the bench a little more than a year.


We will stipulate, as the lawyers say: Ulmer has done nothing wrong. From all accounts, he’s a fine judge (and before taking the bench, he did some stellar pro bono work fighting for reforms in the juvenile detention system). So there are two questions here: Should Nava have even filed to run against Ulmer? And since he did, who is the better candidate?


It’s important to understand this isn’t a case of special interests and that big money wanting to oust a judge because of his politics or rulings. Nava isn’t backed by any wealthy interest. There’s no clear parallel to the situations in other areas and other states where the judiciary is being compromised by electoral politics. Nava had every right to run — and has mounted an honest campaign that discusses the need for diversity on the bench.


Ulmer’s supporters note — correctly — that the San Francisco courts have more ethnic and gender diversity than any county in the state. And we’re not going to try to come to a conclusion here about how much diversity is enough.


But we will say that life experience matters, and judges bring to the bench what they’ve lived. Nava, who is the grandson of Mexican immigrants and the first person in his family to go to college, may have a different perspective on how low-income people of color are treated in the courts than a former Republican who spent his professional career in big law firms.


We were impressed by Nava’s background and knowledge — and by his interest in opening up the courts. He supports cameras in the courtrooms and allowing reporters to record court proceedings. He told us the meetings judges hold on court administration should be open to the public.


We’re willing to discuss whether judicial elections make sense. Meanwhile, judges who don’t like the idea of challenges should encourage their colleagues not to retire in midterm. If all the judges left at the end of a four-year term, there would be plenty of open seats and fewer challenges. But for now, there’s nothing in this particular election that makes us fear for the independence of the courts. Vote for Nava.


 


>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

Endorsements 2010: State races

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Endorsements 2010: State races

GOVERNOR

EDMUND G. BROWN

We have issues with Jerry Brown. The one-time environmental leader who left an admirable progressive legacy his first time in the governor’s office (including the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the California Conservation Corps, and the liberal Rose Bird Supreme Court) and who is willing to stand up and oppose the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant has become a centrist, tough-on-crime, no-new-taxes candidate. And his only solution to the state budget problems is to bring all the players together early and start talking.

But at least since he’s started to debate Republican Meg Whitman face to face, he’s showing some signs of life — and flashes of the old Jerry. He’s strongly denouncing Whitman’s proposal to wipe out capital gains taxes, reminding voters of the huge hole that would blow in the state budget — and the $5 billion windfall it would give to the rich. He’s talking about suing Wall Street financial firms that cheated Californians. He’s promoting green jobs and standing firm in support of the state’s greenhouse-gas emissions limits.

For all his drawbacks (his insistence, for example, that the Legislature shouldn’t raise any taxes without a statewide vote of the people), Brown is at least part of the reality-based community. He understands that further tax cuts for the rich won’t solve California’s problems. He knows that climate change is real. He’s not great on immigration issues, but at least he’s cognizant that 2 million undocumented immigrants live in California — and the state can’t just arrest and deport them all.

Whitman is more than a conservative Republican. She’s scary. The centerpiece of her economic platform calls for laying off 40,000 state employees — thereby greatly increasing the state’s unemployment rate. Her tax plan would increase the state’s deficit by another $5 billion just so that a tiny number of the richest taxpayers (including her) can keep more of their money. She’s part of the nativist movement that wants to close the borders.

She’s also one of the growing number of candidates who think personal wealth and private-sector business success translate to an ability to run a complex state government. That’s a dangerous trend — Whitman has no political experience or background (until recently she didn’t even vote) and will be overcome by the lobbyists in Sacramento.

This is a critically important election for California. Vote for Jerry Brown.

 

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

 

GAVIN NEWSOM

Why is the mayor of San Francisco running for a job he once dismissed as worthless? Simple: he couldn’t get elected governor, and he wants a place to perch for a while until he figures out what higher office he can seek. It’s almost embarrassing in its cold political calculus, but that’s something we’ve come to expect from Newsom.

We endorsed Newsom’s opponent, Janice Hahn, in the Democratic primary. It was hard to make a case for advancing the political career of someone who has taken what amounts to a Republican approach to running the city’s finances — he’s addressed every budget problem entirely with cuts, pushed a “no-new-taxes” line, and given the wealthy everything they wanted. His immigration policies have broken up families and promoted deporting kids. He’s done Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a nice favor by doing nothing to help the community choice aggregation program move forward.

Nevertheless, we’re endorsing Newsom over his Republican opponent, Abel Maldonado, because there really isn’t any choice. Maldonado is a big supporter of the death penalty (which Newsom opposes). He’s pledged never to raise taxes (and Newsom is at least open to discussion on the issue). He used budget blackmail to force the awful open-primaries law onto the ballot. He’s a supporter of big water projects like the peripheral canal. In the Legislature, he earned a 100 percent rating from the California Chamber of Commerce.

Newsom’s a supporter of more funding for higher education (and the lieutenant governor sits on the University of California Board of Regents). He’d be at least a moderate environmentalist on the state Lands Commission. And he, like Brown, is devoting a lot of attention to improving the state’s economy with green jobs.

We could do much worse than Newsom in the lieutenant governor’s office. We could have Maldonado. Vote for Newsom.

 

SECRETARY OF STATE

 

DEBRA BOWEN

California has had some problems with the office that runs elections and keeps corporate filings. Kevin Shelley had to resign from the job in 2005 in the face of allegations that a state grant of $125,000 was illegally diverted into his campaign account. But Bowen, by all accounts, has run a clean office. Her Republican opponent, Damon Dunn, a former professional football player and real estate agent, doesn’t even have much support within his own party and is calling for mandatory ID checks at the ballot. This one’s easy; vote for Bowen.

