Supervisors

Connecting the dots between Lennar’s vendors

Mary Magee
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4
Connecting the dots between Lennar’s vendors

Tomorrow (April 20), the Board of Supervisors will decide whether to support Sup. Chris Daly’s resolution to urge the Lennar Corp. to issue a formal, written apology to members of the Stop Lennar Action Movement and the City and County of San Francisco for irresponsible and potentially dangerous behavior.

At issue is a Feb. 18 incident in which a retired SFPD officer took a concealed weapon to a community meeting at the Nation of Islam’s Third Street mosque, where he gave a false name–and ended up handcuffed to a light pole.

If the past is any indication, plenty of allegations will be swirling tomorrow. So, before that drama unfolds, here is what’s in the public record, so far.

After questions arose as to whether the retired SFPD officer was employed by Lennar’s public relations subcontractor Sitrick and Company, or global security giant Andrews International, which swallowed up Lennar’s security subcontractor Verasys LLC, last fall, Lennar Urban’s president Kofi Bonner sought to clarify the Feb. 18 incident.

In an April 15 letter, Bonner tried to reassure Daly, other elected officials and the community, “that we are working to ensure that such an episode will never happen again.”

“You can be assured that no one from Lennar has any wish to escalate the atmosphere of blame and suspicion that led to this incident, which we truly regret happened,” Bonner said.

“As part of this effort the vendor and subcontractor most directly involved have expressed their apologies and clarified the record and facts surrounding this unfortunate occurrence,” Bonner said.

Bonner was referring to an April 14 letter that Verasys’ managing partner D.C. Page sent to San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.
“Verasys was requested by our client, Lennar, to send a consultant to take notes at the public hearing,” Page wrote. “Lennar did not at any time ask that the consultant carry a firearm to the meeting and was not informed in advance that he had a concealed weapon.”

“Similarly, we had no way of knowing that the retired police officer whom we assigned to attend the meeting was going to a mosque or a house of worship,” Page continued. “Had we known, we would have ensured that the consultant did not bring a firearm to the meeting. We apologize to anyone who was offended by the presence of a weapon at a community meeting.”

Daly also received an April 14 letter from consultant Denise LaPointe, who clarified that Sitrick and Company has worked for Lennar and its subsidiaries since 2007.
“The Miami office originally hired the public relations firm to work on various matters relating to Lennar, which is a publicly traded company,” LaPointe wrote.

“As a result, the Los Angeles office of Sitrick became engaged with Lennar’s efforts in California including, but not limited to, the Hunter’s Point Shipyard project,” LaPointe continued, noting that Sitrick has offices in the Silicon Valley, San Francisco and New York, in addition to its Miami and Los Angeles offices.

(Sitrick’s office in Miami is located at 66 West Flagler Street, in Suite 410, which sounds like just a short stroll from Verasys’s office in Miami, which is located at 66 West Flagler Street, in Suite 401.)

‘In my experience, Sitrick and Company has worked in concert with Singer and Associates, a firm with a contractual agreement with Lennar dating back to 2000,” LaPointe continued, noting that Sitrick and Singer are both “communications firms specializing in large companies with complex public relations needs.”

Finally, LaPointe noted that the retired police officer didn’t have a contract with Andrews International.
“I have been informed that no contract exists,” LaPointe wrote.

Last but not least, an attorney for the retired SFPD officer sent the Board an apology, dated April 15, on behalf of his client.

“I would like to sincerely apologize for taking a concealed and un-displayed firearm to a community meeting held at the Nation of Islam center in Bayview Hunters Point on Feb. 18,” reads the apology, which was submitted by attorney James A. Lassart, who works in the San Francisco offices of Ropers, Majeski, Kohn & Bentley.

“I was assigned by a security firm, Verasys LLC, to attend a public meeting to make a record of a lecture concerning a draft environmental impact report,” Lassart’s client continues. “As a retired police officer in good standing with the San Francisco Police Department after 33 years of service, I routinely carry a concealed firearm and am licensed by the state of California to do so. Neither Verasys nor Lennar was aware that I had a firearm that night, nor did they request that I take one.”

”Notwithstanding my legal right to carry a firearm, I was unaware that the presence of my firearm would result in so much controversy,” Lassart’s client continues. “Had I known the meeting was being held in a house of worship, I would not have brought a weapon.”

“I am hopeful that my own ordeal that night is not forgotten,” the retired SFPD officer’s apology letter concludes. “I am withholding my identity because I was terrified by what happened to me and continue to fear for my safety. I was held against my will for nearly an hour, handcuffed to a light pole and repeatedly threatened with death by members of the Nation of Islam.”

Reached by phone, Daly said the letters don’t do what the resolution asks of Lennar.

“First, they are not addressed to the coalition,” Daly said, referring to the Stop Lennar Action Movement. “And I don’t need an apology.”

Daly said the letters seem to apologize for not knowing the meeting was held at a mosque, but not for sending an armed guy into a community meeting.

“It almost seems as if the letters were constructed in such a way as to avoid taking responsibility,” Daly said.

Calls to Lassart, the attorney for the retired police officer, remained unreturned as of this blog’s posting time.

At tomorrow’s Board meeting, there will be public comment on Daly’s resolution, but not a hearing into what happened Feb. 18, since a Board committee examined that incident at an April 12 meeting. So, in an effort to shine light on the serious issues that were raised on both sides of the equation, here are the main points from the SFPD report on the Feb. 18 incident:

According to the SFPD report, two officers were dispatched to 5048 Third Street, which houses the Nation’s Center for Self Improvement and Community Development, around 11.14 p.m, Feb. 18, regarding a “possible gun call” that involved “an approximately 50-year-old white male with a gun, surrounded by a group of eight black males.”

When the officers arrived, they found “a white male”, who identified himself as Robert “Bob” Tarantino* (the name given on the police report is not the real name of the retired SFPD officer) with his arms handcuffed in front of him around a light pole, and several black males surrounding him,” the report states.

The police asked Bob if he had a gun and he said yes, it was located in his left, rear pants pocket. The police removed the gun. Bob then told them that he was “a retired Q50 (Sergeant)”.
In the man’s wallet, police found a retired SFPD ID card that bore a CCW-approved logo on it, “thus allowing him to legally carry a concealed weapon,” the police report observes.
The retired officer also had a California Guard registration card in his wallet.

The report notes that Nation of Islam member Mark Muhammad told the police that night that he was responsible for handcuffing the retired officer and that he wanted to make a citizen’s arrest.
“However, he did not have the key in his possession and would have to go home to get it,” the report states, adding that Muhammad returned a few minutes later and unlocked the handcuffs on Bob, who willingly agreed to return to the Bayview Station, pending further investigation.

When the police interviewed Mark Muhammad, he said it was brought to his attention that Bob, who arrived at the meeting around 7 p.m. with an associate, was attempting to record what was said in the meeting. Muhammad told the police that The Nation doesn’t allow recordings, “unless they have our permission.”

Muhammad said he asked Bob if he could speak with him outside, where he advised him that he could not record the meeting. After speaking with Bob, Muhammad cross-referenced the man’s alleged name with the sign-in sheet and found a different name.
Two other Nation members informed Mark that they had seen, “the imprint of a firearm in the man’s left rear pants pocket as he went to sit at his seat.”
According to the police report, when the Nation members confronted Bob, he denied having a firearm, at which point they physically escorted him from the building.

Once outside, Muhammad told Bob he was going to make a citizen’s arrest.
Muhammad subsequently told the police that at no point did Bob, “brandish a firearm, gesture as if he had a pistol, nor did he physically assault him, or any other members of the congregation throughout the entire incident.”

Muhammad told police that Bob said to him, “You are making a mistake Mark! You’re going about this the wrong way! You are going about this completely wrong! You’ll see!”

The police report notes that Muhammad told police that he interpreted these words as threats. However, the police told Muhammad that since nothing Bob said was an actual threat, he could not be arrested.

Muhammad then told the police that he wanted to make a citizen’s arrest for trespassing, and the officers accepted the citizen’s arrest “pending further investigation of the allegation.”

At the Bayview station, Bob produced a flyer advertising the meeting.
“The flyer stated that the meeting was open to the public, and anyone in the community was welcome to attend,” the police report states.

Bob told the police that he admitted having a tape recorder to the Nation’s Miles Muhammad, but denied taping the meeting.
Bob said Miles at first demanded the recorder, but eventually requested Bob’s name and contact information, then returned with Mark Muhammad, who questioned the validity of his contact information and then asked him to leave.

Bob told the police that as he got up and walked to the door, Mark Muhammad grabbed his right arm and Miles grabbed his left arm, forcing him out of the building.
Bob said that as he was being forced out, Mark said,” You have a gun,” and “You brought a gun in here.”
Bob told the police that he denied having a gun and said it was his wallet.

Outside the building, Bob said Mark, Miles, Terrance Muhammad, and an unknown person threw him against a wall.

