San Francisco

Time for change

Michael Redmond
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10
Time for change

news@sfbg.com

Christy Price doesn’t want to work forever. At 60, the security guard has worked in formula retail stores for 25 years. She says she has trouble making a living due to cuts in her work schedule, a setback that could prevent her from retiring for the foreseeable future.

Price, who has been with her current company for a decade, works at various retailers her company contracts with. Her shift from full- to part-time work is typical for employees of formula retailers in the city, many of whom are half Price’s age and attempting to support families or make their way through college.

“I’m more or less in the same predicament as [the retail workers], in terms of hours,” Price said. “It’s scary, and it’s awful sad. You’ve got people who want to work and contribute, but they aren’t given the opportunity.”

Sup. Eric Mar’s recently proposed Retail Workers Bill of Rights aims to change that. Unveiled at a July 29 press conference at San Francisco City Hall, the legislation seeks to boost prospects for retail workers “held hostage by on-call scheduling, diminished hours and discriminatory treatment by employers,” according to a statement issued by Mar’s office. There are also plans to expand the legislation to include employees of formula retail contractors, like Price.

“We’re here today because raising the minimum wage isn’t enough,” Jobs with Justice Retail Campaign Organizer Michelle Lim said at the press conference. That same day, the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to place a measure on the November ballot to raise the San Francisco minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018.

The current trend is for retail employers to hire part-time workers, spreading the hours thin and requiring employees to be on call for many more hours of work than they actually receive. That creates unpredictable schedules, making it difficult for workers to pay the bills.

Having stable work hours makes it possible for formula retail employees to plan for other parts of their lives, like earning college degrees, spending time with family or working other jobs — which is often a necessity for lower wage workers. Plus, as Price notes, companies with too many part-time employees aren’t getting the most out of their workers.

“If you keep undercutting them and cutting their hours, you’re not going to get the customer service that you’re looking for,” Price said. “You’re going to get what you pay for. You do need that skill; some people can do it, some people can’t.”

At the press conference, Mar was joined by fellow lead sponsor Board President David Chiu and co-sponsor Sup. John Avalos, along with speakers from local labor advocacy groups and a host of current and former formula retail workers.

As Lim explained, the proposed Bill of Rights package has four provisions. The first calls for “promoting full-time work and access to hours.” It would require formula retail employers to offer additional hours of work to current part-time employees, before hiring additional part-timers.

That would help prevent situations like those mentioned by retail employees speaking at the press conference. One Gap employee noted that part-time workers are often expected to commit to up to 30 hours of availability a week, yet would only be offered as little as 10 hours, despite being required to remain on call.

Another formula retail employee, Brian Quick, had a particularly rough experience while working for Old Navy at the clothing retailer’s flagship store. Having worked in retail for four years, he said his schedule for the upcoming week would come out on Thursday night, and the hours constantly fluctuated.

“It’s hard to plan anything such as doctor appointments when you aren’t even sure when you work,” Quick said. “Some weeks I would work 35 hours, and the next I’d get 15 hours. How am I supposed to pay bills?”

Last-minute notices became routine for Quick, who sometimes received calls informing him he didn’t have a shift anymore the night before he was scheduled to work.

“One day I came into work and they cut my hours right then and there,” Quick said. “Seems like everything is based on sales and not the well-being of the people who make the sales happen.”

Quick had other troubling experiences while working for Old Navy, including when he was denied Christmas vacation despite applying for it three months in advance. He eventually got the time off, but only through persistence and “the last-minute intervention of a sympathetic manager.”

“We know that consistent and reliable scheduling is important to our employees,” said Laura Wilkinson, a spokesperson for Gap Inc. “We are exploring ways to increase scheduling stability and flexibility across our fleet of stores. For example, last month we announced a pilot project with Professor Joan Williams of [University of California] Hastings College of Law to examine workplace scheduling and productivity.”

Gap Inc., the corporation that owns Old Navy, could be at the forefront of improving conditions, but the legislation’s supporters aren’t counting on retailers to make the necessary changes.

Instances like Quick’s are common in formula retail all over the country. Many retail employees, including some of Quick’s co-workers, must support families despite the unpredictable hours and low wages.

The second provision of the Retail Workers Bill of Rights attempts to fix that. It calls for “discouraging abusive on call practices” and aims to “encourage fair, predictable schedules.” Specifically, that would entail employers posting core schedules in advance with reasonable notice and providing premium pay “when an employer requires an employee to be ‘on-call’ for a specific shift, or cancels a shift with less than 24 hours notice.”

The third provision looks to improve conditions for part-time workers, calling for “equal treatment.” That means prohibiting employers from discriminating against employees “with respect to their rate of pay,” among other things like promotion opportunities and paid or unpaid time off.

It also addresses a chief concern for many part-time workers: ensuring that employees unable to maintain “open availability,” or being available at any time for a shift, are not denied employment. That’s especially significant for students and parents who have to balance their lives outside the retail industry with its demanding work hours.

“These policies, I feel, will have a huge impact on the lives of tens of thousands of our services workers, many of them low-wage workers who live with uncertainty and fear about their schedules and their other responsibilities in life,” Mar said as he introduced the legislation.

“Many of my family members and close friends are in that category, [along with] single moms, students in college and others that really deserve fair scheduling and a fair chance at economic justice.”

The final provision seeks to protect workers’ job security when their companies are bought or sold, requiring a 90-day trial period for existing employees if a formula retail business is acquired. This is meant to prevent companies from simply forcing out previous employees, allowing the workers a grace period to search for new work.

The legislation would impact an estimated 100,000 workers at approximately 1,250 stores across San Francisco. Those that qualify as formula retail businesses under city law include fast food businesses, restaurants, hotels and banks, and they must meet requirements in Section 703.3 of the San Francisco Planning Code.

In short, the law will apply to businesses considered to be chain stores, such as Target, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Wells Fargo and other major companies doing business throughout the city.

But the Retail Workers Bill of Rights’ supporters believe its impact will be felt beyond San Francisco, citing the city’s history of starting nationwide movements.

“San Francisco has always led the way when it comes to policies that protect working people,” Lim said. “The Retail Workers Bill of Rights is a commonsense proposal to bring stability to some of our city’s most marginalized workers.”

The supervisors sponsoring the ordinance have received plenty of help from Lim and Jobs with Justice San Francisco, a worker’s rights organization that has played an integral role in the city’s fight to improve labor conditions.

In 2013, Jobs with Justice mobilized labor support for the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, legislation not unlike Mar’s proposed legislation. In September 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the Domestic Workers Bill into law, making California the nation’s first state to mandate overtime pay for domestic employees, specifically designating time-and-a-half pay for those working more than 45 hours a week or nine hours a day.

Even more support has come from the San Francisco Labor Council, Service Employees International Union Local 87 and Young Workers United, among many others, all of which have endorsed the legislation.

The proposal will come back into play in September, when the board returns from its summer recess. The process will start with public hearings, at which Mar said he looks forward to “really lively public conversation.”

That will give workers like Julissa Hernandez, a Safeway employee for 13 years and a veteran of the retail system, a chance to have their voices heard.

Speaking at the City Hall press conference, Hernandez said, “We should let retail workers know that they are not alone in this fight.”

 

Housing balance and neighborhood stabilization

Michael Redmond
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68

 

By Peter Cohen and Fernando Martí

OPINION

The Guardian last week published an editorial on the outcome of the process around the Housing Balance measure. We offer here an alternative perspective from the field.

Since 1990, San Francisco has developed an incredible track record of building close to 30 percent affordable housing — but that ratio is quickly slipping away as new market-rate approvals far outstrip funding for affordable housing.

In many parts of our city, this imbalance in housing affordability is opening the door to displacement and gentrification at an unprecedented level, as long-term residents find they can no longer afford to live in their own neighborhoods.

The Housing Balance measure, developed as legislation for central city neighborhoods and introduced in April, and promoted by CCHO members TODCO and SOMCAN coming out of the West SoMa planning process, was intended to link market-rate development to affordable housing production by setting a goal of at least 30 percent affordable housing and establishing stricter conditions on approvals of market-rate housing whenever the city fell below this minimum balance. The Housing Balance measure was meant to compel all sides to work together to achieve a minimum of 30 percent affordability over time.

In June, Supervisor Jane Kim revised the Housing Balance to introduce it as a measure for the November 2014 ballot, extending the reach of the measure to not only establish a 30 percent affordable housing requirement for District 6, but across the neighborhoods of the city. Perceived as a threat by developers, this new proposal compelled the Mayor’s Office to put its own measure on the ballot — a so-called “poison pill” that would override the conditions placed on market-rate development by the Housing Balance. Since that time, the Mayor’s Office and Sup. Kim’s office engaged in extensive negotiations, which CCHO supported as a pathway to more substantive outcomes than simply a ballot “war.”

On July 29, negotiations produced a compromise measure — a policy statement that was introduced for the November ballot and agreed-upon terms for a work plan to take the policy statement into action. Though “compromise” is often considered a dirty word in politics, this measure represents a real potential win for affordable housing.

By putting the possibility of a housing linkage on the table, the negotiated outcome allowed Sup. Kim and housing advocates to up the ante to 33 percent affordable housing instead of the original 30 percent, and to get more immediate solutions for the housing crisis started immediately. The original Housing Balance was a tool to create leverage, but didn’t create ways to produce more affordable housing. This new measure establishes a package of policies and funding to set the conditions to reach the 33 percent minimum housing balance goal.

If approved by the voters, it will formalize the city’s commitment to maintain a one third affordable housing goal and set expectations on how to get there. While lacking the conditional use requirement “teeth” of the original Balance legislation, the policy and work plan sets up the conditions for a future Balance, compelling the city to do the following:

1) Establish a housing balance report and require public hearings to hold the city accountable to its goal of minimum 33 percent affordable housing;

2) Develop funding and site-acquisition strategies;

3) Develop a strategy to maintain one-third affordability citywide;

4) Make high-rise luxury developments pay their fair share of inclusionary obligations;

5) Establish a funded Neighborhood Stabilization Trust to acquire small-to-large buildings and take them out of the speculative market, preserving them in perpetuity as affordable housing;

6) Create immediate interim controls to protect PDR (production, distribution, repair/service) businesses and artists in SOMA from displacement.

The pieces of this agreement constitute a step towards addressing San Francisco’s ongoing affordability crisis and stabilizing neighborhoods facing rapid gentrification. It may seem less dramatic than the prospect of a ballot battle with developers. But it is a package to work with that was leveraged from the process. That said, we must keep an eye on the larger goal of real citywide affordability. Though 33 percent affordable housing production is higher than what we’ve achieved in the past, we must not forget this is only a floor — realistic given the funding goals of this measure, but an incremental step toward achieving the affordable housing we need to house all San Franciscans fairly.

Peter Cohen and Fernando Martí are co-directors of the Council of Community Housing Organizations.

 

Guardian Intelligence: August 6 – 12, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

GOOD VIBES

Jerry Day, when deadheads spanning generations congregate around the Bay Area to celebrate the legacy of SF native Jerry Garcia, should maybe start going by Jerry Week: Friday, Aug. 1 saw sold-out crowds at Berkeley’s Greek Theater and San Rafael’s Terrapin Crossroads for performances led by Warren Haynes and Stu Allen, respectively, while the official 12th annual Jerry Day celebration on Aug. 3 brought the masses to the city for Melvin Seals & the JGB and tons more at McLaren Park. Missed ’em? Don’t worry: Aug. 12 is Jerry Garcia Tribute Night at AT&T Park.