 

CONTROLLER

 

JOHN CHIANG

Chiang’s been a perfectly decent controller, and at times has shown some political courage: When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to cut the pay of state employees to minimum-wage level, Chiang refused to go along — and forced the governor to back down. His opponent, state Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Los Angeles), wants to use to office to promote cuts in government spending. Vote for Chiang.

 

TREASURER

 

BILL LOCKYER

Lockyer’s almost certain to win reelection as treasurer against a weak Republican, Mimi Walters. He’s done an adequate job and pushed a few progressive things like using state bonds to promote alternative energy. Mostly, though, he seems to be waiting for his chance to run for governor — and if Jerry Brown loses, or wins and decides not to seek a second term, look for Lockyer to step up.

 

ATTORNEY GENERAL

 

KAMALA HARRIS

This is going to be close, and it’s another clear choice. We’ve had our differences with Harris — she’s trying too hard to be a tough-on-crime type, pushing some really dumb bills in Sacramento (like a measure that would bar sex offenders from ever using social networking sites on the Internet). And while she shouldn’t take all the blame for the problems in the San Francisco crime lab, she should have known about the situation earlier and made more of a fuss. She’s also been slow to respond to serious problem of prosecutors and the cops hiding information about police misconduct from defense lawyers that could be relevant to a case.

But her opponent, Los Angeles D.A. Steve Cooley, is bad news. He’s a big proponent of the death penalty, and the ACLU last year described L.A. as the leading “killer county in the country.” Cooley has proudly sent 50 people to death row since he became district attorney in 2001, and he vows to make it easier and more efficient for the state to kill people.

He’s also a friend of big business who has vowed, even as attorney general, to make the state more friendly to employers — presumably by slowing prosecutions of corporate wrongdoing.

Harris, to her credit, has refused to seek the death penalty in San Francisco, and would bring the perspective of a woman of color to the AG’s office. For all her flaws, she would be far better in the AG’s office than Cooley. Vote for Harris.

 

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER

 

DAVE JONES

Jones, currently a state Assemblymember from Sacramento, won a contested primary against his Los Angeles colleague Hector de la Torre and is now fighting Republican Mike Villines of Fresno, also a member of the Assembly. Jones is widely known as a consumer advocate and was a foe of Prop. 17, the insurance industry scam on the June ballot. A former Legal Aid lawyer, he has extensive experience in health-care reform, supports single-payer health coverage, and would make an excellent insurance commissioner.

Villines pretty much follows right-wing orthodoxy down the line. He wants to replace employer-based insurance with health savings accounts. He argues that the solution to the cost of health insurance is to limit malpractice lawsuits. He wants to limit workers compensation claims. And he supports “alternatives to litigation,” which means eliminating the rights of consumers to sue insurance companies.

Not much question here. Vote for Jones.

 

BOARD OF EQUALIZATION, DISTRICT 1

 

BETTY YEE

The Board of Equalization isn’t well known, but it plays a sizable role in setting and enforcing California tax policy. Yee’s a strong progressive who has done well in the office, supporting progressive financial measures. She’s spoken out — as a top tax official — in favor of legalizing and taxing marijuana. We’re happy to endorse her for another term.

 

SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION

 

TOM TORLAKSON

We fully expected a November runoff between Torlakson and state Sen. Gloria Romero. Both Democrats had strong fundraising and political bases — and very different philosophies. Romero’s a big charter school and privatization fan; Torlakson has the support of the teachers unions. But to the surprise of nearly everyone, a wild-card candidate, retired Los Angeles educator Larry Aceves, came in first, with Torlakson second and Romero third. Now Aceves and Torlakson are in the runoff for this nonpartisan post.

Aceves is an interesting candidate, a former principal and school superintendent who has the endorsement of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Green Party. But he’s too quick to take the easy line that the teachers’ unions are the biggest problem in public education, and he wants the unilateral right to suspend labor contracts.

Torlakson wants more charter-school accountability and more funding for primary education. He’s the far better candidate.

 

STATE SENATE

 

DISTRICT 8

Leland Yee

Yee’s got no opposition to speak of, and will easily be re-elected. So why is he spending money on a series of slick television ads that have been airing all over San Francisco, talking about education and sending people to his website? It’s pretty obvious: The Yee for state Senate campaign is the opening act of the Yee for San Francisco mayor campaign, which should kick into high gear sometime next spring. In other words, if Yee has his way, he’ll serve only a year of his next four-year term.

Yee infuriates his colleagues at times, particularly when he refuses to vote for a budget that nobody likes but everyone knows is necessary to keep the state afloat. He’s done some ridiculous things, like pushing to sell the Cow Palace as surplus state property and turn the land over to private real estate developers. But he’s always good on open-government issues, is pushing for greater accountability for companies that take tax breaks and then send jobs out of state, has pushed for accountability at the University of California, and made great progress in opening the records at semiprivate university foundations when he busted Stanislaus State University for its secret speaking-fees deal with Sarah Palin.

With a few strong reservations, we’ll endorse Yee for another term.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 12

 

FIONA MA

A clear hold-your-nose endorsement. Ma has done some truly bad things in Sacramento, like pushing a bill that would force the San Francisco Unified School District to allow military recruiters in the high schools and fronting for landlords on a bill to limit rent control in trailer parks. But she’s good on public power and highly critical of PG&E, and she has no opposition to speak of.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 13

 

TOM AMMIANO

Ammiano’s a part of San Francisco history, and without his leadership as a supervisor, we might not have a progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors. Ammiano was one of the architects of the return to district elections, and his 1999 mayoral campaign (against Willie Brown) marked a turning point in the organization, sophistication, and ultimate success of the city’s left. He was the author of the rainy day fund (which has kept the public schools from massive layoffs over the past couple of years) and the Healthy San Francisco plan.