Bob said he asked to leave, but was held against his will for approximately half an hour.

According to the police report, Bob said Mark yelled “You white motherfucker!” and “You come to our place.”
The report states that when Bob asked to leave again, Terrance said, “If you move I’ll break your fucking arm.”

Bob said Mark eventually had him call his supervisor in Florida.

Bob said that conversation “lasted for ten minutes of Mark screaming at [Bob’s] supervisor.”

Bob said he feared the Nation members would take his firearm from him. He said he told them he had a legal right to carry a firearm and had documentation to prove it.
“At that point Mark grabbed his left wrist and handcuffed it and forced him to the light pole and handcuffed him to the light pole,”  the police report states.

Bob said he pleaded with the Nation to call 9-11.
According to the police report, “Mark replied, ‘Don’t tell us what to fucking do,’ and ‘You ain’t going nowhere.’”

Bob said he was handcuffed to the light pole for about ten minutes before police arrived.
He again said he was in fear of his life and his associates’ life and believed Mark, Miles, Terrance and the unknown suspect were going to physically harm him. Bob also said during the entire time he never made any threats towards any one and was fully cooperating with the nation.

SFPD’s Captain Jimenez, who headed the police’s investigation into the incident, “decided that due to the fact that the meeting was open to the public and anyone in the community was invited to attend and the fact that Bob did not refuse to leave the meeting once ordered by Muhammad, he could not be cited for trespassing and he was subsequently released.

“Prior to leaving, Bob gladly provided the SFPD with his personal information however requested it be kept confidential as he was concerned with the possible retaliation by the individuals involved in the incident,” the report concludes, noting that Sgt. Daniels took all evidence and took it into custody at the Bayview Station.

Sit/lie debate takes a strange new turn

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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67

Emails are rocketing around San Francisco political circles in anticipation of an April 21 meeting of the Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC), the policy-making body for the Democratic Party in San Francisco. Committee members are slated to discuss the city’s proposed sit/lie ordinance, a controversial measure backed by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief George Gascon meant to afford police more powers for dealing with hostile youth occupying sidewalk space.

Labor activist Gabriel Haaland, a DCCC committee member, touched off a small firestorm early this week when he submitted a resolution against the sit/lie ordinance. Haaland, who has lived in the Haight for around 15 years, said wayward youth have been flocking to that neighborhood and hurling occasional barbs at passersby (including himself) since he can remember, and recent interest in the issue does not make it a new problem. “What would actually solve the problem?” Haaland asked, and offered that sit/lie is not the answer. According to a post on Fog City Journal, his resolution for the Democratic Party to oppose sit/lie was co-sponsored by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, Supervisor David Campos, Supervisor Chris Daly, Supervisor Eric Mar, Aaron Peskin, Hene Kelly, Rafael Mandelman, Michael Goldstein, Joe Julian, Jane Morrison, Jake McGoldrick, Michael Bornstein, and Debra Walker.

While some might look at a grungy street kid and see a menace to smooth business functioning or an unruly vagrant not being properly dealt with because the laws are too weak, Haaland said he perceives a kid from a broken home who already feels alienated from society. Incarceration for a nonviolent crime such as lying on the sidewalk would only further alienate these youths, he argued, possibly nudging them toward criminal behavior instead.

“This legislation will not solve longstanding, complex problems,” Haaland’s resolution reads. “City Hall has openly and repeatedly admitted in the press that the criminal justice system is failing to deal with similar issues in the Tenderloin, and has created an alternative known as the Community Justice Court (CJC) that is founded on principles of Restorative Justice.”

Restorative Justice is an alternative approach to dealing with crime that involves bringing together those who are directly affected to understand and address the harm that has been done, with emphasis on personal accountability and transformation. Some models also seek to change the conditions in which harmful actions occurred.

Haaland’s resolution urges the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor to oppose sit/lie, and to explore successful alternatives to incarceration.

The proposal sparked a second resolution, this one from committee member Scott Wiener, who is a candidate for the District 8 seat on the Board of Supervisors. Wiener submitted that the Democratic Party should officially get behind the CJC, and should acknowledge its error in opposing the court, a Newsom pet project, in 2008. “When I saw Gabriel’s resolution … I noticed it contained a positive reference to the [CJC],” Wiener told the Guardian. “I was pleasantly surprised.”

Furthermore, his resolution “encourages the Mayor and Board of Supervisors, budget permitting and based on careful analysis, to consider future expansion of the CJC’s geographic boundaries to include the Haight-Ashbury.”

Wiener is fully behind the sit/lie ordinance. “Right now, the police do not have enough enforcement tools to deal with some of the behavior on the streets,” he said. The measure has been an issue in the District 8 race, since progressive candidate Rafael Mandelman opposes the ordinance.

The resolution contest wasn’t over yet. In response to resolution No. 2, Haaland submitted yet another resolution — along with a personal note that appeared to extend an olive branch — revising Wiener’s proposal by urging support for “the restorative justice model as an alternative to incarceration.” (Haaland wrote an in-depth piece about restorative justice in a recent Guardian editorial.)

“I appreciated him doing that,” Wiener said when asked what he thought about resolution No. 3. “But I’m not convinced that that’s the way to go. That’s why I did not agree to it.”

Perhaps there won’t be any kum-ba-ya moments after all.

Along other email-blast circuits, Haaland’s initial proposal prompted David Villa-Lobos, a strong sit/lie advocate and District-6 contender, to sound his own alarm by urging SFPD officers to attend the April 21 meeting and defend the sit/lie ordinance.

The city Planning Commission recently voted 6-1 against the measure, and a grassroots group that brought opponents of the rule onto city sidewalks last month will hold another Stand Against Sit Lie citywide protest on April 24. The measure is expected to go before the Board of Supervisors near the end of the month.

The DCCC meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 21, at 6 p.m. in the basement auditorium of the California State Building, 455 Golden Gate Ave.

Editorial: No free ride for developers

David Talbot
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0

Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers

The dumbest plan the Newsom administration has cooked up in a long time continues to make its way through City Hall. The mayor wants to defer fees for housing developers as a way to “stimulate” the economy — despite the fact that the city’s own economist concluded the plan would lead to the creation of a relatively tiny number of jobs and perhaps 40 or 50 new market-rate condos over the next two years.

And the cost would be staggering. Over the next 15 to 20 years, depending on how much the housing market picks up, $43 million worth of fees developers typically pay before they break ground could be deferred, an analysis by Fernando Marti, a member of the Eastern Neighborhoods Citizens Advisory Committee, shows. The city would get the money eventually — but buildings would go up before the cash to provide water and sewer service, public transportation, schools, parks, and other amenities is in the city’s accounts.

At the same time, information released by the city last week shows that the gap between the cost of the infrastructure needed for the Eastern Neighborhoods plan and the fees developers will pay is at least $100 million, and perhaps as much as $234 million.

The message is clear. Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers. In fact, Newsom’s administration is already suggesting special levies on property in the impacted areas to make up the difference.

In underserved areas like the Eastern Neighborhoods, where transit and open space are already inadequate to meet current needs, the situation is particularly harsh. “They want to have the Eastern Neighborhoods pay higher taxes than anyone else to mitigate the impacts of new stuff that was supposed to pay for itself,” planning activist Tony Kelly, who is running for District 10 supervisor, told us. “This is a non-starter.”

The problem is nothing new — although a lot of pro-development activists have been denying it for years: new high-end housing development doesn’t pay its own way. If more than 40,000 new residents are going to live in the southeast part of town, San Francisco will have to build schools, police stations, firehouses, bus and rail lines, parks, and in some cases new roads. Then the city will have to hire (and train) cops, bus drivers, firefighters, gardeners, and teachers. None of that is cheap — in fact, the Eastern Neighborhoods Infrastructure Finance Working Group estimates that the actual cost of providing basic infrastructure would be about $22 for every square foot of new development.

The developers howl at that sort of number and insist they can’t afford it, so the city is prepared to charge closer to $10 a square foot. To make up the difference in the Eastern Neighborhoods, the working group suggested some form of tax-increment financing — that is, the city would borrow against the expected new property tax revenues from the new development and use that to build infrastructure. The mayor took that off the table, wanting any new revenue to go right to the General Fund.

And, of course, under the mayor’s current plan, the modest fees developers actually have to pay will be deferred for several years, making the problem even worse. So the only way to pay for the costs of new housing development is some sort of special property-tax district in the affected neighborhoods.

Add to this the fact that the mayor’s proposal would mean the immediate loss of at least 400 affordable housing units, and the whole thing becomes untenable.

The supervisors have amended the fee-deferral plan to make it a bit less awful, but the whole approach is still completely backward. City fees aren’t holding up housing construction; the weak market and tight credit are to blame for that. And when those conditions change, developers will be poised — as always — to make a vast amount of money selling overpriced condos for millionaires in San Francisco. And if they can’t pay their own way, the city shouldn’t allow them to break ground.