AIRBNB’S GAFFE-STROTURF?

Last week, Airbnb sent out an email blast proclaiming: “Big News: Launching Fair to Share San Fransisco!” [sic]. Misspellings happen, and hey, we all make mistakes. But what is Fair to Share? It’s “working for fair rules for home sharing,” according to the blast, linking to an online petition “urging the Board of Supervisors and San Francisco leaders to enact rules that let people share the home in which they live.” More to the point, this “coalition” seems focused on weakening enforcement provisions in legislation moving forward to regulate short-term rentals. So there you have it, SF’s newest grassroots movement — backed by a company valued at $10 billion.

SENIORS VERSUS SHUTTLES

Octogenarians unite! On the first day of the tech shuttle pilot program, last Friday a group of 25 or so seniors and people with disabilities blocked two Mission tech shuttles from making their morning tech sojourn to Silicon Valley. “Stop the senior evictions!” they shouted, alleging that 70 percent of no-fault evictions since 2011 were within four blocks of the shuttle stops, and two thirds of those evictions were of seniors. The 30-something tech workers looked ignored their elders, smartphones in hand, safely ensconced in their corporate buses.

REMEMBERING THE I-HOTEL

Nearly four decades ago, thousands of San Franciscans blockaded sheriffs from evicting seniors from the International Hotel, the last vestige of the Filipino community known as Manilatown. Eventually the sheriffs were successful, but the shameful displacement helped spur many San Francisco rental protections we enjoy today. Last week, the International Hotel Manilatown Center honored the anniversary of this dark mark on the city’s history. “We fought as long as we could,” Peter Yamamoto told us, who was 23 when he fought the evictions so long ago. “That night was like electricity.”

ON A HIGH NOTE

The San Francisco Opera kicks off its 92nd season Sept. 4 with a new production of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma, starring soprano Sondra Radvonovsky, pictured, as the Druid priestess who falls in love a Roman soldier (spoiler: it doesn’t end well). The fall season — which also includes the work that started it all for SF Opera back in 1923, Puccini’s La Bohème, in November — continues Sept. 6 with the opening of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, with another stellar soprano, Patricia Pacette, playing the falsely accused Appalachian heroine. Opening weekend also includes the ever-popular “Opera in the Park” Sept. 7 in Sharon Meadow, for those who prefer their arias free and open-air. www.sfopera.com. PHOTO BY MARTY SOHL

WEINER TAKES ALL

Did you hear the pitter-patter of little feet over the weekend? If it wasn’t your child (or your pesky biological clock playing tricks on you), it was most likely the Wienerschnitzel Wiener Dog Race Nationals — the Bay Area regionals portion of which drew hundreds to the Santa Clara County Fair. They scampered! They leapt! The totally got distracted and lost interest in that cute little wiener dog way! Who put the most “dash” in “dachshund”? Why, Wally the Wiener of Gilroy, who took home $250 and a trip to San Diego for the national races.

HEY, SUGAR DADDY

We’re normally weirded out by pop culture-food trend tie-ins, but when Tout Sweet Patisserie (Macy’s Union Square, 170 O’Farrell St., 3rd Fl, www.toutsweetsf.com) chef Yigit Pura announced the launch of the “Hedwig Schmidt” macaron — in honor of beloved Tony-sweeper Hedwig and the Angy Inch — we totally bit. Bourbon-orange marmalade ganache with a brandied cherry center, covered in edible red glitter? Danke, mister!

IRON MAN: APP DEVELOPER?

Because San Francisco doesn’t have enough tech CEO megalomaniacs, Marvel Comics had to fictionalize one: Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, is headed to the city by the bay. Okay, not actually (sorry fellow geeks, Iron Man is fictional), but in the comic book world, the Manhattan-based metallic hero will develop apps by day, and rocket about in his new all white, iPod-esque armor by night. But why not an everyman superhero, like say, Spiderman? Remember, Peter Parker is a photographer: He’d probably move to Oakland.

 

The last Republican

Michael Redmond
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34
The last Republican

steve@sfbg.com

BART Director James Fang is San Francisco’s only elected official who is a registered Republican, yet over the last 24 years, he has somehow managed to easily win election after election in a city dominated by the Democratic Party, often with the endorsements of top Democrats.

But this year, Fang is facing a strong and well-funded challenge from investor and former solar company entrepreneur Nicholas Josefowitz, a Harvard graduate in his early 30s. Thanks in part to support from the tech community — Lyft cofounder Logan Green is one of several prominent figures in tech to host fundraisers for him, according to Re/Code — Josefowitz has managed to amass a campaign war chest of about $150,000.

Josefowitz has also secured some key political endorsements, including from Sups. John Avalos, Eric Mar, and Scott Wiener, BART Director Tom Radulovich, former SF Mayor Art Agnos, and the Sierra Club.

After Josefowitz sold his solar company, RenGen, almost two years ago, “I got more and more involved in sustainable community advocacy,” he told us. “Then the BART strike happened and I was like, wow, this shouldn’t be happening.”

Josefowitz cited BART’s history of worker safety violations, last year’s unnecessarily divisive labor contract negotiations, the district’s massive deferred maintenance budget, property devoted to parking lots that could be put to better uses (he sees potential there for real-estate development), corrupt cronyism in its contracting, and lack of cooperation with other transit agencies as problems that urgently need correcting.

Fang is being challenged by well-funded Democratic newcomer Nicholas Josefowitz.

“BART does a terrible job at coordinating with other transit agencies,” Josefowitz told us, arguing the transit connections should be timed and seamless. “James has been there for 24 years, and if he was going to be the right guy to fix it, then he would have done it by now.”

But perhaps Josefowitz’s strongest argument is that as a Republican in liberal San Francisco, Fang’s values are out-of-step with those of voters. “Why is someone still a Republican today? … He’s a Republican and he’s a Republican in 2014, with everything that means,” Josefowitz told us. “He hasn’t been looking out for San Francisco and he’s out of touch with San Francisco values.”

We asked Fang why he’s a Republican. After saying it shouldn’t matter as far as the nonpartisan BART board race is concerned, he told us that when he was in college, he and his friends registered Republican so they could vote for John Anderson in the primary election.

“Some people feel the expedient thing for me to is switch parties,” Fang said, but “I think it’s a loyalty thing. If you keep changing … what kind of message does that send to people?”

Fang said he thought the focus ought to be on his track record, not his political affiliation. It shouldn’t matter “if it’s a black cat or a white cat, as long as it catches mice,” he said. He pointed to programs such as seismic upgrades, completing the BART to the airport project, and instituting a small-business preference for BART contractors as evidence of his strong track record. “I’m a native San Franciscan — I’ve gone through all the public schools,” Fang added. “It’s very important to get people from a San Francisco perspective and San Francisco values.”

Josefowitz supporters say he has perhaps the best shot ever at defeating Fang, largely because of his prodigious fundraising and aggressive outreach efforts on the campaign trail. “He is doing all the things that someone should do to win the race,” Radulovich, San Francisco’s other longtime elected representative on the BART board, told us. “There’s a lot of unhappiness with BART these days.”

But in an interesting political twist, Fang has the endorsement of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, a champion of many progressive causes in San Francisco, after he walked the picket line with striking BART employees last year and opposed the district’s decision to hire a high-priced, union-busting labor consultant.

“It’s a priority for us to elect Fang,” SEIU 1021 organizer Gabriel Haaland told us. “When we needed him on the strike, he walked our picket line.”

SEIU Political Chair Alysabeth Alexander sounded a similar note. “In the middle of one of the most important and highest-profile labor fights in the nation, when two workers had to die to prove that safety issues were the heart of the struggle, Fang was the only board member who took a position for safety,” she said. “Every other member shut out the workers and refused to acknowledge that serious safety issues put workers lives at risk every day. If more BART Board members has the courage of Fang, two workers would be alive today.”

BART got a series of public black eyes last year when its contract standoff with its employees resulted in two labor strikes that snarled traffic and angered the public. Then two BART employees were killed by a train operated by an unqualified manager being trained to deliver limited service to break the strike, a tragedy that highlighted longstanding safety deficiencies that the district had long fought with state regulators to avoid correcting. Finally, after that fatal accident helped force an end to the labor standoff, BART officials admitted making an administrative error in the contract that reopened the whole ugly incident.

“One of the things that really opened my eyes in this labor negotiation is that often we get told things by management, and we just assume them to be true,” Fang said, noting that he’d questioned the agency’s plan to run train service during last year’s strike.

Yet Josefowitz said the BART board should be held accountable for the agency’s shortcomings in dealing with its workers. “It starts with having a genuine concern over worker safety issues, and not just at bargaining time,” he said. “If the board had acted early enough, that strike was totally avoidable.”

Indeed, BART’s decisions that led to the tragedy have been heavily criticized by the National Transportation Safety Board, California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, and the California Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment.

Fang also has the support of many top Democrats, including Attorney General Kamala Harris, US Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and former state legislator and current Board of Equalization candidate Fiona Ma, who told us: “I have endorsed one Republican in my political history, and that is James Fang for BART Board.” Noting that Josefowitz “just moved here,” Ma said, “The BART system is one of our jewels, and I don’t think we should elect first-time newcomers in San Francisco to manage it.”

Radulovich said he was mystified by prominent San Francisco politicians’ support for Fang, saying, “In this solidly Democratic town, this elected Republican has the support of these big Democrats — it’s a mystery to me.”

One reason could be Fang’s willingness to use newspapers under his control to support politicians he favors, sometimes in less than ethical ways. Fang is the president of Asian Week and former owner of the San Francisco Examiner, where sources say he shielded from media scrutiny politicians who helped him gain control of the paper, including Willie Brown and Pelosi (see “The untouchables,” 4/30/03).

But political consultant Nicole Derse, who is working on the Josefowitz campaign, told us that she thinks support for Fang among top Democrats is softening this year, noting that US Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Mark Leno haven’t endorsed Fang after doing so in previous races.

“[Fang] has longstanding relationships with folks, but Nick is challenging people in this race to stop supporting the Republican,” Derse told us. “It’s now up to the Democratic Party and it’ll be interesting to see what they do.”

She was referring to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, which plans to vote on its endorsements on Aug. 13. While DCCC bylaws prevent the body from endorsing a Republican, Ma and other Fang allies have been lobbying for no endorsement in the race, which would deny Josefowitz a key avenue for getting his name and message out there.

“This is going to be one of the most expensive races in BART’s history. He will kill me on money,” Fang said of Josefowitz. He suggested that his opponent’s candidacy underscores tech’s growing influence in local politics, and urged voters to take a closer look. “People are saying oh, it’s all about Fang. What about this gentleman?” Fang asked. “Nobody’s questioning him at all.”

Derse, for her part, noted the importance of having a well-funded challenge in this nonpartisan race. “It allows him the resources to get his message out there,” she said of Josefowitz. “Most San Franciscans wouldn’t knowingly vote for a Republican.”