In Sacramento, he’s been a leader in the effort to legalize (and tax) marijuana and to demand accountability for the BART Police. He’s taken on the unpleasant but critical task of chairing the Public Safety Committee and killing the worst of the right-wing crime bills before they get to the floor. He has four more years in Sacramento, and we expect to see a lot more solid progressive legislation coming out of his office. We enthusiastically endorse him for reelection.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 14

 

NANCY SKINNER

Skinner’s a good progressive, a good ally for Ammiano on the Public Safety Committee, and a friend of small business and fair taxation. Her efforts to make out-of-state companies that sell products in California pay state sales tax would not only bring millions into the state coffers but protect local merchants from the likes of Amazon. We don’t get why she’s joined with Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates to try to get rid of Kriss Worthington, the most progressive member of the Berkeley City Council, but we’ll endorse her for re-election.

 

STATE ASSEMBLY, DISTRICT 16

 

SANDRE SWANSON

Swanson’s a good vote most of the time in Sacramento, but he’s not yet the leader he could be — particularly on police accountability. The BART Police murdered Oscar Grant in Swanson’s district, yet it fell to a San Franciscan, Tom Ammiano, to introduce strong state legislation to force BART to have civilian oversight of the transit cops. Still, he’s done some positive things (like protecting state workers who blow the whistle on fraud) and deserves another term.

 

>>BACK TO ENDORSEMENTS 2010

The family Yañez and their evolving altars

Andrew Lam
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To hear father and son artistic team Rene and Rio Yañez talk about San Francisco’s Day of the Dead celebration is to realize how much the holiday has taken on its own light here in the city. “It’s about personal experience, but also politics,” Rene says. The duo have crafted another year of homage to the dead around us — and in so doing also reflect a shifting scene in San Francisco art.

No art event in the city reflects evolving tradition more than the Yañezs’ yearly exhibit of Dia de los Muertos altars at SOMArts Cultural Center (opening Fri/8). As the three of us sit in Rene’s office at SOMArts next to the cow brain in a mason jar on top of which the elder Yañez — the center’s director of special projects — has stacked a pair of headphones and a plush Taco Bell chihuahua, Rene tells his son and myself about the first public Day of the Dead celebration in San Francisco.

Rene, a seminal figure in the Mission art scene, held the first year of the altar installations in the early ’70s at his neighborhood community art hub from that time, Galería de la Raza. In an area full of Central and South American activists who had lost their home due to oppressive regimes and political exile, he and other artists figured it was time to start acknowledging the Mexican holiday of death, parody, and remembrance in their new community. 

In Mexico, Dia de los Muertos is celebrated by the gathering of family, of processions to the cemetery to mark loved ones’ graves with ofrendas of marigolds, sugar skulls, and refreshments. In the Mission, that feeling of community and import was to be replicated with a distinctly San Franciscan twist. “We talked about creating a ritual, ceremonial exhibit,” Rene says.

In those early days, it was mainly the Latinos that lived in the neighborhood that came to see the altars that Yañez and fellow artists created in the Galería. But soon, word of the popular exhibit spread, and it became a teaching moment for those outside the culture. School groups would come by for a field trip, occasions for which the Galeria printed out Day of the Dead lesson plans. 

Still, not every one immediately understood the holiday’s significance. “It’s not really a morbid holiday,” Rene tells me. “People use it to make fun of death, some people make political statements, some people use humor.” That approach “made some people preoccupied,” Rene says, a smile flickering over his face. “They were seeing skulls and things like that.” “It’s about celebrating death as a part of life,” Rio supplies.

Of course, things have changed over the last forty years. Nowadays, the esoteric procession that began in the Mission in the ’80s to mark the holiday has grown into a 15,000 person yearly event, and has been jokingly termed “Day of the Dead Gringos” and “Gringos Gone Wild” by some local blogs for the Burning Man-style theatrical costumes, stilting, and concept artwork contributed by those with nary a drop of Latino blood in their body.

Which, Rio Yañez says, is just fine. Rio – who dad Rene jokingly calls “a cholo hipster” – was born and raised in the Mission, watching his family stave off eviction notices during the dot com boom and beyond during times when rent prices in his neighborhood have soared. Unlike many of his childhood friends, he has chosen to remain in the Mission, and having graduated from CalArts, now partners with his father at SOMArts. 

In the Day of the Dead celebration’s cultural inclusivity, Rio finds a positive benefit for the city’s diverse tribes. “It’s a way of sharing culture – even with all the drunk hipsters just having a good time marching there’s still a community spirit.” When I ask him whether the Mission Latino community can still claim ownership of the procession, he replies diplomatically. “The neighborhood has changed so much — the parade is a reflection of that.”

Rene concurs. “I haven’t experienced a neighborhood that hasn’t changed,” he tells me.

That kind of cultural shift is reflected in the Yañez-curated SOMArts exhibition. Past years’ exhibits have paid homage to deceased family members, to the victims of disasters like Hurricane Katrina, and even to the artists themselves – last year one contributor passed away during the altar’s run at SOMArts, and her installation was augmented by fellow mourners to reflect the snuffing of a creative life. Although the papel picado and traditional iconography remain a part of the vast labyrinth of artists’ contributions at SOMArts, the things mourned and celebrated ring universal, hurts and hopes accessible to everyone present in the melting pot of the city.

This year, the Day of the Dead artists come from all over, and hail from all age groups. Some, like CJ Grossman, Susan Matthews, and Jos Sances have been working with Rene on the exhibit since the late ’80s. Others, like photographer Amanda Lopez, have been brought in by Rio, who is aiding in the transition to online culture, contributing his own photographic skills to the effort, and scouts talent from the younger artistic circles he runs in.