 

No free ride for developers

David Talbot
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2
No free ride for developers

EDITORIAL The dumbest plan the Newsom administration has cooked up in a long time continues to make its way through City Hall. The mayor wants to defer fees for housing developers as a way to "stimulate" the economy — despite the fact that the city’s own economist concluded the plan would lead to the creation of a relatively tiny number of jobs and perhaps 40 or 50 new market-rate condos over the next two years.

And the cost would be staggering. Over the next 15 to 20 years, depending on how much the housing market picks up, $43 million worth of fees developers typically pay before they break ground could be deferred, an analysis by Fernando Marti, a member of the Eastern Neighborhoods Citizens Advisory Committee, shows. The city would get the money eventually — but buildings would go up before the cash to provide water and sewer service, public transportation, schools, parks, and other amenities is in the city’s accounts.

At the same time, information released by the city last week shows that the gap between the cost of the infrastructure needed for the Eastern Neighborhoods plan and the fees developers will pay is at least $100 million, and perhaps as much as $234 million.

The message is clear. Under Newsom’s approach, the current residents and businesses of San Francisco will have to put up millions of dollars to cover the costs created by market-rate housing developers. In fact, Newsom’s administration is already suggesting special levies on property in the impacted areas to make up the difference.

In underserved areas like the Eastern Neighborhoods, where transit and open space are already inadequate to meet current needs, the situation is particularly harsh. "They want to have the Eastern Neighborhoods pay higher taxes than anyone else to mitigate the impacts of new stuff that was supposed to pay for itself," planning activist Tony Kelly, who is running for District 10 supervisor, told us. "This is a non-starter."

The problem is nothing new — although a lot of pro-development activists have been denying it for years: new high-end housing development doesn’t pay its own way. If more than 40,000 new residents are going to live in the southeast part of town, San Francisco will have to build schools, police stations, firehouses, bus and rail lines, parks, and in some cases new roads. Then the city will have to hire (and train) cops, bus drivers, firefighters, gardeners, and teachers. None of that is cheap — in fact, the Eastern Neighborhoods Infrastructure Finance Working Group estimates that the actual cost of providing basic infrastructure would be about $22 for every square foot of new development.

The developers howl at that sort of number and insist they can’t afford it, so the city is prepared to charge closer to $10 a square foot. To make up the difference in the Eastern Neighborhoods, the working group suggested some form of tax-increment financing — that is, the city would borrow against the expected new property tax revenues from the new development and use that to build infrastructure. The mayor took that off the table, wanting any new revenue to go right to the General Fund.

And, of course, under the mayor’s current plan, the modest fees developers actually have to pay will be deferred for several years, making the problem even worse. So the only way to pay for the costs of new housing development is some sort of special property-tax district in the affected neighborhoods.

Add to this the fact that the mayor’s proposal would mean the immediate loss of at least 400 affordable housing units, and the whole thing becomes untenable.

The supervisors have amended the fee-deferral plan to make it a bit less awful, but the whole approach is still completely backward. City fees aren’t holding up housing construction; the weak market and tight credit are to blame for that. And when those conditions change, developers will be poised — as always — to make a vast amount of money selling overpriced condos for millionaires in San Francisco. And if they can’t pay their own way, the city shouldn’t allow them to break ground.

The Chamber of Commerce scorecard: You gotta be kidding

Zelda Bronstein
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4
The Chamber of Commerce scorecard: You gotta be kidding

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce has released a voting scorecard on the supervisors — and it’s a bad joke. The Chamber says the scorecard shows who are top opponents of business in the city, the ones who don’t support “job creation and government efficiency” — two poll-tested buzzwords the Chamber will try to use in supervisorial campaigns this fall.


But there are only ten votes on the scorecard — and they don’t even remotely represents the most important jobs, business or economic issues the board has addressed in the past year.


Seriously: Does anyone think that naming rights for Candlestick Park has had a huge impact on the ability of businesses to create jobs in the city? How about a resolution supporting a proposed Contemporary Art Museum?


And since small, locally owned independent businesses are the single largest private-sector job generators, how does the Recurrent Energy deal — a giveaway to a big power company — help create jobs?


Of course, that’s not what this is about. The scorecard issues were carefully chosen to make the progressives look bad. And, as always, the Chamber has completely ignored the fact that the largest employers in San Francisco are public-sector agencies, and that cutting government programs and blocking new sources of revenue are the real “job killers.”


We’re putting together our own scorecard, measuring a wider range of votes on key issues in the past year. What were the most important? What really mattered to San Franciscans? The comment lines are open.

SF smokers kicked to curb, by the cars

Sasha Cuttler
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9
SF smokers kicked to curb, by the cars

By Adam Lesser

San Francisco smokers will be hit with the latest in a long lines of restrictions starting April 25, when they’ll be kicked to the curb, out by the cars whose tailpipes are at least as dangerous as secondhand smoke.

But drivers haven’t been as easy to demonize as smokers. Light up within 15 feet of a building entrance and you’ll be breaking the law. Other spots where smokers will be barred include outdoor areas at cafes and restaurants, farmer’s markets, and charity bingo games (grandma can take her wheelchair to the curb if she needs a puff).

But pot smokers need not fear. The new law maintains a provision allowing you to light up in licensed dispensaries. Smoking patios at bars are still okay, though smokers probably shouldn’t get too comfortable.

            The San Francisco Department of Public Health frames the smoking debate in terms of the impacts of secondhand smoke. And there’s some good data there. People tend to think lungs and cancer when they think smoking, but the real problem with second hand smoke is heart attacks.  A 2005 estimate from the California EPA put the number of heart attack deaths from second hand smoke at 3,600 annually. Second hand smoke contains a host of toxins from benzene to arsenic.

But it’s hard to know the incremental benefits of moving smokers to the curb. Almost all of the positive data on public health improvements from smoking bans has come from measures the city has already taken. But Mele Lau-Smith of DPH gave me a preview of the potential next battleground: third hand smoke.

“The new science that’s coming out on third hand smoke is interesting. Third hand smoke is everything that clings to furniture and hair and takes longer to dissipate. They’re smaller particles that get deeper into the lungs,” she says. The term was coined last year in the journal Pediatrics and a 2010 paper showed that nicotine reacts with nitrous acid to form carcinogenic molecules that hang around long after a smoker has left the room.

            So the news gets worse for smokers, and the anti-smoking crusade to completely eliminate smoking gains an inch. The smoking prevalence rate in California is among the lowest in the country at 14.3 percent. Most states are in the 18-20 percent range.

            And while it’s all well and good, one wonders if there are other problems in the air besides second hand smoke. Choosing to live in an urban area like San Francisco lowers one’s life expectancy by two years, and one of the major reasons for that is auto exhaust and illnesses related to poorer air quality.

            Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, believes the government should keep regulating until smoking is eliminated. But when comparing deaths from automobile emissions versus second hand smoke, he added, “If you look at the mass of the automobile exhaust, then you’re looking at a much bigger figure than second hand smoke. Vehicle exhaust is still way under regulated for addressing health concerns.” Over 2 million people die globally from air pollution each year. About 500,000 die from second hand smoke.

            In the end, Jacobson says it comes down to combustion. When you start burning, you release toxins that eventually hurt or kill people. It doesn’t matter if it’s diesel fuel, gasoline, or tobacco. Combustible products harm public health, and in the case of oil, the environment.

Smokers have proven ideal targets for taxes. San Francisco smokers pay $2.08 in taxes on every pack of cigarettes. When you’re in the minority and the government needs cash, it’s a political no brainer. A 20 cent cigarette tax was tacked on by the Board of Supervisors last October, done under the argument that the money was needed to clean up cigarette butts. Recent proposals to add a local 10 cent tax on gasoline in order to help various cash strapped public transit agencies haven’t found much traction.

So smokers, enjoy the summer. It’ll be the last summer you can light up after an outdoor sunset meal. The smoking ban at restaurants won’t be implemented for another six months.

But come November you’ll be enjoying that smoke out by the curb, where you’ll also be treated to some car exhaust. But, hey, at this point you’re probably all in anyways.

Inside the squat

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Inside the squat

By Evan DuCharme

news@sfbg.com

Homes Not Jails (HNJ) has fought diligently for two decades to shed light on the economic disparity that exists in San Francisco, where the number of homeless people would fit almost perfectly into the supply of vacant homes.

So on a cold Saturday night, April 3, as I sit shivering in the back of a van waiting for my group’s turn to covertly enter a vacant house, I’m surprised at the calmness on some of the members’ faces. This group of eight is planning to enter and occupy apartments at 572 and 572A San Jose Avenue. And while only a few have been through this before, the rest make up for their lack of experience with a passion for the cause.