 

Arguments against minimum wage increase are out of touch

Michael Redmond
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8

EDITORIAL

“Will the SF minimum wage hike kill our restaurants?” Zagat SF tweeted last week.

No, Chicken Little, it won’t. Not even if you tweet it.

Two days earlier, the Board of Supervisors had unanimously approved a measure for the November ballot to raise the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2018, up from where it stands at $10.74.

Zagat may be fine for restaurant reviews, but this attack on raising the minimum wage — which parroted fearmongering about high-priced burgers and relied heavily on a narrative served up by a powerful business lobby, the Golden Gate Restaurant Association — was enough to cause heartburn.

And it’s only one example of the backlash directed at low-wage workers since the bid to boost the minimum wage has picked up steam. A now-infamous billboard that popped up in SOMA, funded by conservative lobbying group Employment Policies Institute, taunted minimum-wage workers by claiming they would be replaced with iPads if they didn’t give up the fight for higher pay.

The proposed minimum wage increase, actually a compromise that turned out weaker than an initial proposal spearheaded by a progressive coalition that would have delivered $15 an hour a year earlier, is backed by business-friendly Mayor Ed Lee. Even the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has expressed support for it. Still, some conservative interests seem bent on ensuring that minimum-wage workers never achieve living-wage status — demonstrating how out of touch these naysayers are.

Once better known for its rich labor history and track record of holding employers accountable for wage theft and discriminatory practices, San Francisco is better known these days as one of the nation’s highest-ranking cities for income inequality.

Scraping by at a minimum wage job translates to a stressful existence. Even if minimum-wage earners were currently earning $31,000 a year, the amount a full-time $15-an-hour job would bring in before taxes, it wouldn’t begin to stretch far enough to rent a market-rate apartment. Earlier this year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition pointed out that a renter’s got to earn at least $29.83 an hour — or $62,046 annually — to afford a San Francisco one-bedroom at market rate.

Meanwhile, those spouting doomsday scenarios over a higher minimum wage seem blind to the fact that the city is regularly populated with hordes of tourists and well-compensated San Francisco professionals with a penchant for fine food, even if it’s pricey.

Just for a sense of how much cash is pumping through the local economy, the San Francisco Center for Economic Development reports that San Francisco claimed 40 percent of all venture capital investment in the Bay Area last year, with nearly $5 billion in VC funding invested in 2013. Meanwhile, 16.5 million visitors flocked to the Bay Area last year — can anyone really claim with a straight face that a higher minimum wage for restaurant workers will prevent this army of tourists from chowing down at local restaurants?

Instead of having a debate about whether we ought to raise the minimum wage, a better conversation would focus on the consequences of allowing the city’s sharp inequality to continue unchecked.

Mayoral meltdown

Michael Redmond
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95
Mayoral meltdown

joe@sfbg.com

When he launched an unexpected mayoral bid in 2011, Mayor Ed Lee campaigned on a platform of changing the tone of San Francisco politics. The appointed mustachioed mayor claimed he put the civility back in City Hall, marking a sharp departure from the divisive tone of city politics as progressives battled former Mayor Willie Brown, followed by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

“We’ll continue the high level of civility in the tone we’ve set since January, and solve the problems with civil engagement,” he told Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, then his mayoral opponent, at a 2011 debate.

Yet over the past two weeks, Mayor Lee has started swinging hard against supervisors who have introduced measures that go against his own priorities. So much for civility at City Hall.

 

COMPROMISE EVERYTHING

When asked about the outcome of her newly revised affordable housing measure, Sup. Jane Kim did not sound enthusiastic.

“It was definitely a compromise,” Kim said. But compromise is a word you use when you find a middle ground. By most accounts, Mayor Lee weakened the measure by hammering the right pressure points.

Kim crafted a novel solution to the city’s housing affordability crisis for the November ballot. Her initial Housing Balance Requirement would have established controls on market-rate housing construction, requiring a reevaluation whenever affordable housing production falls below 30 percent of total construction. The goal was to ensure that a certain amount of affordable housing would be built — but it was unpopular with housing developers.

Lee immediately drummed up a ballot measure in opposition to Kim’s, the Build Housing Now Initiative. The nonbinding policy statement asked the city to affirm his previously stated affordable housing goals. So what was the point?

It contained a poison pill which would have killed Kim’s Housing Balance Requirement. If Lee’s measure was approved, Kim’s would fail. The two politicians were in heated negotiations, trying to diffuse this ballot box arms race up to the very moment Kim’s measure went before the Board of Supervisors for approval at its July 29 meeting.

By the end of that process, Kim’s measure had been gutted.

Mirroring the mayor’s Build Housing Now Initiative, the new Housing Balance Requirement is a nonbinding policy statement asking the city to “affirm the City’s commitment” to support the production or rehabilitation of 30,000 housing units by 2020, with at least 33 percent of those permanently affordable to low or moderate income households.

Kim said she’d won funding pledges and promises for a number of affordable housing projects from the mayor. But Lee did not sign any agreement.

Essentially, the revised measure is a promise to promise, a plan to plan. Kim told us flatly, “We didn’t get the accountability we wanted.”

Political insiders told us the Mayor’s Office put pressure on affordable housing developers, who backed the original measure but later asked Kim to revise it to reflect the mayor’s wishes. The Mayor’s Office allegedly threatened to cut their funding next year, or divert projects to other affordable housing organizations.

Everyone acknowledged the mayor was pissed.

Tenants and Owners Development Corporation, an affordable housing developer in SoMa, sat in on the negotiations. The city paid $170,961 in contracts to TODCO last year, according to the City Controller, and over $250,000 the year before. John Elberling, president of TODCO, and Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, denied the mayor influenced them to ask Kim to revise her measure.

“I didn’t hear my phone ringing saying we’ll pull funding for affordable housers if you don’t do X, Y and Z,” Cohen told us. Yet he acknowledged the mayor “brought certain leverages to bear” in the closed-door negotiations to “compromise” on Kim’s ballot measure. Then everything changed.

“Yes,” Cohen said, “we then convinced the lead supervisor to change her position.”

Despite being labeled as a “compromise,” many observers read this as a sign that Lee had prevailed. Now the same hammer is coming down on Sup. Scott Wiener.

 

BALLOT BATTLE

“I agree with the mayor on many things,” Wiener told us. But the mayor is targeting Wiener’s new Muni funding ballot measure, hoping to knock it off the ballot.

“It’s not personal,” Wiener said. “It’s a policy disagreement.”

The mayor has a transportation bond on the ballot, asking voters to pony up $500 million to fund Muni. But Lee already blew a $33 million hole into Muni’s proposed budget when he decided to pull a Vehicle License Fee measure off the ballot. When that measure began to poll badly, he got cold feet, and withdrew it.

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget outlined a doomsday scenario if the funding ballot measures failed to pass. It would be impossible to improve transit travel time, reliability, or to fund pedestrian and bike safety projects, the SFMTA staff noted in recent budget presentations.

Seeing the potential fallout due to the mayor pulling the VLF measure, Wiener placed his own measure on the ballot, tying expansion for Muni funding to the city’s growing population. If passed, Muni could see a $22 million bump just next year.

Openly, the mayor told reporters he would hold the supervisors who supported Wiener’s ballot measure “accountable.” Lee then initiated a conversation about slashing funding to city programs, signaling that supervisors’ favored projects could be jeopardized.

“Last week, the Board of Supervisors sent a measure to the ballot that the budget does not contemplate,” Kate Howard, the mayor’s budget director, wrote in a memo. She directed departments to cut their budgets by 1.5 percent, and asked for “contingency plans” including a “revisit” of hiring plans and scaling back existing programs and services.

Wiener issued a statement describing the move as “an empty scare tactic.”

“For whatever reason,” he wrote, “the Mayor’s Office felt the need to issue these emergency instructions now — a full year before the fiscal year at issue, in the middle of an election campaign, without even knowing whether the measure will pass.”

John Elberling, president of TODCO, recalled when then-Mayor Willie Brown used the same schoolyard-bully tactics to ensure his favored measures passed.

“The punchline is there were competing ballot measures, one from our side and one from Willie’s side,” Elberling told the Guardian. “There was an effort to reach a compromise, but that failed. I was in the meeting where he shot it down.”

“He said ‘I will make the decisions,’ quote unquote. ‘There is no compromise unless I say there’s a compromise.’ That was quite memorable,” Elberling recalled.

When things didn’t go his way, “Willie Brown took a housing project away from us,” Elberling said.

But Mayor Lee’s bluster and anger is new, and Elberling said it should be taken with a grain of salt. “Is it a bluff? That’s always a question. Real retaliation like Willie did, that’s a real thing. But huff and puff, that goes on all the time.”

 

PROMO: San Francisco Street Food Festival

Natalia Robyns-Kresich
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0

La Cocina’s San Francisco Street Food Festival on Saturday, August 16th, is a celebration of community, culture and entrepreneurial spirit.  Where micro-entrepreneurs and informal food vendors cook next to James Beard Award winners and Michelin-starred chefs.  Where every block is a barbacoa to bhelpuri to banh mi exploration of flavor (although probably not all at once), all on the same street, and all at the same price.  Located in San Francisco’s Mission District, the festival showcases the best of the Bay Area’s local food entrepreneurs and restaurants.  The event is hosted by La Cocina, a non-profit kitchen working to formalize food businesses for low-income and immigrant food entrepreneurs.  Visit sfstreetfoodfest.com for more information and purchase a passport for extra drink tokens and savings on 8/16!

All the buzz: a report from CoffeeCon San Francisco

Sue Vaughan
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2

Whether your caffeinated allegiances lie with Blue Bottle, Four Barrel, or a non-coffee drink, CoffeeCon San Francisco offered something to appeal to everyone’s cravings on July 26. Venturing out of Chicago for the first time, the consumer coffee festival boasted a multitude of roasters — many of them local and therefore well-acquainted with using glorious Hetch Hetchy water in the brewing process — and a wide variety of presentations to intrigue both casual coffee drinkers and connoisseurs. Plus, unlimited coffee samples!

One of CoffeeCon’s immediate strengths was its venue. A far cry from a sterilized, gray environment, the event took place at Terra Gallery & Event Venue, a SOMA art gallery. Paintings and coffee naturally complement each other, and within minutes, it felt like a laid-back Saturday morning, where I admired colorful, contemporary paintings while sipping rich, appropriately bitter coffee. The only way for the event organizers to improve future venues is to recreate the feelings of a cozy coffee shop, which it seems like they made a crack at with the abundant comfy couches. However, I was a little disappointed to see that the live music, which was promised on CoffeeCon’s website to “add atmosphere,” was absent, although I suppose that gives it something to improve on next year.

While I was impressed by the roundup of some of SF’s more recognizable coffee brands and enjoyed their samples, I gravitated more toward more unconventional participants — ones that technically didn’t even sell coffee. Drawn in by the wafels and the company’s clever name, my first stop was Rip van Wafels. Stroopwafels are heavenly, although I’ve always been too impatient and scarfed them down before I could pair them with coffee. There are two main strategies to tackle the combo: you can either one, place the wafel on the edge of the coffee cup, let the steam from the drink infuse the wafel’s caramel flavor, and eat it once the wafel droops or two, say “fuck it” and just dunk the wafel in the coffee. 