Which isn’t to say that Rene hasn’t taken advantage of some of today’s most cutting edge art technologies, including the Avatar-inspired mania for 3D. Before I leave SOMArts, he produces a sheaf of 3D renderings he’s created on the computer and a flashy pair of red and blue-lensed glasses – far more impressive than anything that I’ve been handed en route to Toy Story 3. 

I put them on, and a galaxy of Mexican masked wrestlers, women, and designs pop up at varying levels in front of my eyes. The images, Rene tells me, will be projected on the walls of the Day of the Dead exhibit to create a saturated visual experience. More evidence of tradition – and the family Yañez – gathering no moss in the name of art. 

 

Dia de los Muertos Exhibition: Honoring Revolution With Visions of Healing

(through Nov. 6)

Opening reception: Fri/8 6- 9 p.m., $5-10 sliding scale

SOMArts Cultural Center

934 Brannan, SF

(415) 863-1414

www.somarts.org

 

Music listings

David Talbot
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0

Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. 

WEDNESDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Aces Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Caribou, Emeralds Regency Ballroom. 9:30pm, $22.

Child Abuse, Burmese, Death Sentence: Panda Elbo Room. 10pm, $7.

Continues, Felt Drawings, Bloody Snowman, Ssleeping DesiresS DNA Lounge. 9pm, $11.

Fences, Head and the Heart, Winter’s Fall Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Fortune 500, Gem Tops, Barrel Riders Rock-It Room. 9pm, $8.

Lissie, Dylan LeBlanc Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $15.

Plastic Fantastic Lover, Jugtown Pirates, 21st Century Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Raw Power, Irritones, Neon Maniacs, Corruptors Knockout. 9:30pm, $8.

Angus and Julia Stone, Bhi Bhiman Independent. 8pm, $16.

Hawksley Workman, Connie Lim, Sonia Rao Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Moh Alileche Yoshi’s San Francisco. 9pm, $7. With dance artist Rasa Vitalia.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

VG Plus Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, free. With DJ Skips N Pops and DJ Jessica B.

THURSDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Devotionals, Honeycombs Amnesia. 9pm, $3.

Ferocious Few, Oona Café Du Nord. 10pm, $10.

Flood, Cuzo, Glitter Wizard Eagle Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Glass Candy, Chromatics, DJ Mike Simonetti, Soft Metals, DJ Omar Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $15.

Klaxons, Baby Monster Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $18.

Land of Talk, Besnard Lakes, Suuns Independent. 8pm, $15.

Aimee Mann Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

Night Horse, Hot Lunch, Lecherous Gaze Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Curtis Salgado Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

Tera Melos, Skinwalker, Glaciers Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Heather Combs, Ryan Auffenberg, Mike Gibbons, Walty Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Dark Hollow Band Atlas Café. 8pm, free.

*Devotionals, David and Joanna Amnesia. 9pm, $8.

Grupo Fantasma Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $20.

Leni Stern Coda. 10pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Holy Thursday Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Bay Area electronic hip hop producers showcase their cutting edge styles monthly.

Jivin’ Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Lacquer Beauty Bar. 10pm-2am, free. DJs Mario Muse and Miss Margo bring the electro.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

Studio SF Triple Crown. 9pm, $5. Keeping the Disco vibe alive with authentic 70’s, 80’s, and current disco with DJs White Girl Lust, Ken Vulsion, and Sergio.

FRIDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Abney Park, Vernian Process, Unextraordinary Gentlemen DNA Lounge. 9pm, $23.

Birdmonster, Nervous Wreckords, Kid Mud Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Blank Tapes, Rad Cloud, Tall Tales and the Silver Lining, Ryan Parks Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children McNuggits, Angel and Robot Show, Emily’s Army, Secretions Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $8.

Dainty, Le Verita, Jon Bennett Brainwash Café, 1122 Folsom, SF; www.brainwash.com. 8pm, free.

Greg Dale, Stefan Grant, These Are Not My Ancestors Hotel Utah. 9pm, $10.

East Bay Grease, Switchbacks Hemlock Tavern. 10pm, $5.

*Fool’s Gold, Bitter Honeys, Soft White Sixties Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $12.

Matt Hires, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, Cloud Nothings Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Aimee Mann Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $35.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Bye Bye Blackbirds Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

Nighthawks Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Sea Wolf, Sera Cahoone, Patrick Park Independent. 9pm, $15.

Tom Tom Club, Paul Ryder, Motion Potion Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Amick Byram CEBC, 801 Silver, SF; www.eventbee.com/view/amickbyramsf. 8pm, free.

Marcus Shelby Orchestra’s MLK Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $20-30.

Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle, Earl and Mike Duo Coda. 10pm, $12.

Paula West with George Mesterhazy Quartet Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness; www.sfperformances.org. 8pm, $30-50.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Heather Ambler and Jim Goodkind Mercury Café, 201 Octavia, SF; (415) 252-7855. 7:30pm, free.

“Americana Jukebox” Slim’s. 8:30pm, $14. With Misisipi Rider, Whisky Richards, Belle Monroe and Her Brewglass Boys, and Bluegrass Revolution.

Meredith Axelrod and Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Grupo Fantasma Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $20.

World Percussion Arts Festival Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF; (415) 826-4441. 8pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

Club Dragon Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. A gay Asian paradise. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs B-Cause, Vinnie Esparza, Mr. Robinson, Toph One, and Slopoke.

Fo’ Sho! Fridays Madrone Art Bar. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris and Makossa spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Garden Triple Crown. 9pm, $8. With DJs Inland Knights, M3, and Deron Delgado.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Heartical Roots Bollywood Café. 9pm, $5. Recession friendly reggae.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Singapore 60’s The Knockout. 5:30pm, free. DJ Sid Presley spinning rare pop, garage, and freakbeat from Singapore and SE Asia.

Some Thing The Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Strictly Video 111 Minna. 9pm, $10. With VDJs Shortkut, Swift Rock, GoldenChyld, and Satva spinning rap, 80s, R&B, and Dancehall.