Around 2 a.m., the group somehow manages to enter the building without being caught, but it’s not easy. Between the drunken couple arguing on the street, the cops breaking up a bar fight nearby, and a neighboring couple who keep shining flashlights at the units, the group should never have made it in. But it does, and at the moment there’s no time to dwell on luck because there’s food and water to unpack, entrances to secure, and rooms to search, all while remaining perfectly silent and unseen.

Typically HNJ, a project of the San Francisco Tenants Union, conducts weekly searches it calls “urban exploring” in the hopes of finding useable vacant property to set up as a “squat” for people looking for a place to live rent-free. Every so often, its activism goes mainstream in the form of public occupations like this one, when the media is notified.

The immediate goal is to simply enter, secure, and occupy the apartment until noon the next day when a rally starting at 24th and Mission streets will march right in front of the building. Once there, they are supposed to let fly a couple HNJ banners while the rally outside features speeches, chants, and music by the Brass Liberation Orchestra.

But the catch is that the squatters cannot be seen before the rally arrives outside, otherwise their cover will be blown, they could be arrested, and the goal of shedding light on this waste of vacant housing will be ruined.

After attending HNJ meetings and events for a few weeks, I was allowed to follow the group into the apartment and report on their occupation from the inside as long as I protected the anonymity of those who wanted it. With that in mind, the group included Tim, one of the most experienced HNJ members; SFSU grad-student Aaron Buchbinder; Elihu Hernandez, a candidate for the District 6 seat on the Board of Supervisors; Matt, another experienced HNJ member; and local activists Carling, Scott, and a seventh member who asked to remain anonymous.

The building they targeted had strong symbolic value; it was where an elderly man was forced out by the landlord using the Ellis Act, which for the past decade has been the root cause of a large number of what the group sees as unjust and immoral evictions.

The Ellis Act was adopted in 1985 to give landlords the right to clear their rent-controlled buildings of tenants and get out of the rental business, expanding their previous rights to evict tenants through Owner Move-In (OMI) evictions, which allowed landlords and their immediate family members to oust renters.

Once a landlord invokes the Ellis Act, tenants in the building are given 120 days to move out, although seniors and those with disabilities must be given a year’s notice. Tenants are entitled to almost $5,000 each in relocation costs, or a maximum of almost $15,000 per unit. Seniors and those with disabilities get an extra $3,300 each.

After the building is vacated, it is usually taken off of the rental market for at least five years. During that time, the former tenants retain the right to reoccupy their old units at their original rent for 10 years. If the building is re-rented within five years, the landlord can only charge what the previous tenants were paying. These restrictions are attached to the deed and apply to subsequent property owners as well.

Although the restrictions were meant to discourage the eviction of tenants from rent-controlled units, they also have encouraged some property owners to keep buildings vacant while they wait for property values to increase or to re-rent their units at higher prices. If the landlord wants to convert, remodel, or add any additions to the property, they still must seek the city’s approval.

This landlord power is the primary reason HNJ chose to occupy 572 and 572A San Jose Avenue. A few years ago, the property was purchased by Ara Tehlirian, who sought to remodel it and live there himself, evicting 82-year-old Jose Morales in the process. Morales had been legally renting the property since 1965 and challenged his eviction in court.

Morales won when the judge ruled that it was illegal to evict him for the sole purpose of renovating the building for the new landlord. But Morales’ success was short-lived. Tehlirian invoked the Ellis Act, so Morales was no longer legally able to live in his home. When Tehlirian subsequently asked for permission to renovate his house as he had initially planned, the judge denied the request citing that landlords cannot invoke the Ellis Act for an OMI eviction.

One reason the Ellis Act is used so frequently traces back to the passage of Proposition G in 1998, which prevented the type of eviction initially tried on Morales. Prop. G requires landlords invoking an OMI eviction to move into the evicted tenant’s unit within three months of the eviction and to stay for a minimum of three years.

Furthermore, it limited such evictions to one person per building and banned them if a comparable unit was open in the building. Finally, and the reason cited in Morale’s case, it made permanent an existing law that was set to expire in June of that year that prohibited any OMI eviction of senior, disabled, or catastrophically ill tenants.

Tehlirian, like many others before him, decided to use the Ellis Act to bypass these OMI restrictions. Ted Gullicksen, director of the Tenants Union, said Prop. G had the unintended effect of encouraging property owners to clear their buildings of tenants, a requirement of Ellis Act.

“A vacant building is generally worth 20 to 30 percent more than a building occupied with tenants because the landlord can do whatever he wants with the units, including selling them or renting at market rate,” he told us.

So Morales was forced out of what remains a vacant building. This is why HNJ illegally occupied the property, arguing that trying to effect change through legal avenues is at times just as difficult as Morales’ individual struggle against the Ellis Act. It highlighted the human cost of property rights.

“People who keep vacant buildings for profit tend to be the same ones who donate money to political campaigns,” Tim said. Which is why he is resorting to a form of civil disobedience that is very likely to end with him in handcuffs.

Around 1 p.m. Sunday, April 4, the rally met in front of the property and the occupiers frantically rushed to hang banners and secure any entrance the San Francisco police might find. As the first drops of rain fell, the Brass Liberation Orchestra played, speakers including Gullicksen and Morales said a few words, and the Food Not Bombs organization supplied free food to occupiers and members of the rally.

After a few hours, the rally dispersed with much appreciation from those inside the apartment and what started as a group of seven SFPD squad cars dwindled to two. Tim, Elihu, Scott, Aaron, and Matt decided to remain in the building while the rest of us said goodbye and climbed out an open window.

The remaining members spent their second night in the building, but this time they didn’t have to be quiet. Supporters brought the group pizzas and a neighbor offered to supply water to the group as long as they didn’t mind if it came from her tap. They huddled in the same room playing cards and joking until Tehlirian and the SFPD made it through the front door, ending the occupation.

Each member was cited and released on the premises at 1:35 p.m. April 5 under penal code 602m for trespassing. Tehlirian stood by and observed while his lawyer, Zach Andrews, unsuccessfully pressed him to charge the group with breaking and entering. When the group dispersed, Tehlirian and a few members of the SFPD broke through a second door to gain access to the bottom level of the property.

When Tehlirian came out for a break, I tried to speak with him but he refused to answer my questions. Shortly afterward, I met up with the HNJ group at the Tenants Union and asked Tim if he thought they were successful in accomplishing their goals. “Not completely,” he said. “But we made the most with what we had.”

Tenants may not have the law on their side in many cases, but in a city that is two-thirds renters, they have each other. And for a few days, they had one more home. The group’s feelings seemed to be summed up by this quote on a HNJ pamphlet: “We are too valuable to live huddled in the rain, in the parks, in dangerous unhealthy shelters. Freezing, dying so that others can realize profits.”

Saturday voting — and how to fund it

Zelda Bronstein
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9
Saturday voting — and how to fund it

Alex Tourk, a local political consultant who was once Gavin Newsom’s campaign manager, came by today to pitch us on his latest project: Saturday voting. He’s generated a fair amount of press on the concept, and it sounds like one of those thing nobody could oppose; why not open the polls an extra day? In fact, why not open the polls from Friday until Monday? Why Tuesday, anyway?


Well, Tuesday voting is a creature of the mid-1800s, when it took a couple of days to get from the farm to the town center, and nobody wanted to start out on a Sunday. Now it’s in the California constitution. But there’s no law that says you can’t vote Saturday AND Tuesday.


What Tourk is proposing is fairly simple: Voting places would be open Saturday, but there would be no voting machines. You’d just go there and fill out an absentee ballot. Which you could also do at home, of course, and a citywide vote-by-mail effort might increase turnout even more. (Or maybe it wouldn’t, given the low rate at which census forms are getting returned.)


Tourk says he wants to build excitement about elections and community interest; that’s why he wants the polls open an extra day — and a day when more people are off work and thus, in theory, would have more time to vote. He’s circulating an initiative that would set up a one-time pilot project, for the 2011 mayor’s race. If it works, maybe the supervisors and the mayor will want to continue it.


Here’s my big concern: Tourk doesn’t want to ask for public money from a city that’s deep in the red, so he’s proposing to raise the $1 million or so it would cost for Saturday voting from private interests.


Of course, the names of the donors would all be public, but still: Managing elections is about the most central democratic function of a government — and I really don’t want to see private interests involved. It seems to me that if this is worth doing, it’s worth paying for with public funds.


Where would that money come from? Here’s an idea: Prop. 15, the California Fair Elections Act, would set up a pilot program for public funding for statewide elections. The money would come from fees on lobbyists. Why can’t we do the same thing in San Francisco? Fund Saturday elections with a lobbyist fee — and a tax on political consultants.


Seriously: Consultants make money by manipulating democracy. They represent, on a deep philosophical level, the privatization of American politics. I’m not saying all consultants are bad or that they should be outlawed or anything like that — but a modest levy on political consultant fees would more than fund a Saturday election pilot program.