In addition to Rip van Wafels, I was a big fan of Project Juice and Torani — all three of which are local companies. I did a double take when I walked past Project Juice’s booth; it seemed just a little out of place at a coffee festival. My hesitation quickly waned. The company sells organic, cold-pressed drinks, including a tasty, healthy coffee alternative: Get Up and Go-Go (claiming to be 67 percent less acidic than normal coffee), which is incidentally made with another one of its drinks, Almond Mylk. The other drinks were just as delicious, although I didn’t expect the ginger to pack such a punch. Torani was a breath of fresh air on the unusually hot SF summer day. The booth served iced coffee with liberal additions of its flavored syrups — vanilla is a popular, traditional favorite, but the s’mores syrup is a tempting flavor that recalls childhood summers.

Though the upper level of the gallery was a perfect setup for the booths, the lower level was much less suited to handle the presentations. Essentially, the lower level is divided into two rooms of similar size. A handful of presentations simultaneously went on in the first room, which was divided into curtained subsections. It was a cacophony; I’d strain to hear my speaker over the presentations happening mere feet away and the louder speaker in the other room, who had the privilege of using a microphone. 

Still, I managed to clearly hear one poignant comment Helen Russell, co-founder and CEO of Equator Coffee & Teas, made: “It’s more than just what’s in the bag.” Russell spoke about social and economic responsibility, telling a heartwarming story about a little girl with a debilitating leg infection she met on a Panama coffee farm. She invested in the girl’s medical treatment and education, and even bought her a horse named Barista (because why not?) Maybe there’s more to coffee than just being a life-restoring elixir in the morning.

Kim’s affordable housing ballot measure gutted then approved

Erica Hanna
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80
Kim’s affordable housing ballot measure gutted then approved

Housing is out of whack in San Francisco, and Sup. Jane Kim’s affordable housing ballot measure would’ve gone a long way towards fixing it. But that was then. Now, things are more uncertain. 

At yesterday’s [Tues/29] Board of Supervisors meeting, the board unanimously approved Kim’s Housing Balance proposal. But this was not her original ballot measure: it was gutted. Or as Kim told the board, “We were not able to come to an agreement on everything I wanted to see.”

Her originally proposed ballot measure required new housing developments to provide 30 percent affordable housing, with an opt-out mechanism possible through a hearing. Currently, developers can provide on-site affordable housing or pay money into a pot of affordable housing funding. That’s the system we’ve got now, and you can check San Francisco’s soaring rents and home prices to see how well that’s working out.

The 30 percent requirement was a strong, clear ask which may have spurred much-needed housing for middle and lower-income San Franciscans. Too strong, apparently. 

Kim’s negotiations with the affordable housing community and Mayor Ed Lee hit more than a few snags, sources told us. The mayor, frankly, didn’t like it. 

We reached out to the Mayor’s Office but didn’t hear back from them before press time. But it doesn’t take a soothsayer to see the mayor wanted the measure dead: He sent a strong signal by creating a rival ballot measure, which, if approved by voters, contained a “poison pill” which would’ve killed Kim’s measure.

“We were still negotiating down to the last minute what we’re announcing today,” Kim told the board. 

Kim’s new ballot measure no longer includes the 30 percent affordable housing requirement. In exchange for dropping the strong mandate, Kim said she wrested a number of concessions from the mayor, including: 

 

  • Pledges of a 33% affordability housing goal for all new development in Central SoMa and future area plans
  • Interim planning controls in the Central SoMa to prevent displacement in advance of the approval of the Central SoMa Plan
  • The creation of a Neighborhood Stabilization Trust to fund Affordable Housing Acquisition & Rehabilitation program
  • Commitment to identify new revenue to accelerate affordable housing projects languishing in the City’s pipeline and land acquisition strategies, including tiered in-lieu fees
  • Pledges to find sufficient funding to jumpstart public housing rehab and HOPE SF –without tapping the Affordable Housing Trust Fund
  • A legislative path forward to continue goals of Housing Balance Act, including unit count

 

Peter Cohen, co-director of the San Francisco Council of Community Housing Organizations, put the compromise this way: “What the supervisor ended up doing [through negotiation] is forcing the city to commit itself to substantive policies for real action, in exchange for that conditional use trigger [contained in the original legislation, which would have subjected market-rate projects to addition scrutiny when affordable housing dropped below 30 percent].”

“Obviously,” Cohen said, “some people think thats a bad tradeoff.”

So Kim lost the 30 percent trigger, but gained a number of compromises. So were they a big win for affordable housing advocates? 

Sources told us the Neighborhood Stabilization Trust is a long sought-after goal of the affordable housing community, but so far no plans have been revealed about how the trust (or any of the other proposals) would be funded. The ballot measure may offer Kim some leverage to make sure those promises are funded by Lee, especially considering San Francisco’s impending 2015 mayoral race. 

“We’re presenting [voters] a ballot measure that constitutes our core values and memorializes the agreement,” Kim told the board. “Housing balance had a large journey, and it does not stop today. Thirty percent: this is a goal we should commit to as a city. Our voters want this.”

Earlier Tuesday, Kim stood with Lee at the unveiling of 60 new affordable housing units on Natoma street. Now, without a mandate, the only guarantee the city will build more affordable housing is the mayor’s word.

Flaming Lotus Girls bring SOMA to Pier 14

Sasha Cuttler
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0

Following in the tradition of Burning Man artworks returning to San Francisco for temporary public installations, my beloved Flaming Lotus Girls have installed their colossal steel and light sculpture SOMA at Pier 14. And this Friday, Aug. 1, they’ll be hosting a dance party reception from 5-9pm to celebrate the occasion.

Longtime Guardian readers may remember the 2005 immersion journalism project when I worked for with the Flaming Lotus Girls for nine months documenting the creation of a large-scale art project and what motivates people to volunteer their time and energy for such an undertaking (The reporting for that article, “Angels of the Apocalypse,” helped form the basis of my 2011 book, The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture).

Since then, the Flaming Lotus Girls have gone on to create even more impossibly epic creations for Burning Man and other festivals around the world, from Robodoc in Europe to the Electric Daisy Festival in Las Vegas. But this is the first time that one of their massive artistic creations has ended up back in a prominent spot in San Francisco, where they work out of the Box Shop on Hunters Point.

So go check out SOMA and stop by this Friday to mix and mingle with the Flaming Lotus Girls.  

Sailing through

Michael Redmond
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3
Sailing through

culture@sfbg.com

THE WEEKNIGHTER It opened a couple years ago at this point. Someone had said to me, “Hey man you been to Southern Pacific Brewing yet?” I hadn’t even heard of it, “What the fuck is a Southern Pacific Brewing?” I asked. A giant, 10,000-square-foot brewpub had just opened almost directly behind my regular bar, The Homestead, and, like, two blocks from my apartment — and I hadn’t even heard of it. Well maybe it’s because it’s not my apartment anymore, I thought to myself. I’d recently moved out of the neighborhood after breaking up with my long-term girlfriend and was sleeping on my cousin’s couch… for a few months.

You know, just some SF shit.

It seemed like my life, my neighborhood, and my city were all spiraling, not exactly out of control, but past mere comprehension. Besides the upheaval of my personal life, San Francisco was just beginning to swell with some kind of sickness, one that it had somehow survived a decade before. And my neighborhood, the Mission, seemed to be the place on San Francisco’s body where the sores of the Money Virus were showing the most. Restaurants were opening on Valencia faster than zippers at the (soon-to-be-closed) Lusty Lady, and little shops and bookstores that had been around for decades were getting tossed out with the trash.

But the thing that worried me the most was that I, Broke-Ass Stuart, the guy who likes to think he knows this city better than anyone, hadn’t even heard of Southern Pacific Brewing. “Have I lost a step?” I wondered. I knew I had to check it out.

All anyone had really said about Southern Pacific Brewing (620 Treat Ave, SF. www.southernpacificbrewing.com) was that it was HUGE! The ceiling is probably 2.5 stories high and the old warehouse space holds not just the bar-restaurant but also the entire brewing operation as well. I noticed all this when I walked in that first night, despite the fact that I was pretty trashed. I’d downed some booze at Dear Mom, banged a few back at Bender’s, hoovered some shots at the Homestead, and then sauntered into Southern Pacific. I was drowning in heartbreak and — that friend’s couch — numbing backache.

“It is huge,” I said to whichever of my no-goodnik friends I was with that night. We took in the environs. There was a sizable crowd, lots of good-looking people who probably would’ve been terrified to go that deep into the Mission a few years before. Thrillist or something like that had just blown the place up that day so all the Chads and Madisons from other parts of the city were there to explore a “hot new neighborhood spot,” I figured.

And then I looked around some more and saw plenty of Mission locals and natives whom I’d spent my twenties running around the neighborhood dive bars with. It was a good mix of everything the Mission was at the moment, for better and for worse. I liked the place immediately.

A bit later I ran into a girl I hadn’t seen in awhile and we talked about the city and its changes and about all the things that happen to you while you’re trying to grow up. And then it was last call and my friends were gone so the girl took me home with her. I hadn’t slept in a bed in a long time, so for at least that night my heartache and my backache were put to rest.

Stuart Schuffman aka Broke-Ass Stuart is a travel writer, poet, and TV host. You can find his online shenanigans at www.brokeassstuart.com

 

Democracy wow!

Michael Redmond
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0
Democracy wow!

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER From a certain angle, democracy is just one big bout of audience participation. So when playwright Aaron Landsman, director Mallory Catlett, and designer Jim Findlay started kicking around the idea of somehow staging a city council meeting, of all things, the notion that the audience itself should enact it must have come as a eureka moment.

It is indeed the charm and challenge of City Council Meeting that, while conceived and instigated by the New York–based artistic trio, the show is ultimately a collaboration with whoever shows up, plus a few semi-rehearsed locals in on the running of the thing. These latter include a group of “staffers” who help guide participants through an actual city council meeting — or more precisely, a seamless composite of public transcripts of such meetings held around the US in the past couple of years, plus an artistic flourish or two. For the San Francisco premiere (running this weekend at local co-presenter Z Space), the staffers include Claudia Anderson, Awele, Dwayne Calizo, Jennifer Chien, Sarah Curran, and me.

Moreover, the piece always concludes with an original ending crafted specifically for the locale in which it plays (that, so far, has been Houston, Texas; Tempe, Ariz.; and New York City). This time, the play’s unique final movement, a creative response to what has preceded it, was built in partnership with Bay Area director-choreographer Erika Chong Shuch.

As a staffer, your job is to help facilitate the encounter between the play and its audience. Since that’s kind of what a critic does anyway, I reasoned, and given that everyone in the audience is already at least minimally involved in the production, I signed on for a more inside track on City Council Meeting‘s three-day San Francisco run. At the first rehearsal, director Catlett introduced us to our binders, which contained things we’d need, including something like the script of the performance.

(There is no definitive script. The play is an un-distillable architecture of discrete dialogue, directions on note cards, live and recorded video feeds, and whispered cues, not to mention the unforeseeable but pretty much guaranteed contingency. And perspectives and experiences will vary pretty widely depending on the physical and dramatic space one chooses to occupy: council member, speaker, bystander.)