Treat Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Hip-hop, funk, reggae, and more with DJs B. Cause, Vinnie Esparza, and guest Goldmyne.

SATURDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Awesome Party, Serpent Crown, Evil Survives, Spellcaster Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Cowboy Junkies, Watson Twins Bimbo’s 365 Club. 9pm, $35.

Ruth Gerson Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Griffin House, Tyler James Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $15.

Hard Girls, Ivy and Erick Amnesia. 7pm. Part of LitQuake, with readings by Blag Dahlia, Eric Lyle, and more.

Bruce Katz Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

LoCura, Manicato, DJ Funk-C Slim’s. 9pm, $16.

Moon Duo, Lilac Amnesia. 10pm, $8.

Particle Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

Proj, Psychology of Genocide, Beet, MC Lynn Breedlove Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

Scene of Action, Felsen, Bird By Bird, Kindness and Lies Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $12.

Bob Schneider, Bascom Hill, Smile Smile Independent. 9pm, $20.

Toro Ramire, Ideomeneo, Flash Bastards Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Wires in the Walls, Tenderloins Hotel Utah. 9:30pm, $8.

Zoo Station Blackthorn Tavern, 834 Irving, SF; www.blackthornsf.com. 9pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Amick Byram CEBC, 801 Silver, SF; www.eventbee.com/view/amickbyramsf. 8pm, free.

Anat Cohen and Avishai Cohen Congregation Sherith Israel, 2266 California, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-50.

Dead Kenny Gs, Black Frames, Earl and Mike Duo Coda. 10pm, $12.

“On the Edge of Dark” Simm Series, Musicians Union Hall, 116 Ninth St, Sf; www.outsound.org. 8pm, $8-10. With Vinny Golia, Rent Romus, and the Lords of Outland.

Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15. Performing the music of Duke Ellington.

Nikki Yanofsky Florence Gould Theatre, Legion of Honor, 100 Legion of Honor Dr, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 2pm, $25.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

World Percussion Arts Festival Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF; (415) 826-4441. 8pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx. Bootie vs. Booty Call DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups with VJ Brewski, Smash-Up Derby, Adrian and Mysterious D, and Dada.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $5-7. Queer dance party with DJ Nuxx and friends.

Frolic Stud. 9pm, $3-7. DJs Dragn’Fly, NeonBunny, and Ikkuma spin at this celebration of anthropomorphic costume and dance. Animal outfits encouraged.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Industry Mighty. 10pm, $25. With DJ Dave Aude and Jamie J Sanchez celebrating Fleet Week.

Lacquer! Milk Bar. 10pm, $5. With DJ Mario Muse vs. DJs Blondie K and subOctave spinning indie dance, electro, new wave, and disco.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $15. Electro-cumbia with DJs El Guincho, El Hijo de la Cumbia, and DJs Disco Shawn and Oro 11.

SUNDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Anberlin, Crash Kings, Civil Twilight Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $20.

Frightened Rabbit, Plants and Animals, Bad Veins Fillmore. 8pm, $22.50.

Terry Hanck Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Liz Phair Independent. 8pm, $25.

Rangers, Universal Studios Florida, Radiant Husk Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $6.

“SF Bike Coalition Presents: Kestral Sound Review, Volume 2: Battle of the One-Man Bands” Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10. With A Magic Whistle, Mallard, Ricky Lee Robinson, Hanalei.

Slow Motion Cowboys, Virgil Shaw and the New Mid-City Band, Domestic Electrics Make-Out Room. 8pm, $7.

*Mark Sultan, Hunx and His Punx, Shannon and the Clams Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Wannabe Texans, Mae McCoy and the Neon Stars Bottom of the Hill. 3pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Frank Jackson, Larry Vuckovich Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

“3rd Annual San Francisco Filipino American Jazz Festival” Yoshi’s San Francisco. 6pm, $45.

“On the Edge of Dark” Simm Series, Musicians Union Hall, 116 Ninth St, Sf; www.outsound.org. 7:30pm, $8-10. With Vinny Golia, Rent Romus, and the Lords of Outland.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Meredith Axelrod and Craig Ventresco Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

Garett Brennan Bazaar Café, 5927 California, SF; (415) 831-5620. 6pm.

Calliope Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Quinn Deveaux Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

Silver Threads, Merle Jagger Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

World Percussion Arts Festival Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF; (415) 826-4441. 6pm, $25.

DANCE CLUBS

Autobahn Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 9pm, free. With DJs Shawn Ryan and Pat Les Stache and host Tristes Tropiques.

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. International dub summit with Subatomic Sound System vs. Dubblestandart, featuring Emch and Paul Zasky, plus Devon D and DJ Sep.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Fresh Ruby Skye. 6pm, $25. A Columbus Day weekend T-dance with DJ Paul Goodyear.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

Mini Non Stop Bhangra Rickshaw Stop. Noon-3pm, $5-10. Kid-friendly world music dance party.

Out Loud Festival Wrap Party Thee Parkside. 12:30pm, $6. With DJs Brown Amy and Carnita.

Pachanga Coda. 5pm, $10. Salsa dance party with DJs Fab Fred and Antonio and Orquestra La Moderna Tradición.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Remember the White Party Disco Glas Kat, 520 4th St., SF; (415) 495-6620. 6pm, $25. With DJ Jerry Bonham spinning Trocadero Transfer classics.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

MONDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Capsula, Blammos Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

Corin Tucker Band Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.

Eels Fillmore. 8pm, $27.50.

James, Ed Harcourt Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $28.

Remy Zero, Sanders Bohlke Café Du Nord. 8pm, $15.