Tourk smiled when I suggested this, and would only say it was “an interesting idea.” Now, which supervisor is going to pick up on a tax that will only offend the small number of people who help get all our local officials elected?

Momentum shifts against sit-lie

Sasha Cuttler
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19
Momentum shifts against sit-lie

Proponents of criminalizing sitting or lying on San Francisco sidewalks have seen their prospects of success steadily dwindle in the last week, starting with the creative and well-covered Stand Against Sit-Lie protests on March 27 and continuing through last week’s Planning Commission vote against the measure to yesterday’s debate on BBC’s The World, in which opponent Andy Blue clearly bested proponent Ted Loewenberg.

In fact, Blue and his grassroots band of progressive allies deserve tremendous credit for flipping the momentum on the issue away from the narrative pushed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, Police Chief George Gascon, and the reactionary Haight area property owners from Loewenberg’s Haight Ashbury Improvement Association.

While Newsom and Loewenberg tried to argue this was about giving police another “tool” to use against violent street ruffians, Blue and the progressives have correctly pointed out that the overblown examples proponents cite (ie hoodlums punching passersby, barricading businesses, and spitting on babies) are already illegal and that the law actually punishes the simple act of lounging in public.

That argument by progressives got strong support from a Planning Department report on how the sit-lie ordinance cuts against a variety of city policies and goals that promote open space and using sidewalks for more than just transportation, a view that the Planning Commission endorsed on a surprisingly lopsided 6-1 vote, with even Newsom’s appointees crossing him on the issue.

Few members of the Board of Supervisors have embraced the push for sit-lie, so it’s likely to be dead-on-arrival when the board considers it later this month, but Blue’s group isn’t taking any chances. Stand Against Sit Lie is planning another day of creative protest – with more sidewalk picnics, games, and maybe a return of Chicken John’s sidewalk hot tub – on April 24.

Newsom wants more authority for party-crashing cops

Sasha Cuttler
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12
Newsom wants more authority for party-crashing cops

At a time of rising concern about police crackdowns on San Francisco nightlife – including the use of unprovoked brutality, selective harassment, and punitive property seizures – it would seem a strange time to call for abolishing the Entertainment Commission and returning its authority to the San Francisco Police Department. But Mayor Gavin Newsom has now called for doing just that.

Newsom last week refused calls to get involved with mediating a nasty dispute between the SFPD and nightlife workers and advocates, who have filed claims and lawsuits against the city alleging improper police behavior, including a racketeering lawsuit and another lawsuit alleging police retribution against promoter Arash Ghanadan for complaining about mistreatment, for which Police Chief George Gascon is scheduled for a video deposition on April 8 (other depositions involving Gascon and the undercover partners Officer Larry Bertrand and ABC agent Michelle Ott will follow in coming weeks).

The police crackdown, the subject of recent cover stories in both the Guardian and the SF Weekly, has been underway for more than a year and nightlife advocates say it is reminiscent of the arbitrary police enforcement against disfavored clubs and parties in the late 1990s that led to the creation of the Entertainment Commission in the first place.

Making Newsom’s new stance even more puzzling, the commission has been responsive to the overhyped criticism of the commission by nightlife critics, some politicians, and the San Francisco Chronicle and Examimer. The commission voted last night to suspend Suede for shooting out front, a decision that Board of Supervisors President David Chiu (whose North Beach constituents have put pressure on him to rein in problem clubs) cast as a litmus test for the commission, and one it apparently passed. In addition, Commissioner Terrance Alan, who had been criticized for his conflicts of interest, last week announced that he will be stepping down from the commission when his term expires in June. 

“Isn’t anyone paying attention? It’s really got me baffled,” Alan said of the continuing calls to kill the commission. “I don’t know what this is about.”

He isn’t the only one. Commissioner Jim Meko, who had been critical of the commission’s industry-heavy makeup and reluctance to take aggressive action against problem clubs, told the Chronicle that turning permitting and enforcement over to the cops would be much worse.

Sen. Mark Leno, who as a supervisor created the commission back in 2002, agrees. He told us that he opposes the change proposed by Newsom.

“I strongly believe the original reasons for the creation of the commission, an inherent conflict in having the same body that enforces licensing to also issue those licenses, remains,” Leno told us.

Leno also noted that it was only in November that the Board of Supervisors voted to give the commission more authority to suspend the licenses of problem clubs, which they used with Suede, delivering the maximum penalty possible: a 30-day suspension.  

“If they just gave them additional authority, let’s give it a little time to work out before we talk about disbanding them,” Leno said. He also noted that it’s strange to see the mayor and supervisors criticizing the industry-heavy makeup of the commission considering that they’re the one who make those appointments: “That’s in the hands of the board and the mayor.”

Neither Chiu nor Newsom have returned our calls seeking comment, but several Guardian sources with long involvement in the conflict between the SFPD and the nightlife community say the cops – particularly hardasses like Commander James Dudley, who has often made comments critical of nightlife and its promoters — have long sought to have more power over nightclub, private parties, and the citizens who attend them.

But until there is a fair airing of and resolution to the trend of overzealous and belligerent enforcement actions by the SFPD, any move to give that agency more authority to kill the fun in San Francisco is likely to be met with heavy opposition.

 

UPDATE: David Chiu just got back to me, saying Newsom hadn’t consulted him before taking his stand and telling us, “I don’t agree that we need to abolish the commission.”

But as the supervisor from a sometimes-rowdy district that includes a couple of clubs where violence has occurred, Chiu does want to make some changes in how nightlife is governed in San Francisco, seeing a conflict between the Entertainment Commission’s role promoting nightlife and regulating it: “The Entertainment Commission has conflicting missions.”

Chiu said he would like to see nightclub permitting turned over to a body like the Interdepartmental Staff Committee on Traffic and Transportation (ISCOTT), which handles street closure permits and has representatives from several city agencies. It would exist alongside the Entertainment Commission, whose work Chiu said has become “overly politicized” in recent months.

At the same time, Chiu said, “I generally agree with” the Guardian’s coverage of the War of Fun, and said that he’s helped facilitate meetings with SFPD to deal with issues like the inappropriate police seizures of DJ’s laptops: “From my perspective, I want to make sure people’s civil rights aren’t being violated.”

But Chiu said the problem seems to lie more with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control than the SFPD: “It appears the ABC has been inappropriately cracking down on the mainstream venues that are trying to do the right thing.”

Chiu said there isn’t a pressing need to act quickly on the Entertainment Commission issue and said that he would work with Leno on the solution, something Leno confirmed, telling us, “I have had some conversations with David Chiu and I’m going to get more involved.”

Trash talk

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Trash talk

Sarah@sfbg.com

The battle to win San Francisco’s lucrative garbage disposal contract turned nasty as city officials tentatively recommended it go to Recology (formerly Norcal Waste Systems), causing its main competitor, Oakland-based Waste Management, to claim the selection process was flawed and bad for the environment.

Recology is proposing to dispose of San Francisco’s nonrecyclable trash at its Ostrom Road landfill in Yuba County, which is double the distance of the city’s current dump. The contract, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, would run until 2025.

For the past three decades, the city has trucked its trash 62 miles to the Altamont landfill near Livermore, under an agreement that relied on the services of the Sanitary Fill Company (now Recology’s SF Recycling and Disposal) and Oakland Scavenger Company (now Waste Management of Alameda County).

That agreement allowed up to 15 million tons of San Francisco’s municipal solid waste to be handled at Altamont or 65 years of disposal, whichever came first. As of Dec. 31, 2007, approximately 11.9 million tons of the capacity had been used, leaving a balance of 3.1 million tons, which the city estimates will be used up by 2015.

Currently Recology collects San Francisco’s curbside trash, hauls it to Pier 96, which is owned by the Port of San Francisco, then sends nonrecyclables to the Altamont landfill operated by Waste Management.

After SF’s Department of the Environment issued a request for qualifications in 2007, Waste Management, Recology, and Republic Services were selected as finalists. The city then sent the three companies a request for proposals, asking for formal bids as well as details of how they would minimize and mitigate impacts to the environment, climate, and host communities, among other criteria.

Republic was dropped after a representative failed to show at a mandatory meeting, and Recology was selected during a July 2009 review by a committee composed of DOE deputy director David Assmann, city administrator Ed Lee and Oakland’s environmental manager Susan Kattchee.

The score sheet suggests that the decision came down to price, which was 25 percent of the total points and made the difference between Recology’s 85 points and Waste Management’s 80 in the average scores of the three reviewers. But the scores revealed wide disparities between Kattchee’s and Lee’s scores, suggesting some subjectivity in the process.

For instance, Kattchee and Lee awarded Recology 15 and 23 points, respectively, for its “approach and adherence to overarching considerations.” Kattchee awarded 13 points to Recology’s “ability to accommodate City’s waste stream,” while Lee gave it 24 points. And Kattchee awarded Waste Management 13 points and Lee gave it 20 for its proposed rates.