It was a little confusing, frankly. But halfway through a swift two weeks of rehearsal, I’m seeing more clearly the shape of the show as well as appreciating the subtleties in its construction. Like much contemporary participatory performance, or what’s sometimes called “social practice” art, City Council Meeting moves the bulk of the action and agency onto its audience as a way to simultaneously investigate and manifest our social circumstances and potentialities. It is therefore purposely unsettled — participants are always themselves and yet tasked with enacting the words of other real people like, or more often not like, themselves.

The sheer awkwardness of it is really the point. Is this a study, a parody, an incitement, an invocation? In enacting the form, does the piece share in some of its power? A strange combination of sincerity and dry humor runs throughout it all, as the double-consciousness built into the piece throws everything gleefully up in the air, suspended somewhere between the rehearsal of dead forms (whether political or aesthetic) and the activation of new ones.

That’s a salubrious position, encouraged by the context at large. Or so I couldn’t help thinking. Was it merely coincidence that after leaving rehearsal one night I walked directly into road blocks, sirens, and hundreds of cops — the wake left by a president and secretary of state on political shopping sprees? Is the power that creates such disruption, traffic, and annoyance wherever it goes, like some heedless B-movie giant, even related to the power invested in local government? Was it just coincidence that after leaving another rehearsal a few days later, the Chronicle building was papered over in posters reading, “the media lies as Gaza dies,” this time the unsanctioned wake of a protest on behalf of the powerless?

For a moment there, Occupy took back government from representative bodies and held it in the bodies of real people, acting on their own behalf. It was wild, unexpected, and startlingly easy. It was also strikingly creative — and art was everywhere in the movement. It’s become clearer since then that the relationship between art and politics is a much more serious question than many of us had realized. We can’t afford a paucity of imagination in either. We need the room and wherewithal to ask questions. If nothing else, City Council Meeting asks questions. Including these:

“Are we working together? Are we capable of it? Is that why this structure is here? Or is that what the structure prevents?” *

CITY COUNCIL MEETING

Fri/1-Sat/2, 7pm; Sun/3, 2pm, $20

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

www.zspace.org

 

This Week’s Picks: July 30 – August 5, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

WEDNESDAY 30

 

 

The Budos Band

If you ever hear someone say they find instrumental music boring, all you need to do is point them in the direction of the Budos Band, a 10- to 13-member (depending on the year) Afro-soul group that collectively, with its energetic meanderings through jazz and deep-pocket funk with just the right smattering of pop sweetness, commands more attention on stage than many a lead singer I’ve seen. Daptone Records labelmate Sharon Jones is having a banner year — and with the Budos’ first album since 2010, Burnt Offering, due out Oct. 21, we imagine the record company is too. Head to the Independent prepared to get sweaty. (Emma Silvers)

8pm, $25

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

www.theindependentsf.com

 

 

THURSDAY 31

 

 

 

Matthew Curry

Matthew Curry may only be 19, but the burgeoning blues guitarist has already had a career that many musicians spend their entire lives trying to accumulate. The Normal, Illinois native recently came off of a summer tour with Bay Area legends the Steve Miller Band and has already released an acclaimed album made up entirely of originals. His music isn’t just Stevie Ray Vaughan rehashing either — his first disk, Electric Religion, is made up of tracks that explore dynamics, confessional lyricism, and modern production. “Bad Bad Day,” an almost seven-minute jam with prolonged solos by all members of the band, is exhilarating: When Curry comes in on vocals four minutes in, he sounds like a gruff and aged Southern bluesman of the ’50s; he’s that throwback and that mature. Along with his band, The Fury (which is made up of equally talented players who are, on average, about twice Curry’s age), the group is in the midst of a cross-country odyssey that sees them opening for the Doobie Brothers and Peter Frampton. Yoshi’s will provide a break from larger venues and a chance to see Curry’s intricate guitar work up close. (David Kurlander)

8pm, $12-14

Yoshi’s

1330 Fillmore, SF

(415) 655-5600

www.yoshis.com

 

 

Pretty In Ink

Featuring highlights from the personal archives of comics historian Trina Robbins, Pretty In Ink (Fantagraphic Books) looks at the work of some of the top women cartoonists from the early 20th century, including Ethel Hays, Edwina Dumm, Nell Brinkley, and Ramona Fradon. An exhibit of the same name is currently on display at the Cartoon Art Museum, with original artwork, photographs, and other rare items featuring characters such as Miss Fury and Flapper Fanny — don’t miss your chance to head down tonight for a reception and party celebrating both, where Robbins will be on hand to autograph the toon-filled tome. (Sean McCourt)

6-8pm, free

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) CAR-TOON

www.cartoonart.org

 

 

FRIDAY 1

 

 

 

Omar Souleyman

Though Syrian singer Omar Souleyman’s been performing for two decades and allegedly has over 500 releases to his name, you may not have heard of him until recently. Formerly a regular performer at weddings in Syria, Souleyman performs dabke music, meant to accompany the traditional line dance of the same name. Wild videos of these dances and performances found their way onto YouTube and attracted the attention of Seattle label Sublime Frequencies, which released several compilations of his work and brought him to the attention of the world’s music cognoscenti. A Four Tet-produced album and a few inexplicable Bjork remixes later, he’s become something of an underground star, performing for audiences across the world — including in San Francisco, where he’s set to most likely fill The Independent tonight. (Daniel Bromfield)

9pm, $20

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

 

 

Xiu Xiu

Twelve albums and 15 years in, Xiu Xiu remains one of the most fearless and uncompromising bands in the American rock underground. Bandleader and songwriter Jamie Stewart speaks to the part of the brain that craves the twisted and taboo, but doesn’t dare make itself known. At best, he’s like that friend you can talk to about just about anything; at worst, he’s like your own fears, screaming in your ears and telling you everything you’re thinking is sick and wrong. Approaching Xiu Xiu’s music takes mental preparation and a certain mindset. But if you think you’re ready, put on one of their records (I’d recommend Knife Play or Fabulous Muscles, but they’re all good) and trek out to see them at Bottom of the Hill. (Daniel Bromfield)

9:30pm, $14

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 626-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

 

 

Real Estate

As members try to shrug off the stereotype of a “beach band,” there’s something about Real Estate’s mellow guitar pop that resonates with listeners, telling them the band definitely isn’t the modern Jersey equivalent of the Beach Boys. Shaking off a reliance on overdubs, the band recorded almost each take on its newest album, Atlas, live, which bodes well for the Fillmore’s audience tonight. Grab a friend who doesn’t babble about housing prices when you ask if they like Real Estate and prepare for a musical journey of sorts, as the tracks on Atlas are meant to compose a personal road map for the listener. (Amy Char)

With Kevin Morby, Corey Cunningham

9pm, $22.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-3000

www.thefillmore.com

 

 

Brainwashing The Ride

Seldom has there been a more romantic musical coupling than that of Katie Ann and MC Zill. Ann, an indie singer who recently recorded her debut album, the heart-wrenching The Ride, at Goo Goo Dolls frontman Robbie Takac’s studio in New York, met the socially conscious Zill (his website is mcofpositivity.com) during her recording process, when she hit his car during a stressful day of outtakes. Their friendship morphed into an engagement, and the duo took to the road to spread their music together. The juxtaposition of Ann’s redemptive lyrics and Zill’s existential queries evoke the power pop/hip-hop mashup of later Eminem. The artists have fused the songs from their debuts into alternately sung and rapped tracks that promise an evening of emotional and stylistic fluctuation. (David Kurlander)

8pm, $10

50 Mason Social House

50 Mason, SF

(415) 433-5050

www.50masonsocialhouse.com

 

 

 

SATURDAY 2

 

 

Film Night in the park: Clueless

Watch a movie alone on your couch Saturday night? As if! This week’s free film screening, 1995’s Clueless, is timeless. Way timeless. Forget about feeling like a heifer and happily gorge on ice cream from Bi-Rite, a community partner of the outdoor film series, before the movie begins — don’t forget to bring some herbal refreshments. Tonight’s selection is this summer’s third movie in the series, following mid-July’s Frozen, and let’s be real, Coolio’s “Rollin’ With My Homies” totally has more musical merit than that annoying song about a snowman. And sure, this isn’t LA, but the event still offers valet — bicycle valet, that is. So it’s totally okay if you’re a virgin who can’t drive. (Amy Char)

Dusk, free

Dolores Park

19th St. & Dolores, SF

(415) 554-9521

www.sfntf.squarespace.com

 

 

 

Art + Soul Blues & BBQ Blowout

Live blues music all day in the sunshine, paired with barbecue cooked up by 40 top “pitmasters” from all over California. Need I say more? Oakland’s Art + Soul festival has long been a gem in the city’s cultural crown, with visual art, kids’ activities, and killer musical lineups, this year drawing old-school local favorites like Tommy Castro and the Painkillers and “Oakland Blues Divas” Margie Turner, Ella Pennewell, and more for a showcase presented by the Bay Area Blues Society. How good will the barbecue be? Mayor Jean Quan is presenting California “Chef of the Year” Tanya Holland of Oakland’s Brown Sugar Kitchen and B-Side BBQ with a key to the city. So, you know: Officially, city-decreed, smokin.’ (Emma Silvers)

Through Sun/3, noon to 6pm

$10 adults, $7 seniors and youth, kids 12 and under free

14th and Broadway, Oakl.

www.artandsouloakland.com

 

 

SUNDAY 3


The Sturgeon Queens

This quick documentary, which celebrates the 100th anniversary of iconic Jewish fishmongers/New York deli nosh-purveyors Russ & Daughters, is a must-see for delicatessen aficionados, or food history buffs, or, you know, anyone who likes to get really hungry while watching movies. At the film’s center are 100-year-old Hattie Russ Gold and 92-year-old Anne Russ Federman, the daughters after which the store was named and the heirs to their family’s culinary Lower East Side legacy; guest appearances by loyal celebrity fans of the store include Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mario Batali, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. (Emma Silvers)

12:15pm, $14 (as part of SFJFF)

The Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

www.sfjff.org

 

MONDAY 4

 

Bad Suns

The 2012 release of “Cardiac Arrest” was supposed to be a one-time deal from Bad Suns — the band planned to have only one song to its name. But not surprisingly, the catchy, sleek track caught people’s attention and blew up on the radio. Opening for groups such as Geographer and The 1975 in the past year or so, the LA-based band finally sets out on its own tour to promote its debut LP, Language & Perspective. With a more impressive repertoire than the members might’ve imagined, the album is comprised of sunshine-infused ’80s-tastic New Wave tunes. Fellow Southern California musical compadres Klev and Hunny join Bad Suns tonight. (Amy Char)

With Klev, Hunny

8pm, $15

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com


TUESDAY 5


Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Even Clap Your Hands Say Yeah couldn’t have predicted the impact the unassuming Philly band’s self-titled debut had on the music world when it dropped in 2005. First blogs hopped on the hype, then Bowie and Byrne, then The Office. Seemingly overnight, the band and its leader Alec Ounsworth became one of the most polarizing entities in the indie world, at once beloved and derided for their off-kilter vocals and bizarro art-pop. Their second album, Some Loud Thunder, helped members shake off some of the buzzband backlash they’d accumulated, but now that they’re practically elder statesmen, their fan reputation is only growing. Catch the band at The Independent — before music critics decide they were the Talking Heads of their time in 10 years. (Daniel Bromfield)

9pm, $20

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

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Of borders and love songs

Steven T. Jones
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0
Of borders and love songs

esilvers@sfbg.com

LEFT OF THE DIAL The way in which Diana Gameros first came to America is a world away from the heart-wrenching images we’re currently seeing in the news media of children who’ve been sent, on their own, to the U.S. border from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. At 13, she arrived on an airplane from her home city of Juarez, Mexico; the plan was to stay with an aunt who lived in Michigan for the summer. When Gameros visited her cousin’s school there, and saw that it had a swimming pool, among other luxurious-seeming facilities, her aunt asked if she wanted to go to that school and learn English. Gameros couldn’t say yes fast enough. She wound up staying three years, returning to Mexico for the second half of high school, and then moving back to the U.S. for college.