*Valient Thorr, Red Fang, FlexXBronco Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Brad Wilson and Rhythm Drivers Biscuits and Blues. 8pm, $12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Toshio Hirano Amnesia. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with DJs Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Musik for Your Teeth Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St., SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Soul cookin’ happy hour tunes with DJ Antonino Musco.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

All That Remains, Asking Alexandria, Unearth, And She Whispered Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $24.

Bettie Serveert, Foxtail Somersault Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

El Ten Eleven, Baths, Sister Crayon Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Fat Tuesday Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Audrey Howard, Kate Kilbane, Meredith Axelrod Club Waziema, 543 Divisadero, SF; (415) 346-6641. 8pm.

Passenger and Pilot, Drew Victor, Pirate Radio Viracocha, 998 Valencia, SF; (415) 374-7048. 8pm.

Platinum Live SF Coda. 9pm, $10.

PS I Love You, Gold Medalists, Downer Party Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Teenage Fanclub, Radar Brothers Fillmore. 8pm, $26.50.

Devin Townsend, Project Tesseract Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

DANCE CLUBS

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

 

Downtown money hits district races

Zelda Bronstein
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42
Downtown money hits district races

Downtown cash is pouring into the district supervisorial races.

Ethics Department filings show that an alliance backed by the Chamber of Commerce, the SF Police Officers Association and United Health Care Workers West is dropping major money on Steve Moss in D10, Scott Wiener in D8 and Theresa Sparks in D6. 

Called the “Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth,” the coalition supports the building of a mega-hospital on Cathedral Hill.

The independent expenditure alliance puts UHW, part of the Service Employees International Union, in the odd position of using membership money to attack progressive politics in San Francisco – potentially undermining years of work by another SEIU affiliate, Local 1021.

Campaign disclosure forms show that the Chamber-Police-UHW alliance has spent $20,000 on bilingual (English/Chinese) door hangers for Moss that feature photos of Chamber of Commerce President Steve Falk and United Healthcare Workers political director Leon Chow.

These same interests also spent $20,000 on robo-calls for Moss, with a heavy focus on Visitacion Valley in an effort to secure the Asian vote in the crowded D10, where there is a strong likelihood that the race will be decided by second and third place votes

Word on the street in the Bayview is that former Mayor Willie Brown is pissed off that the Chamber is backing Moss, instead of African American candidate Lynette Sweet, and that termed out D10 Sup. Sophie Maxwell is angry that big corporations are trying to buy an election in the poorest and most ethnically diverse district in town.

But unlike the rumor mill, the money trail doesn’t lie. And from that perspective this is looking like a replay of the June 2008 election, when big businesses bought support for Lennar’s Candlestick Point/shipyard development by claiming it would create thousands of jobs building condos that most workers can’t afford—jobs that have yet to materialize.

This time the battle cry is for jobs building a massive hospital, even though few workers will likely get service from this hospital, which is designed to serve as a regional center for high-end health care.

So far, the same alliance of police and corporate money has plunked down $17,000 for bilingual (English and Chinese) door hangers in support of Theresa Sparks in D6 and another $17,000 for bilingual robo-calls in support of Sparks.

And so far, Scott Wiener has gotten the relatively short end of the corporate money stick: the Alliance has only spent $15,000 on a door hanger in support of Wiener.

This means that the alliance spent $90,000 in a two-week period in September. The numbers lend credence to DCCC Chair Aaron Peskin’s belief that the alliance has a war chest of $800,000, which it intends to use to put pro-downtown candidates into power.

Asked about the support of this alliance, Sparks, Wiener and Moss gave markedly different replies that reveal as much about each candidate as the money behind them.

D6 candidate Theresa Sparks suggested that the Alliance was spending more on her and Moss’ D10 campaign, because it felt Wiener was further ahead in the D8 race than she is in D6 or Moss is in D10.

And Sparks was openly supportive of the Cathedral Hill hospital project. “I’ve been very supportive of that project,” Sparks told us.

Sparks also observed that it was logical that the Chamber would support her.

“D6 has one of the largest numbers of small businesses and one of my biggest platforms has been economic growth, and I think the Chamber has been very supportive of job creation,” Sparks said.

By comparison, Scott Wiener told the Guardian that he has not taken a position on CPMC’s proposed mega hospital on Cathedral Hill.

“Those kind of issues could come before the Board, in terms of CEQA issues, and so I could be conflicted out,” Wiener said.

When the Guardian noted that the Alliance has so far not spent any money on phone banking for Wiener in D8, Wiener said, “I have volunteers doing phone banking.”

As for Moss, he told the Guardian that said he doesn’t have a position on the mega-hospital.

“I haven’t seen the plan,” Moss said. “But I understand that there seems to be an agreement that would maintain St. Luke’s with about 300 beds, but that there is a deep suspicion among the nurses that it’s not economically viable. And there seems to be a much greater need for a hospital in the southeast.”

Moss, however, is with downtown on other key issues: He supports the sit-lie legislation on the November ballot. He also reiterated that he likes the rabidly anti-tenant Small Property Owners Association, whose endorsement he called a “mistake” during a previous interview with the Guardian.

“Landlords feel that they are responsible for maintaining costly older buildings and that they are not provided with ways to upgrade their units in ways that share costs with tenants,” Moss, who sold a condo on Potrero Hill in 2007 for the same price that he paid for the entire building in 2001, and owns a 4-floor rent-controlled apartment building in D8, near Dolores Park, that he bought for $1.6 million in 2007, and where he lived from December 2007 to February 2010.

Moss refused to provide a copy of the lease on his current rental at Vermont and 18th St—something that the Guardian requested in light of an email from his wife that indicated that the family intended to move back to Dolores Park of Moss loses the race.
‘That’s private information,” Moss said, claiming that he does not plan to move back into his apartment building in D8, if he loses in November.