When the selections and scores were unveiled in November, Waste Management filed a protest letter; Yuba County citizens coalition YUGAG (Yuba Group against Garbage) threatened to sue; and Matt Tuchow, president of the city’s Commission on Environment, scheduled a hearing to clarify how the city’s proposals was structured, how it scored competing proposals, and why it tentatively awarded Recology the contract.

Emotions ran high during the March 23 hearing, which did little to clarify why Recology was selected. Assmann said that much of the material that supports the city’s selection can’t be made public until the bids are unsealed, which won’t happen until the city completes negotiations with Recology and the proposal heads to the Board of Supervisors for approval.

YUGAG attorney Brigit Barnes said Recology’s proposal could negatively affect air quality in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Yolo, Sacramento, and Yuba counties, and does not attain maximum possible reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. Barnes pointed to a study commissioned by Waste Management showing the company’s biomethane-fueled trucks emit 68 percent fewer greenhouse gases than Recology’s proposed combination of trucks and trains.

Barnes further warned that Recology’s proposal might violate what she called “environmental justice strictures,” noting that “Yuba County has one of the lowest per capita incomes and one of the highest dependent populations in the state.”

She also claimed that awarding the contract to Recology would create a monopoly over the city’s waste stream and could expose the city to litigation. “Every aspect of garbage collection and waste treatment will be handled by Norcal’s companies,” Barnes stated, referring to antitrust laws against such monopolies.

Deputy City Attorney Tom Owen subsequently confirmed that the two main companies that handle San Francisco’s waste are Recology subsidiaries. “But it’s an open system,” Owen told the Guardian. “Recology would be the licensed collectors and would have the contract for disposal of the city’s trash.”

Irene Creps, a retired schoolteacher who lives in San Francisco and Yuba County, suggested at the hearing that the city should better compare the environmental characteristics of Ostrom Road and the Altamont landfill before awarding the contract. She said the Ostrom Road landfill poses groundwater concerns since it lies in a high water table next to a slough and upstream from a cemetery.

“It’s good agricultural land, especially along the creeks, red dirt that is wonderful for growing rice because it holds water,” Creps said of Recology’s site. “I’d hate to see that much garbage dumped on the eastern edge of Sacramento Valley.”

Livermore City Council member Jeff Williams said the Altamont landfill has the space to continue to dispose of San Francisco’s waste and he warned that Livermore will lose millions of dollars in mitigation fees it uses to preserve open space.

“Waste Management has done a spectacular job of managing the landfill and they have a best-in-their-class methane control system,” Williams said, noting that the company runs its power plants on electricity and its trucks on liquid methane derived from the dump.

Williams pointed out that the Altamont landfill is in a dry hilly range that lies out of sight, behind the windmills on the 1,000-foot high Altamont Pass. “It’s many miles from our grapevines, in an area used for cattle grazing because it’s not particularly fertile land,” Williams said. “We are filling valleys, not building mountains.”

Waste Management attorney John Lynn Smith told the commission that the city’s RFP process was flawed because it didn’t request a detailed analysis of transportation to the landfill sites or fully take into account greenhouse gas emissions, posing the question: “So, did you really get the best contract?”

David Gavrich, who runs San Francisco Bay Railroad and Waste Solutions Group, testified that he helped negotiate the city’s contract 35 years ago, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, and that the city needs to be smarter about this contract.

Gavrich and port director Monique Moyer wrote to the Department of the Environment in June 2009, stating their belief that shipping trash by rail directly from the port “can not only minimize environmental impacts, but can also provide an anchor of rail business from the port, and a key economic engine for the local Bayview-Hunters Point community, and the city as a whole.” But Gavrich said DOE never replied, even though green rail from San Francisco creates local jobs and further reduces emissions.

“Let the hearings begin so people get more than one minute to speak on a billion-dollar contract,” Gavrich said, citing the time limit imposed on speakers at the commission hearing.

Wheatland resident Dr. Richard A. Paskowitz blamed former Mayor Willie Brown’s close connection to Recology mogul Michael Sangiacomo for the company’s success in pushing through a state-approved 1988 extension of its Ostrom Road Landfill while assuring Yuba County residents that the site would only be used as a local landfill.

“The issue is that Yuba County is becoming the repository of garbage from Northern California,” Paskowitz said, claiming that the site already accepts trash from Nevada.

Members of the commission told Assmann that they wanted an update on the transportation issue, but they appeared to believe the process was fair. “One guy got the better score,” Commissioner Paul Pelosi Jr. said. “The fact that they may or may not have permits or the best location, that’s for the Board of Supervisors to take up.”

Recology spokesperson Adam Alberti told the Guardian that its bid was predominantly about handling the waste stream. “Everybody’s bid included transportation, so you include the cost of getting the trash there. But primarily we were looking at the cost of handing the city’s waste,” Alberti said. “Recology’s Ostrom Road facility has more than enough capacity to hold not only San Francisco’s, but also the surrounding region’s, waste.”

Alberti said Recology is still pursuing a permit for a rail spur to get the waste from Union Pacific’s line, which ends some 100 yards from Ostrom Road site. Still, he said the company is confident it will be awarded, calling this step “a pro forma application with Yuba County.” Alberti also noted that it’s normal for host communities to object to landfills but that Yuba County stands to gain $1.6 million from the deal in annual mitigation fees.

Assmann told the Guardian the selection process took into account issues raised at the hearing. “The important thing in a landfill is to make sure there is no seepage, no matter how much rainfall there is, “Assmann said. “And there are still two hurdles Recology needs to clear: a successful negotiation, and the approval of the board.”

Our Endorsements: For DCCC

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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10
Our Endorsements: For DCCC

The Democratic County Central Committee isn’t the most high-profile elected agency in San Francisco, but it’s really important. The committee sets policy for the local Democratic Party — and that includes endorsements. The people who control the committee control a slate card that goes out to every registered Democrat in the city, and that’s a vast majority of the voters. DCCC endorsements, carrying the imprimatur of the party, have a significant impact on local elections, particularly in district supervisor races.

For years, the DCCC was controlled largely by the old Brown-Burton machine, but two years ago, the progressives took back control, and that made a huge difference in electing good supervisors. The DCCC endorsement will also matter in the next mayor’s race.

The folks downtown realize this. David Latterman, a political consultant who often works with more moderate candidates and interest groups, sent a memo out March 17 titled “Headed toward the cliff in 2010 elections.” The memo, which we’ve obtained, argues that downtown and the moderates need to get organized, now: “If we can have one person run a coordinated effort with $150K … we can really pick up DCCC seats. Only a few will make a difference in the fall endorsements. The mayor’s race starts now.”

So it’s crucial that the progressives turn out to vote June 8, and vote for strong candidates for the DCCC who will support district elections, public power, tenant rights — and progressive candidates for supervisor.

We’ll be publishing endorsements for all of the June primary races and ballot measures in a few weeks, but we’ve decided to do early endorsements for the DCCC. Twelve people are elected from each assembly district. Here are our choices:

 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 12

John Avalos

Michael Borenstein

Sandra Lee Fewer

Chris Gembinski

Hene Kelly

Eric Mar

Milton Marks

Jake McGoldrick

Jane Morrison

Melanie Nutter

Connie O’Connor

Larry Yee

 

ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 13

David Campos

David Chiu

Michael Goldstein

Robert Haaland

Joseph Julian

Rafael Mandelman

Kim-Shree Maufas

Carole Migden

Aaron Peskin

Eric Quezada

Alix Rosenthal

Debra Walker

 

Events listings

David Talbot
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0

Events listings are compiled by Paula Connelly. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THURSDAY 1

Last Gasp Anniversary Show 111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; (415) 974-1719. 6pm, free. Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Last Gasp, publisher of underground books and comics, at this party and art show featuring art by Gary Baseman, Tim Biskup, Glenn Barr, Robert Crumb, and many more, and readings by local writers, including San Francisco Poet Laureate Diane di Prima.

St. Stupid’s Day Begins at Justin Herman Plaza, Embarcadero at Market, SF; www.saintstupid.com. Noon, free. Help bring color, music, and satire to the financial district’s "temples of the Free Market" at this parade featuring a "dead lottery ticket" offering at the Federal Reserve Bank headquarters, a penny toss at the "banker’s heart," a "sock exchange" at the old Pacific Stock Exchange building, and more. Brought to you by the First Church of the Last Laugh.

BAY AREA

"Book Smart" Oakland Public Library, Temescal Branch, 5205 Telegraph, Oak.; (510) 597-5049. Through April 30, free. Peruse the library while taking in a unique art exhibit of mixed-media paintings by Nancy Mizuno Elliott that will be scattered throughout the library to surprise people as they browse the stacks, exploring the interconnectedness of solitude and stimulation.