So no, no one ever sent her out on foot for the border, hoping that on the other side lay someone or something that could mean a brighter future.

And yet: “I’m kind of a fanatic when it comes to following this country’s immigration system and its history,” says Gameros, a fixture in San Francisco’s singer-songwriter scene for her thoughtful, melodic story-songs that contain both English and Spanish (she’s been referred to as the Latin Feist).

“I think there’s a lot that most American people don’t know. You hear people judging, calling these parents irresponsible…it’s so much more complicated than that,” she says. “People don’t know how the U.S.’s actions have affected these countries. People are risking their children’s lives because they need to be here. It’s not for the American dream, they’re not here to buy a nice car, a big house. They’re here because they want to eat, have a roof over their heads, fulfill basic necessities. It’s frustrating. There’s so much ignorance.”

Her unique perspective on border issues is one reason Gameros was selected to perform at MEX I AM: Live It to Believe It, a nearly weeklong festival organized by the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in conjunction with SF’s Consulate General of Mexico. Bringing together musicians, actors, visual artists, and academics from throughout Mexico from July 31 through Aug. 5, the festival includes classical, indie, and pop music and dance, lectures and discussion of Mexico’s achievements and challenges, and a meeting of minds around border issues.

The program in which Gameros will perform, on the evening of Friday, Aug. 1, is called “Ideas: North and South of the Border,” and aims to explore innovation in the sciences, arts, and culture in Mexico. Among the other speakers: astronaut Jose Hernandez, who grew up in the Central Valley as the son of immigrant farmers; he’ll discuss his journey from childhood (he didn’t learn to read or speak in English until he was 12) through getting a degree in electrical engineering and eventually being tapped by NASA. Rosario Marin, the first Mexican-American woman to serve as Treasurer of the United States, will also be present, along with Favianna Rodriguez, a transnational visual artist whose work “depicts how women, migrants and outsiders are affected by global politics, economic inequality, patriarchy and interdependence” and the director of CultureStrike, an arts organization that works to organize artists, writers, and performers around migrant rights.

On the afternoon of Saturday, Aug. 2, actress-dancer Vicky Araico will perform her award-winning monologue Juana In a Million, which chronicles an undocumented immigrant’s quest to find home.

The other musical performances throughout the week run the gamut from Natalia Lafourcade, a two-time Latin Grammy winning pop singer, to Murcof + Simon Geilfus, an electronic audio-visual collaboration, the award-winning percussion ensemble Tambuco, renowned composer and jazz musician Hector Infanzon, and more.

Gameros, whose 2013 album Eterno Retorno (Eternal Return) features a song called “SB 1070” (after the racist Arizona law designed to prosecute undocumented immigrants), says she thinks her music can be a subtle form of education, an artistic entry point for people who might not know or think much about immigration issues.

“It’s a topic that touches me deeply, so my protest music is my offering, my way to say I’m with you and I stand with you,” she says. “Though if you listen to my lyrics you might think many [songs] are love songs, or written to a lover who didn’t treat me right.”

Gameros adds that she hopes the Latino community in San Francisco will embrace the festival and show up, a sentiment that carries a particular weight as housing prices in areas like the Mission are changing the local face of the local Latino population. “Unless its the symphony doing something with a Mexican artist, we don’t really have access to events like this that are mainstream cultural celebrations, normally,” she says. “And there’s such a fascinating group of people all here for it — I just hope as many people as possible take advantage of it, that they come and hear these stories we have to tell.”

 

MEX I AM: LIVE IT TO BELIEVE IT

July 31 through Aug. 5, prices and times vary

Most events at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org/mex-i-am

What she sees

Michael Redmond
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1

cheryl@sfbg.com

SFJFF The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival opens July 24 with The Green Prince, a documentary based on the memoir of Mosab Hassan Yousef. The son of a founding member of Hamas, he worked as an undercover agent for the Israeli secret service for 10 years, sharing a profound trust with his Shin Bet handler. The closing night film is also a documentary about a conflicted childhood that paves the way for tough choices later in life — but if Little White Lie is also a personal story, it’s a far less political one.

It’s a thoroughly American story, telling the tale of filmmaker Lacey Schwartz, who was raised by her parents — both products of “a long line of New York Jews” — in the decidedly homogeneous town of Woodstock. All of Schwartz’s grade-school friends had light skin and straight hair, while Schwartz was dark, with coarse curls. Lovingly recorded snapshots and home movies of her Bat Mitzvah and other occasions suggest a happy young life, but the “600-pound gorilla in the room,” as one relative puts it, was that Schwartz did not look white, despite ostensibly having white parents. Once she reached her teenage years — and particularly after she enrolled in a high school that had African American kids among its population — she began to realize the go-to family explanation (yeah … that one Sicilian way back in the family tree …) was nothing but a flimsy excuse holding back a mountain of denial.

Now in her 30s, Schwartz has overcome years of identity confusion and is self-confidently assertive in a manner that suggests years of therapy (and indeed, we see footage of sessions she filmed for a student project at Georgetown, where she found a supportive community among the Black Student Alliance). Her parents, however, are not quite as psychologically evolved, although her mother — a pleasant woman who has nonetheless been content to spend her life surfing the waves of passive-aggression — eventually opens up about the Schwartz family’s worst-kept secret. The aptly-titled Little White Lie clocks in at just over an hour, but it packs in a miniseries’ worth of emotional complexity and honesty. Schwartz will be on hand at the film’s San Francisco and Berkeley screenings — the Q&As are sure to be lively.

Another, rather different tale of women using cameras in pursuit of the truth surfaces in Judith Montell and Emily Scharlatt’s In the Image, a doc about Palestinian women who work with Israeli human-rights NGO B’Tselem. Group members, who include high school girls and middle-aged mothers, are given small video cameras to keep an eye on protests, harassment, and anti-Palestinian violence perpetrated by Israeli soldiers and settlers. (In one disturbing clip, we see a small child launch a giant spitball at the lens.) Able to capture footage in areas deemed off-limits to mainstream journalists, In the Image shows how B’Tselem brings investigative reporting to the front lines, and then to the world (thanks, YouTube). It’s also an empowering outlet for the camerawomen-activists, for whom career opportunities are otherwise as rare as are opportunities for artistic expression.

Women are also front and center in a number of SFJFF’s stronger narrative entries. Writer-director Talya Lavie won Best Narrative Feature and the Nora Ephron Prize at Tribeca for Zero Motivation, a pitch-black comedy about female frenemies jammed into close quarters while doin’ time in the Israeli Defense Forces. Most movies prefer to show soldiers in combat, and Zero Motivation does just that — if “combat” means fighting to avoid boring admin work, to achieve the highest score at Minesweeper, to fuck up the most extravagantly, or with staple guns. “There’s a war going on — get a grip!” a superior officer reminds self-centered slacker Daffi (Nelly Tager), and that’s more or less the only current-affairs statement uttered in a film that’s mostly concerned with the agonizing task of achieving responsible young adulthood.

Another coming-of-age tale unfolds in Hanna’s Journey, director and co-writer Julia von Heinz’s drama about a Berlin business-school student (Karoline Schuch) whose résumé is lacking in the sort of warm-fuzzy community service that’ll elevate her in the cutthroat job market. Her estranged mother, who works with a German group placing volunteers in Israel, proves unexpectedly helpful, and Hanna is soon winging her way to work with developmentally disabled adults in Tel Aviv, leaving her sleek wardrobe and yuppie boyfriend behind.

Hanna’s Journey has all the potential to be a pat story about a German woman coming to terms not just with her own life choices, but with complicated family history (hint: it involves World War II) only a trip to Israel can unearth. There’s also a conveniently hunky Israeli (Doron Amit) in the mix. But! Schuch, who resembles Jessica Chastain, brings authenticity to a character who morphs from superficial to soulful in what might otherwise seem like too-rapid time. She also benefits from a subtle, nicely detailed script, which avoids stereotypes and oversimplification, and is not without moments of wicked humor (“German girls are easy — it’s the guilt complex!”)

Less successful at achieving subtelty is For a Woman, writer-director Diane Kurys’ latest autobiographical drama. Here, she explores her parents’ troubled marriage, inspired by a photograph of an uncle nobody in the family wanted to discuss. The fictionalized version begins as Kurys stand-in Anne (Sylvie Testud) and older sister Tania (Julie Ferrier) have just buried their mother, who was long-divorced from the girls’ ailing father.

For a Woman takes place mostly in flashbacks to post-war Lyon, where young Jewish couple Léna (Mélanie Thierry) and Michel (Benoit Magimel) settle and have Tania soon after. Russia-born Michel is a devoted Communist, and he’s overjoyed — yet understandably suspicious — when long-lost brother Jean (Nicolas Duvauchelle) suddenly appears in France, having somehow escaped the USSR. Michel’s political paranoia blinds him to the fact that Léna — who married him to escape a death camp (he didn’t know her, but couldn’t resist her icy blond beauty) — is bored with her stay-at-home-mom life, and has taken an unwholesome interest in his mysterious little bro.

There’s more to the story than that, of course, but For a Woman never goes much deeper than a made-for-TV melodrama: entertaining in the moment, but ultimately forgettable. And even gorgeous period details (Michel’s car is to die for) can’t make up for a frame story that feels rather wan next to the film’s cloak-and-dagger main plotline. 2

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

July 24-Aug. 10, most shows $10-$14

Various Bay Area venues

www.sfjff.org

 

Alerts: July 30 – August 5, 2014

Michael Redmond
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0

WEDNESDAY 30

 

Screening: The Internet’s Own Boy

David Brower Center, Goldman Theater, 2150 Allston, Berk. 7pm, $10 advance/$12 door/ $5 students This film tells the story of programming prodigy and information activist Aaron Swartz, whose groundbreaking work in social justice and political organizing, combined with his aggressive approach to information access, ensnared him in legal nightmare that dragged on for two years. It was a battle that ended with the taking of his own life, at the age of 26. The film was directed, written, and produced by Brian Knappenberger. This screening of The Internet’s Own Boy is part of the David Brower Center’s Reel to Real documentary film series.

THURSDAY 31

 

San Francisco Women’s Political Committee: Summer in the City Awards

Chambers, 601 Eddy, SF. 6-8pm, $15 for members, $35 for non-members (includes membership). Join the San Francisco Women’s Political Committee in recognizing the 2014 Summer in the City Honorees: Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (Lifetime Achievement award), Sup. London Breed (Inspiration award), and Rebecca Solnit (Local Heroine award).