Moss claimed that UHW endorsed him because his position on politicians and unions.
“I agreed that politicians should get not involved in union politics,” Moss said. “The United Healthcare Workers seem to be a worthy group,” he added. “All they said was that they wanted to make sure that they had access.”

All this campaign money drama is playing out against the backdrop of a punishing battle between United Healthcare Workers West and the rest of SEIU. And as these recent filings show, UHW is spending a huge amount of its membership dues to undermine the city’s progressive infrastructure by trying to elect candidates who are not progressive, even though its progressive sister union has endorsed Rafael Mandelman in D8.

SEIU 1021 member Ed Kinchley, who works in the Emergency Room at SF General Hospital, is furious that UHW is pouring all its money into downtown candidates like Moss, Sparks and Wiener and trying to undermine everything that its progressive sister union is trying to do.

“UHW basically isn’t participating in the Labor Council, it’s just doing its own thing,” Kinchley said.

Kinchley noted that UHW is currently in trusteeship, and is being controlled by its International, and not its local membership, thus explaining why it’s doing this dance with forces like the Chamber and the Building Owners and Managers Association, which have long been the enemy of labor.

“Sutter wants a monopoly on private healthcare, and people like Rafael Mandelman in and Debra Walker have been strong supporters of public healthcare,” Kinchley said, Kinchley also noted that he wants supervisors who are willing to state their support for public health care, rather than dodging the issue and hedging their bets, right now.

“I want someone who can straight-up say, here’s what’s important for families in San Francisco, especially something as important as healthcare,” Kinchley said. “but it sounds like UHW is teaming up with the Chamber and supporting people who are not progressive.”

“And it’s not OK for somebody in D10 to say they haven’t seen CPMC’s plans, when people from D10 use St. Luke’s all the time for healthcare, because it sounds like Sutter wants to change St. Luke’s into an out-patient clinic for paying customers,” he continued.

SEIU 1021 activist Gabriel Haaland accused the Chamber, the Building Owners and Managers Association, UHW and the Police Officers Association of putting together a massive political action committee, “to try and steal the election through corporate spending.”

All this leaves the Guardian wondering how Leon Chow, the political director of UHW, who has done good work in the past on health care issues, is feeling about seeing his photograph spreads all over town alongside that of Chamber of Commerce President Steve Falk on door hangers in support of Sparks, Wiener and Moss.
 
As of press time, Chow had not returned our calls, but if he does, we’ll update this post.

Who’s trying to fast-track Parkmerced?

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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Who’s trying to fast-track Parkmerced?

At a Sept. 30 Planning Commission meeting, several commissioners and community members raised concerns that project approval for Parkmerced, a development that will add thousands of new housing units to an existing residential complex, had been scheduled before anyone was really prepared to discuss it. It’s since been pushed back, but the attempt to rush it through drew fire nonetheless.

Land use attorney Sue Hestor said she’d discovered the day before the Planning Commission meeting that a final project EIR would be made available Oct. 7, with an approval hearing scheduled just two weeks later, on Oct. 21. That came as a surprise even to Hestor, who closely monitors development projects. “You cannot just drop a complex legal document on people two weeks before the hearing and say that is sufficient,” Hestor said. “Two weeks for a staff report for this project is insulting.” Prior to this notice, the hearing on Parkmerced was widely expected later in the year.

Christina Olague, vice-president of the Planning Commission, said during the meeting that the accelerated timeline was highly unusual. “I was hearing that we were going to be attempting to initiate this project on the 7th of October with an approval calendared for the following week,” she said. “And I was concerned that it felt, at that point, that it was a little bit out of the hands of the planning commission. When it comes to projects of this size, I just felt like that was too much of a rush to get it through, especially given that we are in the middle of CPMC with comments due the 19th of October.”

Olague said the process made her uncomfortable. “I felt a lot of our say was being removed from our realm and there were outside forces … other departments in the city that were kind of influencing it in a way that didn’t feel comfortable to me,” she said. “Also, historically … we have never done it that way. Usually we calendar an item for one week and then there’s a 20-day noticing period that allows members of the public to digest the information and review the information.” She added, “I just didn’t want the public to get the impression that we were favoring one project over other projects.”

Calvin Welch, an affordable housing activist, noted that Parkmerced developers have a laudable goal of preserving onsite rent-controlled units at the housing complex — but he had yet to see a draft of a development agreement outlining the details of that plan. The planning commissioners hadn’t seen that document, either. Welch suggested more time was needed to review the terms of the agreement.

If the Planning Commission had approved Parkmerced on this accelerated schedule, it might have gone to the Board of Supervisors for approval before the end of the year, so the votes would’ve easier to count than if the project went before a new class of Supes in 2011.

The Guardian reported earlier this month that Mayor Gavin Newsom received a $1,000 campaign contribution for his bid for lieutenant governor from Craig Hartman, a design partner for Parkmerced, plus $2,000 from two executives associated with the project. AECOM, which is completing technical studies for the project, gave him campaign donations totaling $13,000.

Speaking to a crowd of real-estate professionals and representives from the business community a couple weeks ago, Newsom urged them to get involved in district elections in order to avoid “a dramatic shift” that would occur if the wrong people get elected to local office in November.

Did the mayor’s office lean on the planning department to rush the approval of Parkmerced in order to ensure a more predictable outcome? We emailed Newsom’s press secretary, Tony Winnicker, with questions, and we’ll be sure to post a response if we receive one.

 

Lending art in the TL

Andrew Lam
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Throughout the course of writing my feature story about the Tenderloin this week, which looks at the role art is playing in the gradually changing neighborhood, a couple of questions kept cycling back into the forefront of my mind. What should be the role of art in community-building? What kinds of art benefit the residents of a neighborhood? It’s tough to categorically define the answers, but Rick Darnell and the North of Market Community Benefit District‘s plans for a TL art lending library come damn close to a perfect score.