FRIDAY 2

Al-Mutanabbi Street San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page, SF; (415) 255-6524. 7:30pm, free. Attend the first U.S. exhibition of the al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project, a collection of poetry and art commemorating the 2007 car bombing of Baghdad’s historic book-selling al-Mutanabbi Street, featuring a poetry reading by contributing authors. Donations will be accepted for Doctors Without Borders.

La Mesa Red Poppy Art House, 2698 Folsom, SF; (415) 826-2402. 8pm, free. Take part in this peer-to-peer salon featuring traditional musicians, dancers, and artists from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) Roundtable Series, which aims to strengthen Bay Area intercultural traditional arts networks and leadership.

SATURDAY 3

Big Idea Night Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787. 9pm, free. RSVP recommended: www.ybcafree.org. Celebrate the role we all play in the underground arts community at this event put together by the Oakland based art collective The People featuring DJs, dance demonstrations, live painting, participatory art, live dance videography, a local Caribbean food vendor, extended hours for current exhibits, and more.

"Consumed" Femina Potens Art Gallery, 2199 Market, SF; (415) 864-1558. 7:30pm, free. Sate your artistic hunger at the opening of a month long exhibit titled, "Consumed – Affairs with the edible," featuring artwork by Maria Kretschmann, Malia Schlaefer, Liz Maher, and Francesca Berrini that address women’s complex relationship with food. Meet the artists, rub elbows with fellow foodies, and enjoy refreshments and snacks.

Exploratorium Film Collection Exploratorium, McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; (415) 561-0360. 2pm; included in the price of admission, $15. Watch contemporary film works alongside classic experimental, documentary, and science films from the Exploratorium’s 16 mm collection as part if their 40th anniversary Cinema Arts Program.

Healthy Saturdays Golden Gate Park, JFK Drive between Tea Garden and Transverse, SF; www.sfbike.org/?ggp. All day every Saturday from April thru September, free. Enjoy the kick off of the season of car-free Saturdays in Golden Gate park weather you’re a skater, bicyclist, pedestrian, or onlooker.

Skate this Art Gallery 28, 1228 Grant, SF; (415) 563-6965. 6pm, free. Learn more about the art of skateboarding at the opening of this annual exhibit while helping to raise money for the North Beach Citizens (NBC) center, an outreach program for the disabled and homeless of North Beach. Reception to feature skateboard art auction, raffles, film screenings, poetry readings, and more.

Starchild on Sit Lie Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF; (415) 581-1600. 7pm, free. Hear Starchild, a bisexual, libertarian, activist, sex worker, and supervisorial candidate, discuss the proposed Sit/Lie law with Jon Sugar. The law proposes to ban sitting and lying on sidewalks in SF and will soon be voted on by the Board of Supervisors. Live music to follow.

West Coast Live San Francisco Ferry Building, Port Commission Room, second floor, 101 Embarcadero, SF; (415) 433-9500. 10am, $18. Attend a live broadcast of West Coast Live hosted by Sedge Thomson with special guests Anchee Min, Walter Mosley, and Olympia Dukakis, and featuring music by Dana Cooper and the Exceptional Mike Greensill. West Coast Live broadcasts from locations that convey the culture and sounds of the West to listeners.

SUNDAY 4

Spring Celebration and Easter Parade Union Street, Gough to Fillmore, SF; www.unionstreetsf.com. 10am-5pm, free. Catch the 2pm Easter parade, enjoy outdoor dining at temporary sidewalk bistros, listen to live music, compete in the Easter bonnet contest, and take part in some of the family oriented activities being offered at this local celebration of Spring.

MONDAY 5

Film Arts Forum Mezzanine, 444 Jessie, SF; (415) 625-8880. 7pm, $8. Join the San Francisco Film Society (SFFS) for an arts forum titled, "Tales from Terror," an appreciation, dissection, and dismantling of the misunderstood horror genre and its ties to the Bay Area.

Deadline looms for San Francisco’s green power program

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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8

Negotiations between city government and Power Choice LLC, a contractor selected to implement San Francisco’s Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) program, began Feb. 9. Almost seven weeks later, there’s still no end in sight — but if a deal isn’t secured soon, San Francisco could risk losing an opportunity to implement a cutting-edge green power program that would significantly reduce the city’s reliance on fossil fuels and give customers an alternative electricity provider.

About a half-decade of studies, debate, public meetings, and input from all sides have brought San Francisco’s CCA to the threshold of finally becoming a reality. The program would offer an energy mix comprised of 51 percent renewable power by 2017 for those who opted in.  

Assuming the program can operate successfully without an adverse impact to customers’ wallets, San Francisco could become a shining example of how to transition to a more sustainable energy model. It could represent giant step — rather than an inch-by-inch crawl — toward carbon-free power generation serving the needs of a major U.S. city.

As the negations drag on and a serious deadline looms closer and closer, some observers are growing anxious. No one can tell for sure what’s happening behind closed doors, but one thing is certain: PG&E is spending millions to try and torpedo CCA through a sophisticated public relations campaign, and it would have a much easier time derailing the project if it met with delays. PG&E would lose some of its customer base if the CCA program were a success.

PG&E has, intentionally or not, imposed a critical deadline on San Francisco’s CCA program implementation by introducing Proposition 16 — a ballot initiative that could slam shut this window of opportunity. Prop 16 would require a two-thirds majority vote before any CCA statewide could get off the ground, making it almost impossible to move forward.

If San Francisco’s CCA program hasn’t gotten underway by June, when Californians will vote on Prop 16, years of effort could be rendered futile if the initiative passes.

As SFPUC General Manager Ed Harrington told the Guardian, “We will get a contract as soon as we can possibly get a contract — but I can’t tell you the date.”

Several things would have to happen before the June deadline in order to guarantee that the city’s CCA would not be affected by the outcome of Prop 16. The program contract would have to be approved by the SFPUC, signed off on by the Board of Supervisors, and a 60-day opt-out period would need to be initiated before the start of service.

With so much to do in such little time, some observers are worried that the whole thing could fall apart. “Something seems to be awry,” noted John Rizzo of the Sierra Club, noting, “The PUC has historically fought and delayed CCA.”

The program is the product the joint efforts of two city bodies, the SFPUC and the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo), which is chaired by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi. Historically, LAFCo and the SFPUC have not worked well together, with Mirkarimi trying to prod the power-and-water agency forward, and publicly bemoaning its recalcitrance.

Mayor Gavin Newsom — who has forged partnerships with PG&E in the past, received several campaign contributions from high-ranking PG&E employees, and traveled to Mexico on the utility’s dime — appoints commissioners to the SFPUC. The mayor’s apparent alliance with PG&E combined with his sway over the SFPUC has led program advocates to voice suspicion over the years that its progress was being hampered by something more than ordinary bureaucracy.

Harrington, who heads up the SFPUC, said everyone sitting at the negotiating table is well aware of the Prop 16 deadline.

“The hope is to do it, obviously, as fast as possible,” he said. “I think that we are doing well in terms of rate discussion [and] renewable discussion, they’re very much with us in terms of getting renewables as fast as possible, and meeting the goals that the Board [of Supervisors] and everybody else has set for years now.”

“But the real discussion at this point is risk,” he said. “And trying to figure out how that risk is done in a way that protects our customers and the city is a big deal.” A key program goal since the beginning has been to meet or beat PG&E rates, which will climb by some 30 percent in the next few years if its current rate-hike proposals are approved by state regulatory bodies.

“The other part is just how do you implement this?” Harrington continued. “You’re going to have to contract with people who will in turn contract with generators. What if one of them went under, what if there are price hikes? How do we step in for them?”

At the same time, Harrington acknowledged that in the long-term, this program has the capacity to shift the city’s electric and economic outlook by offering more stability, and minimizing risk.

“In general, the kinds of renewable power that we’re talking about are much, much more stable than natural gas, oil, those kinds of things,” he said. “And so while at the very first day of this we’re not going to own anything … as you start to have ownership interest in power supplies that are sustainable, renewable power, that price fluctuation should be a whole lot less, and our customers should be exposed to a whole lot less price fluctuation and risk than people who still have big things that are in natural gas and those areas.”

Harrington said he believed the CCA program would be attractive to San Franciscans because of its environmental edge. “I think people here want to take care of the world, they want to do things that are right. They probably don’t want to spend a lot of money to do it — and I don’t think they have to,” he said. “That’s the part that makes me crazy: If we can provide greener power for equal to or less than PG&E … why wouldn’t we try to do that for the city?”

Sit, lie, stand and fight

Sasha Cuttler
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14
Sit, lie, stand and fight

A version of the following op-ed by Ben Rosenfeld ran in this week’s Guardian, edited for space reasons, and it’s generating quite a lively discussion here. He has asked us to post this extended dance mix of his piece, which offers more political context and gets into some of the issues raised in this weeks’ cover story, which is also generating heated debate. So here it is:

            This is a call out to creative, fun-loving San Franciscans: The mayor, the police chief, and their downtown cronies have declared war on our grassroots arts culture, and they are coming for your actual and conceptual space next. All that stands between the town you love and their vision of San Francisco as one big mercantile zone is a single vote progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors. But come November, they see the chance to take that away. The future they promise is already manifest in their many recent attacks on public and private gatherings, and their efforts to wrest the commons from the commoners.