SUNDAY 3

 

Fundraiser for Marty’s Place

1165 Treat, SF. 2-4pm, donation requested. Founded by Richard Purcell and named for his brother Marty, who died of AIDS, Marty’s Place is an old Victorian house that served as a place for indigent people with AIDS to call home for nearly 20 years. When Purcell died in August 2011, he left the place to Dolores Street Community Services (DSCS) with the agreement that it would not be sold for 10 years and would remain a place for indigent people with HIV/AIDS. DSCS is now leasing the property to the SF Community Land Trust (SFCLT) which, with the help of LGBT community housing advocates, will set up it up as a co-op for low-income people with AIDS. But funding is needed for renovations so that it can become a co-op for 6-9 low-income individuals with HIV. Visit Marty’s Place for this fundraiser, hear live music by Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Lupe Arreola, and Joel Mark, and pledge your support.

 

Reducing phone charges helps inmates connect with families

Michael Redmond
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11

OPINION

It’s expensive being poor. Families of inmates often live on the edge of insolvency.

I know a mother of two, married to a man doing time in the San Francisco jail, who is trapped between the domino effect of poverty and the desire to maintain her children’s relationship with their father. The trouble began when her credit rating dropped due to late bill payments, which triggered the repossession of her car, which put her job at risk because public transit couldn’t get her to work on-time.

Now she relies on loan centers that charge high interest rates or paying the rent on her dilapidated apartment late, all while trying to stave off eviction. She says she contemplates leaving San Francisco on a daily basis. To do so would improve her financial situation, but would reduce her children’s already limited access to their father.

Depending if they can afford the time it takes to take transit to County Jail 5 in San Bruno for a weekly visit, or the unreasonable cost of a phone call, this family must literally choose between putting food on the table or connecting with their loved one.

Research shows that inmates who preserve ties with their families, especially their spouses and children, have a much better chance of staying out of jail once released. Keeping in touch is almost an impossible reality considering the jolting cost of making a $1 per minute in-state, long-distance or pre-paid collect call.

Until a cap on interstate calling rates was introduced earlier this year by the Federal Communications Commission, the telephone companies providing inmate phone services were largely unregulated. As a result, correctional facilities allowed inmate phone service providers to charge jacked-up calling rates in exchange for a cut of the revenue, paid to the facility in the form of a phone commission. Because these commissions are used to fund services for inmates, this decades-old practice created a paradoxical relationship between inmates, inmate phone service companies, prisons, and county jails.

In the San Francisco Sheriff Department’s most recent contract with its phone service provider, Global Tel*Link (GTL), we broke this counterproductive cycle and changed the way we do business. We’ve dramatically reduced calling rates and surcharges for inmate phone calls, including a 70 percent reduction for a 15-minute collect or pre-paid collect, in-state, long-distance call, from $13.35 to $4.05, and a 32 percent reduction for a 15-minute debit, in-state, long-distance call, from $5.98 to $4.05.

Given the city’s longtime dependence on phone commissions to fund rehabilitative programs, like Resolve to Stop the Violence and the One Family visitation program, reducing inmate calling rates endangers program stability while spotlighting an addiction that’s shared by almost every prison and jail in the country: balancing incarceration budgets on the backs of people who can afford it least. According to the US Department of Justice, 80 percent of families who have a member incarcerated live at or below poverty levels.

Fortunately, our department recently won a settlement against GTL’s predecessor, enabling us to fund programs for several years without taking a hit. But, in the long run, City Hall must realize that gouging poor people doesn’t improve public safety. It punishes innocent children by limiting their communication with their family, subordinates the healing value of family reunification to profit, and strengthens the inter-generational resentment that is laced between impoverished communities and the justice system that is supposed to protect them.

Gratified with the unanimous support of our phone rate reform by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department is proud to be one of the first county jail systems in the nation to dramatically reduce its telecom rates.

Our next policy reform will be the unregulated, exorbitant cost of inmate commissary fees and commissions.

Ross Mirkarimi is elected Sheriff of San Francisco

Everyone’s hospital

Michael Redmond
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15
Everyone’s hospital

rebecca@sfbg.com

“I am a survivor of the AIDS epidemic,” Daniel volunteered, beginning to tell us his very San Francisco story.

He was diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s. Working in fine dining rooms of San Francisco hotels at the time, he had health insurance, and had gone to Kaiser for an unrelated procedure. That led to a blood test — and then wham.

“They just bluntly, without any compassion, just told me: You have it,” Daniel said. “Like telling you that you have a pimple on your nose or something.”

All around him, friends were dying from the disease. “I didn’t freak out, because that’s just my personality,” he recalled. “I know a lot of people who have been diagnosed, and they want to take their lives or whatever.”

Today, he’s unemployed and living on a fixed income. He lost his left eye years ago to an infection linked to HIV; he now has a prosthetic eye.

“I’m single, disabled, and low-income,” reflected Daniel, who didn’t want his last name printed due to privacy concerns. Originally from El Salvador, his family came to the U.S. when he was 10 and Daniel has permanent resident status. But despite the disadvantages he faces, Daniel still isn’t freaking out. His medical needs are met.

He got on MediCal after having to drop Kaiser. “And then I ended up at SF General,” he said, “with some of the most professional staff, doctors rated worldwide. It has some of the most professional health care providers for HIV, all in one place.”

Daniel is one satisfied San Francisco General Hospital patient, and he might as well be a poster child for how public health is supposed to work in big cities. Rather than being deprived of primary care and then showing up at the emergency room with preventable complications stemming from his disease, he’s keeping everything in check with regular doctor’s visits — and he can access this high level of care even though he’s on a very tight budget.

There’s a concerted effort underway in the San Francisco Department of Public Health to give more patients precisely the kind of experience Daniel has had, while also expanding its role as the region’s go-to trauma center.

But a difficult and uncertain road lies ahead of that destination, shaped in part by federal health care reform. The new course is being charted amid looming financial uncertainty and with more patients expected to enter the system and the doors of SF General.

Not every General Hospital patient is as lucky as Daniel. For scores of others, SF General is the last stop after a long, rough ride.

 

EMERGENCY CARE

Craig Gordon and Dan Goepel drive an ambulance for the San Francisco Fire Department, regularly charging through congested city streets with sirens blaring as they rush patients to SF General and other care facilities. They see it all: Patients who are violent and psychotic and need to be restrained in the back of the ambulance, folks who’ve just suffered burns or gunshot wounds.

Sometimes, in the thick of all of this, SF General’s Emergency Department is closed to ambulances — in public safety lingo, it’s called being “on diversion” — so the medics will have to reroute to different hospitals.

SF General might go on diversion because the Emergency Department is too slammed to take on anyone new, or because it’s too short-staffed to take on new patients without pushing nurse-to-patient ratios to unsafe levels.

For serious trauma cases, strokes, heart attacks, or traumatic brain injuries, however, the doors are always open. Patients with less-serious cases are the ones to be turned away when the hospital is on diversion.

Patients who wind up en route to SF General in Gordon and Goepel’s ambulance might be living on the margins. “If you’re kind of living on the cusp … you’re not likely going to pursue getting a primary care physician,” Goepel pointed out. “When something comes up, then you find yourself in the emergency room.”

Or their patients might be getting rescued from a spectacularly awful situation, like a plane crash. In this densely populated, earthquake-prone region, there is only one top-level trauma center between Highway 92 and the Golden Gate Bridge: SF General. Anyone in the city or northern San Mateo County unfortunate enough to experience a life-threatening incident — a car wreck, shooting, nasty fall, boating accident — winds up there, regardless of whether they’re rich or poor, indigent or insured. Ranked as a Level 1 trauma center, SF General is equipped to provide the highest level of care.

“In the summer, when school is out, we have a high season of gunshot wounds and stab wounds,” explained Chief Nursing Officer Terri Dentoni, who recently led the Guardian on a tour of the Emergency Department. “When it’s really nice outside, you have a lot of people who get into bike accidents, car accidents. … Last week, we were just inundated with critical care patients.”

Around 100,000 patients flow through SF General’s doors each year, and more than 3,900 need trauma care. On July 6, 2013, when Asiana Airlines’ Flight 214 crash-landed at San Francisco International Airport, more than 60 crash victims were rushed to SF General with critical issues ranging from organ damage to spinal injuries.

“It was a very big tragedy,” Dentoni said. “But it was amazing how many people we took care of, and how well we took care of them.”

Aside from being the sole trauma center, SF General is also designated as the county’s safety-net hospital, making it the only healthcare option for thousands who are uninsured, poor, undocumented, homeless, or some combination thereof. This makes for complex cases. Patients might require translators, be locked in psychiatric episodes, or need a social worker to help them get to a medical respite facility after being discharged if they’re too weak to fend for themselves and don’t have anyplace to go. There isn’t always a place to send them off to.

“We’re seeing people who are dealing with poverty, and often homelessness, in addition to mental health issues,” explained Jason Negron, a registered nurse in the Emergency Department. “You’re seeing patients who often have a number of things going on. Someone who has multiple illnesses — HIV, heart failure, Hepatitis C — even under the best of circumstances, they would be juggling medications. So what happens when they’re out on the streets?”

San Francisco ranks high on the list of health-conscious cities, a haven for organic food aficionados, yoga addicts, and marathon runners. It’s also a world of high stakes struggles and mounting economic pressures. With the city’s skyrocketing cost of living, sudden job loss can spell disaster for someone without a financial cushion. SF General is the catchall medical care facility for anyone who’s slipped through the cracks.

But while rank-and-file hospital staff must tackle grueling day-to-day problems, like how to juggle multiple patients with complex health issues when all the beds are full and the hospital is understaffed, hospital administrators face an altogether different challenge.

For the past several years, the city’s Department of Public Health has been preparing for the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, the federal policy that is reshaping the health care landscape. Since public hospitals are mandated to provide safety-net care, they are uniquely impacted by the ACA.

Even with a sweeping new rule mandating health insurance for all, some segment of the population will nevertheless remain uninsured. But they’ll still need medical care — and when health crises come up, they’ll turn to SF General. Trouble is, no one knows exactly how much funding will be available to meet that need as the financial picture shifts.

 

FUNDING CUTS LOOM

Even as ACA aims to increase access to medical care, it’s also going to trigger major funding cuts at the local level. With both state and federal funding being slashed, San Francisco’s county health system stands to lose $131 million in financial support over the next five years, a budgetary hit totaling around 16 percent.

That’s a significant shortfall that will directly impact SF General — but the cuts are being made with the expectation that these gaps will be filled by reimbursements riding in on the waves of newly insured patients enrolled in ACA. Before federal health care reform took effect, around 84,000 San Franciscans lacked health insurance. At the start of this year, 56,000 became eligible to enroll in a health insurance plan.

SF General serves most of the area’s MediCal patients, the subsidized plan for people living on less than $16,000 a year. And since the county gets reimbursed a flat rate for each patient, the expansion of MediCal under federal health care reform will presumably help San Francisco absorb the state and federal funding losses.

“There’s a certain set of patients who previously were not paid for, who now will have MediCal,” explained Ken Jacobs, an expert in health care policy and professor at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

But there’s a catch. Since MediCal and insured patients will be able to choose between San Francisco’s public system (called the San Francisco Health Plan) and a private medical provider, SF General also runs the risk of losing patients. If too many decide to go with Anthem Blue Cross instead, the system could veer into the red.