The Tenderloin Art Lending Library (TALL)’s planned role in the community is double-fold: one, it will provide a boost to “outsider” artists in the Tenderloin, people who have never had their art displayed in a studio and may lack the career know how to make that happen, and two, their pieces wind up in the homes of people who otherwise would have few touches of beauty there — at least not original works by creative minds. “A lot of artists never get discovered,” Darnell tells me, sitting in the basement room that the NOM-CBD has allocated to housing the library. Donated paintings lean against the walls around us, and a table is stacked with interesting metal sculptures behind my chair. 

His goal is to get this art into the homes of the Tenderloin’s recently housed residents. The neighborhood is well known as a drop-off spot for released convicts, Darnell tells me, and has a high percentae of residents on parole and probation. Between the recently incarcerated and the participants of the City’s “Care Not Cash” transitional housing program, you have a lot of people who need help making their new rooms homey. 

Paintings for and by the community line the walls at the Tenderloin Art Lending Library

Every three months TALL participants will be allowed to take a different piece of art for their space. Not everyone’s used to having nice things though. Darnell anticipates the challenges that this will entail, and tells me that those hurdles are kind of the point.

“It’s based on trust and sharing and a celebration of those two things,” he says. He’s got a system worked out for participants that mess up their given canvass or sculpture: six months probation from the library if they sold it or destroyed it, but leniency if the damage was due to carelessness or misfortune. “If it’s something like the dog eats it, we’ll work with them to find another place in their house that would be better for the painting,” he says, adding that program volunteers will be prepared to make house visits to make this happen, or to involve less mobile residents. “We want to make this a good experience for them.”

Some of the pieces around us, Darnell tells me, were done by artists afraid to leave their own house, elderly artists, recovering addicts, current addicts. Many artists have volunteered their art – he shows me one small canvass covered in dynamic swooshes of primary colors that came from an artist in Colombia that saw his call for admissions online – but he gives priority to Tenderloin artists, who seem to be the ones that are most connected to the mission anyway. “The people who have the least to give, I’ve found, are the most generous,” he says.

Rick P. Lion’s fantastical creations will soon be sitting in the living room of a recently housed, newly initiated art connoisseur 

Darnell knows what helps people get better: in addition to his years spent working with society’s forgotten communities, he’s been a part of them himself. “I’ve dealt with addiction, I’ve dealt with being homeless,” he tells me straight-forwardly. 

He’s got no issue with recounting his story. An MFA recipient in dance and design from the integrative learning-based Bennington College, he traveled the country after graduation dancing with a troupe that performed in non-traditional venues and focused on social issues in their productions. 

But he fell into drug use, and in1989 tested positive for HIV. He moved directly into the Tenderloin when he got to San Francisco and hasn’t left since, finding the expansive gay community “astounding.” He’s been clean for years, and seems inordinately enthused for a guy that’s been through a lot. “I’m just really happy to be here and doing this.”

Perhaps it was a no-brainer that someday Darnell connect his love of helping others in a tight spot with his love of art, given the role that it plays in his own mental clarity. “I draw something everyday,” he says. “I’ve drawn thousands of bullets, thousands of popper bottles. The shapes are really calming to me.” 

Until recently a long time employee of the Hospitality House, a resource center for homeless individuals around the corner from the NOM CBD that includes a drop-in arts studio, employment help, and a men’s shelter, Darnell was hired at the Community Benefit District initially as a janitor. But the organization invested $15,000 in seed money so that he could flesh out his vision of a community enhancing arts program. Now he’s in charge of outreach and general operations of the project. 

“It seems frivolous, like maybe I should be doing a food drive – but these are all sides of a well rounded person,” he reflects. Darnell initially considered starting a tool lending library, but changed his mind when he considered that the art exchange would give TL artists a chance to work on their craft, as well as gain some valuable artistic experience – pieces will be displayed in the gallery that gracefully inhabits the current lobby and front hallway of the NOM CBD. 

Community through art: Rick Darnell in front of the frame that will constitute an altar he and some veteran friends are completing for SomARTS Cultural Center’s Dia de los Muertos exhibit

He envisions the library as a place where people can come and connect using the language of art. “You might come to have a salon community,” he suggests regarding residents’ use of the future space. It’ll be open Fridays and Saturdays from 12-3 p.m., starting with a kick-off party on Oct. 30. 

We chat briefly about some of the other recent arts development in the neighborhood. I first met Darnell at a fairly informal meeting of TL art types convened by the Tenderloin Economic Development Project’s Elvin Padilla. In addition to the Darnell’s presentation of his library, a representative of a well known theater discussed plans for expansion, possibly in the Tenderloin. Another performing arts organization announced they were looking for a TL address, and various art galleries discussed openings and future collaborations with each other. 

“A lot of people put endeavors in the Tenderloin because rent is cheap, and it’s slowly changing the area,” Darnell tells me of people he refers to as “carpet baggers.” We talk about a comment he overheard from a gallery owner in the area after Rick announced his plans for the lending library to the group. The individual had muttered “I’d never lend anything to anyone in the Tenderloin.” “For good reason,” Rick continues “people are wary of homeless folk.”

But Darnell doesn’t seem to be wary of the recently homeless folk he’s passing out TALL fliers to and still collecting donations of art for. In fact, he seems stoked on his continuing role in their lives, and stoked for the day the library’s circulation begins at the end of next month, when they’ll eat light snacks and start making connections through art. 

“If there’s anyplace that’s open to this stuff,” he tell me “it’s the Tenderloin.”

 

Tenderloin Art Lending Library Kick-Off Party

Oct. 30, 12-3 p.m., free

North of Market Community Benefit District

134A Golden Gate, SF

tenderloincommunityartprojects@gmail.com

 

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