“There’s some question of what share of those we’ll keep,” Jacobs noted.

Asked about this, hospital CEO Sue Currin sounded a note of confidence. “Because our outcomes and our quality of care has been so high…75 percent of everyone who’s enrolled in MediCal managed care default to the Department of Public Health,” she told us.

But the journey toward ACA has only just begun, and things are still falling into place. Costs are projected to rise if nothing is done to improve efficiency, while at the same time, the pending state and federal funding shortfalls could take a toll.

Retaining and attracting insured patients is the only way to avoid a resource crunch — but patients could always walk away if they’re dissatisfied. This uncertainty “makes financial planning and management of risk even more challenging,” according to a report issued by the City Controller.

“We don’t know yet today how the Affordable Care Act will impact the safety net,” acknowledged Erica Murray, CEO of the California Association of Public Hospitals, which represents 21 public safety-net institutions throughout the state. “How are these health care systems evolving to be competitive? How do we continue to fulfill our core mission of being the safety net? That is the fundamental challenge. And we don’t know today, and we can’t be certain, that these public health systems will have sufficient funding.”

It’s all “very dynamic,” Murray said. “We don’t have sufficient data to be able to draw any definitive conclusions. It’s just too short of a time to be able to make any predictions. It will take several years.”

For all the newly insured patients under ACA, a certain segment will continue to rely on the safety net. Undocumented immigrants who don’t qualify will be left outside the system. Some individuals can be expected to outright refuse ACA enrollment, or be too incapacitated to do so. Others will opt out of Covered California, the ACA plan for people who make more than about $29,000 a year, because their budgets won’t stretch far enough to afford monthly payments even though they technically qualify. They’ll need safety-net care, too.

Yet under the new regime, “We can’t, as a safety net, go forward only with uninsured patients — because there won’t be funding to sustain the whole organization,” explained hospital spokesperson Rachael Kagan. “We will still have uninsured patients, always. But it won’t be sufficient to serve only them.”

Mike Wylie, a project manager in the Controller’s Office, worked on the city’s Health Reform Readiness project, an in-depth assessment performed in tandem with DPH and consultants. “The million dollar question is: Are we going to be on target with the projections?” Wylie asked.

Instead of standing still, San Francisco’s health system must transform itself, the Health Reform Readiness study determined. Ask anyone who works in health care management in the city, and they’ll tell you that DPH has been working on just that. The idea is to focus on network-wide, integrated care that runs more efficiently.

“We need to switch from being the provider of last resort, to the provider of choice,” Wylie noted, voicing an oft-repeated mantra.

This could mean fielding more patient calls with nursing hotlines, or using integrated databases to improve communication. There’s also emphasis on increasing the number of patients seen by a care provider in a given day. The report urged the department to ramp up its productivity level from 1.5 patient visits per hour, where it currently stands, to 2.25 patient visits per hour. Currin noted that the hospital has also been looking into group patient visits.

“Part of getting ready for health care reform was creating more medical home capacity,” Currin said, referring to a system where multiple forms of care are integrated into a single visit, “so we knew we needed to have better access to primary care.”

If no changes are made, the Health Reform Readiness study found, the city’s General Fund contribution to DPH is projected to rise substantially — to $831 million by 2019, up from $554 million in 2014-15.

“We’re a little concerned about this rising General Fund support,” Wylie noted. And even though staffing represents a major expenditure, “They didn’t assume cuts in staff,” while performing the assessment, he said. “What they’re trying to get is more outputs, more efficiency. The managers went over this and said: in order for us to survive, we’ve got to get more out of our system. We may have to cut money — we may have to cut later, if city leaders don’t commit to this rising General Fund. We’ve got to do all these best practices.”

Throughout crafting this road map, he added, “There were some uncomfortable meetings and uncomfortable moments. But I think [DPH Director] Barbara Garcia got everyone to agree to these strategies.”

Talk to rank-and-file hospital staff, however, and some will tell you that getting more out of the system is a tall order — especially when the system already feels like it’s busting at the seams.

 

SPACE CRUNCH, STRESSED STAFF

“We hit capacity every single day,” said Negron, the RN in the Emergency Department. Patients are regularly placed on beds in the hallways, he said. Wait times for the Emergency Department can last four to six hours, or even longer. The hospital is working on limiting those waits, not just because it’s better in practice, but because timely patient care is mandated under ACA.

“Now, we have 26 or 27 licensed beds in our Emergency Department,” Negron said. But in reality, on a regular basis, “We function with 45 to 50 patients.”

A nurse who works in the Psychiatric Emergency Services unit described her work environment as “a traffic jam with all lanes blocked. This is totally business as usual.”

The workload is on the rise, she added. “The psych emergency room used to see 500 patients a month,” she said. “Now we see 600 patients a month, sometimes more. People are moving faster and faster through the system.”

Her unit is the receiving facility for anyone who is placed on an involuntary psychiatric hold, known as a 5150, for individuals who are a danger to themselves or others or gravely disabled.

“It doesn’t matter who they are,” she said. “We get homeless and destitute. We get CEOs. And we have had CEOs — it’s an experience for everyone involved.” Some patients have been involved in criminal activity. “I’ve had high profile people in my unit; people who have done things that, if I tell you what they did, you would easily be able to Google them.”

Patients who come to her wing need to be evaluated, because someone has determined that they are dangerous. It could be that they are “eating rotten food, or running naked in the street, or suicidal, or want to jump off Golden Gate Bridge, or their family thinks they’re out of control.” Sometimes, patients have to be let go once they’re no longer deemed to be a threat, but they still aren’t altogether recovered, she said.

In the psychiatric inpatient unit, meanwhile, the total number of beds has declined from 87 to 44 in the past five years — leading some staff members to voice concerns.

“There is more to do, and there’s less time to do it,” said another staff member who did not want to be named. This person said one psych unit was essentially shut down and another left open — “but then … a patient climbed up into the ceiling, broke some pipes, and flooded the room” in the open unit, so everything was shifted back to the closed unit.

In part, the daily patient crunch is due to a vacancy rate in the hospital nursing staff that hovers around 18 percent — but steps are being taken to address this problem, caused in part by the city’s Byzantine hiring process.

“The nurses are concerned about how, on a day-to-day basis, they don’t feel they have the support and resources they need,” said Nato Green, who represented the nurses’ union, SEIU Local 1021, in recent contract negotiations. “Staff was expected to do more with less. SF General chronically operates at a higher capacity than what it is budgeted for.”

Currin, the hospital CEO — who started out as a nurse herself — rejected this assertion, saying it is not the norm for the hospital to operate over budget. She added that she would like to reduce the nursing staff vacancy rate down to just 5 percent.

“We have had a fairly significant vacancy rate,” she acknowledged. “But just like any other hospital in the city and the country, you have countermeasures that you put in place to address staffing shortages. And so we use nurse travelers. We use as-needed staff, who work here part-time. We’ve been able to fill those gaps with these other staffing measures. We do want to have a more permanent workforce. We’re working with the city and [DPH] to bring in new hires.”

Roland Pickens, director of the San Francisco Health Network (the patient-care division of the Department of Public Health), said he was working with the city’s Human Resources Department to further streamline operations and get a jump on filling vacancies.

“[Chief Financial Officer] Greg Wagner is working with City Controller’s office and the Mayor’s Office, so everyone is addressing the issue of having a more expedited hiring process,” he said.

Negron, the RN, seemed to think it couldn’t happen soon enough. “For us, at the end of the day, who do we actually have that’s on the schedule, that’s on the floor?” he said. Being fully staffed is important, he added, “so we don’t have any more shortages. So we don’t close beds, or go on divert unnecessarily.”

Staff members, who deal hands-on with a vulnerable patient population, lament that there doesn’t seem to be enough resources flowing into the system to care for people who are at the mercy of the public safety net. After all, San Francisco is a city of incredible wealth — shouldn’t there be adequate funding to care for the people who are the most in need?

“Poor people are not profitable,” Green said. “Without regulatory intervention, poor people would not have adequate health care.”

 

EVOLVING INTO THE FUTURE

For all the concerns about staffing and the financial uncertainty caused by ACA, SF General still has plenty to brag about. For one, it’s moving into a brand new, nine-story facility in December 2015, which will be equipped with a seventh-floor disaster preparedness center and nearly twice as much space in the Emergency Department.

It will have 283 acute care beds, 31 more than there are now. Most of the patient rooms will be private, and the new hospital will be seismically sound — a critical upgrade in a city prone to earthquakes. The hospital construction was funded with an $887.4 million bond approved by voters in 2008.

“In a new care environment, it will be more comfortable for the patients and the staff,” Currin said. “It’s just a much better environment. We’re hoping with the expansion … the wait times [in the Emergency Department], instead of taking four to six hours, we’re hoping to decrease that by 50 percent,” she said. “There will be more nurses, physicians, housekeepers.”

Pickens, the Health Network director, said he felt that “the stars had aligned” to have the hospital rebuild nearing completion just as ACA gets into full swing, since the new facility can help attract the patients needed to make sure the health system is fully funded.

The hospital has also launched an initiative to reduce patient mortality linked to a deadly infection. “Sepsis is a reaction the body has to a severe infection,” explained Joe Clement, a medical surgical unit clinical nurse specialist. “It causes organ dysfunction, and in some cases death. It’s very common, it’s growing, there’s more and more of it every year, and about a third of hospital deaths have been associated with sepsis in some way.”

In 2011, SF General began implementing new practices — and successfully reduced the hospital mortality rate from 20 percent in 2010 to 8.8 percent in 2014.

SF General was also recently lauded in The New York Times for being a top performer in quality and safety scores for childbirth. In San Francisco, low-income women who may be uninsured and dealing with harsh life circumstances can nevertheless get full access to multilingual doctors, midwives, lactation consultants, and doulas. The World Health Organization has even designated it as “Baby Friendly,” because of practices that support breastfeeding.

As things move ahead, management is projecting a sense of confidence that SF General’s high-quality care will allow the hospital to attract patients and maintain a healthy system that can continue to support the insured and uninsured alike.

“Value, we usually define as improving health outcomes, and optimizing the resources we have, for as many people as we can,” said William Huen, associate chief medical officer.

Speaking about the sepsis initiative, he said, “This is kind of our model program of, how do you focus on one area where you know you can improve health outcomes, with integration throughout the system, education at every level … and then having the data and perfecting the care. That can be applied to anything. So as a system, I think we’ve developed infrastructure to support that type of work.”

But for the staff members who are actively involved in the union, it continues to be a waiting game to see if the promises of new staffing levels are realized. Until then, many have said that the low staffing levels are a threat to patient safety. “They are waiting to see if DPH lives up to its commitment to hire the people they said they were going to hire, and staff it at the level they were going to staff at,” Green said.

It all comes down to providing care for people who really have nowhere else to turn, Negron told us in the Emergency Department. “I’m sure we see the highest portion of uninsured patients in the city,” he said. “We’re doing that in many different languages, with people from all over the world. I feel like it’s a real honor to be able to work there in that context. I feel honored to meet a need — that’s not always able to be met.”

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