            On Halloween 2009, the San Francisco Police, under their new chief, Los Angeles transplant George Gascón, shut down the Take Back Halloween Flashdance in front of the Ferry Building before DJ Amandeep “Deep” Jawa even arrived. Then they shut down several smaller street parties. (SFBG, 11/2/09) Their official reason—that organizers lacked permits—is what Bill Clinton famously termed an explanation, but not an excuse. The SFPD has a long history not only of tolerating unpermitted gatherings, but of re-routing traffic around and even escorting them. They are fully empowered to grant the equivalent of on-the-fly permits, a concept recognized in federal parks regulations. Applying for an actual permit is cumbersome, costly, anti-spontaneous, and reinforces the government’s view of itself as censor.

            Since Halloween, Chief Gascón’s force has been striking a mighty blow against crime by writing scores of open container citations to revelers in Dolores Park; fining or forcing the closure of SOMA clubs and bars for failing to conform to every fickle letter of the law; and sending undercover officers into warehouse and studio parties to bust them from within, sometimes violently, and without warrants. Their alpha party-crasher is a twitchy undercover cop named Larry Bertrand. He reportedly makes a habit of gratuitously attacking partygoers and vandalizing property, especially DJ equipment. One DJ wrote on a confidential email list: “I have been telling every DJ I know to run with their gear when your party gets busted [by Bertrand].” Not only has the chief failed to rein in Bertrand, but he wants to put a Taser in his hand, and in the hands of a rotten core of approximately 100 other officers whom the Chron found in 2006 are responsible for most citizen complaints, but whom the Department and this chief have systematically failed to discipline.

            Perhaps the most un-San Franciscan of all of Gascón’s initiatives is his demand for an anti-sit/lie ordinance, which would literally criminalize the very act of sitting or lying on certain public sidewalks at certain times. Never mind the fact that most violent crime is committed by people standing up and in striking range. Gascón appears to share the mayor’s philosophy that homelessness is just an aesthetic problem the rest of us should hose off our sidewalks. Not only is the idea just plain mean, it is anathema to San Francisco’s culture of compassion and broadmindedness, and its affirmative celebration of vibrant street culture. The danger is not that the police will arrest everyone who dares to take a load off or sit and sip a Snapple against the side of a building, but that they will enforce the law selectively according to their own purity tests, while robbing the rest of us of a diverse street scene that makes us all richer.

            To be sure, essential San Francisco has reasserted itself in the teeth of earlier culture wars, if in ever wealthier iterations. When Willie Brown stood in front of Critical Mass in 1997 and declared it illegal, riders blew by him like he was a grand prix flagman, and ridership surged from one or two thousand to five to seven thousand. What’s different this time are the demographics. San Francisco is richer than ever before, even at the height of the dot.com boom. Rents are through the roof. Everywhere, industrial warehouses and studios are drying up and concept industrial restaurants and bars are sprouting up. A new wave of young, hip residents has arrived seeking Dionysus, but they want no part of the political machinations under his robe. They are liberal, but they are not active. At least not yet. The mayor, the chief, and the norm core they serve are counting on our collective non-engagement. If we don’t band together—hipsters, activists, artists, and fun-loving folk all—we will watch the San Francisco we cherish slip away.

            On March 27, reclaim public space. Sit and lie on the public sidewalk. March and sing in the public street. Picnic on the pavement. Pop open a beer in Dolores Park. Do it without a permit. The Constitution is your permit. San Francisco’s heritage of artistic experimentation is your permit. Hell, the people telling you to get a permit flocked here because people like you marched around them in the first place and made this City a model of art and innovation for the world. Do it for them too. This is a defining moment. They are playing for keeps and so must we. Let’s bask in San Francisco’s ongoing heyday, not in quaint stories of the good times that used to be.

Hank Plante’s exit interview

Sasha Cuttler
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2

Hank Plante ends a three-decade run as a political journalist with tonight’s (March 24) broadcast of the CBS 5 Eyewitness News, where he has worked since 1986 after starting his career with newspapers in Washington DC. So we took the occasion to talk politics with him, learning that his loyalties lie downtown.

Plante agreed that politics has become ugly these days. “It’s just so much more acrimonious, that’s one thing that’s changed. The other is just the money that’s involved,” Plante told us, marveling at Meg Whitman’s plans to spend $40 million of her own money to run for governor and the $1 million per day that corporations spent lobbying against the health reform bill signed by President Obama.

But the changes haven’t gotten Plante down, as they have many political junkies, who decry the crippling of government’s ability to combat corporate power and address real social and economic problems. “I’ve never become a cynic, and I think that’s one thing that sets me apart from many political journalists,” he said, adding, “I still think politicians can make a difference.”

Yet like many political journalists, when I ask who his favorite politicians have been, he rates them based on whether they’ve made good stories, not whether they good for the people. For journalists, bad is often good, whether it be natural disasters or disgraceful politicians.

“Arnold is a great story. Willie Brown was a great story. Gray Davis was a dull story until he got recalled, then he was a good story,” Plante said.

What about Mayor Gavin Newsom, who has often given Plante exclusive access (including Newsom’s first extended interview after his 2007 sex scandal), but who has also angrily walked out in the middle of an interview with Plante. 

“Personally, I like the mayor. But I have to ask him tough questions, so he can be mercurial. Right now, he’s running for office again, so he’s charming,” Plante said.

In fact, for a journalist, Plante makes clear his preference for Newsom over the progressive majority on the Board of Supervisors, joking, “If I had a month to live, I’d spend it with the Board of Supervisors because it would seem like five years.”

Plante also said that he opposes district elections — which he said have prevented the emergence of big-stature political figures like Dianne Feinstein and Quintin Kopp — and Plante said he doesn’t see the value of district elections in counteracting the political power of downtown corporations. “I’m a capitalist and I have no problem with people making money,” he said.

Yet Plante acknowledges the divide between downtown and progressives is San Francisco’s dominant political dynamic, noting, “You see how afraid downtown is of the Board of Supervisors appointing the new mayor.”

While Plante said he believes in the importance of politics, he does decry how political science and public relations have been manipulated in recent years.

“They’re taken a page out of the Karl Rove playbook to talk over the journalists right at the public,” Plante said, noting how many politicians no longer feel the need to be accessible to journalists or honestly and directly answer their questions. “They really want to control the message, so the accessibility is diminished.”

Nonetheless, Plante said he regularly emphasizes the importance of political engagement: “In a place like the Bay Area, where people are inundated with lots of information sources, you have to keep saying it over and over again.” 

Plante, 63, is retiring and moving to his home in Palm Springs with his partner, Roger. Among the many awards and accolades he earned during his career are several Emmys and a prestigious Peabody Award. His station sent out a press release praising Plante, including this comment by anchor Dana King: “There is an entire population of politicians breathing a sigh of relief at the news of Hank’s retirement. Hank was the consummate professional, never combative but he did his homework and asked tough, pointed questions. Politicians, love him or hate him, respected and answered them, every single time. Our newsroom will suffer a huge intellectual void when he leaves.”

Street view

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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37
Street view

By Skyler Swezy

news@sfbg.com

The Haight-Ashbury is out-of-control, according to some recent news reports and testimony by cops and other backers of the proposed sit-lie ordinance. They report street toughs brazenly smoking crack, blocking sidewalks, spitting on babies, and intimidating citizens with pit bulls.

As this story goes, dangerous thugs have replaced harmless beggars. They’ve gone from annoying to menacing, a change police say they’re helpless to address without legislation banning sitting or lying on sidewalks, which Mayor Gavin Newsom and Police Chief George Gascón introduced March 1.

Proponents and opponents have attended City Hall meetings and voiced their arguments in the media. The police, homeless rights advocates, Haight Street business owners, residents, Newsom, and columnists have spoken their piece. But what do the street kids, who haven’t been heard from in this debate, have to say for themselves?

So on March 19, I spent the day walking the Haight to get the perspective from the street, asking kids what they think is going on?

It’s 3 p.m. and I’m standing on the southwest corner of Central and Haight streets next to a Bob Marley mural painted on the side of a liquor store. A cop car cruises by. With no thugs or panhandlers in sight, I head toward Golden Gate Park along the south side of the street.

On the corner of Masonic and Haight, there are some well-kept teens perched against the wall of X-Generation. Clutching shopping bags, they are not panhandlers, but they sit on the ground because Haight Street doesn’t have benches, except for one on Stanyan facing the park.

These kids clearly aren’t the targets of this ordinance, so I move on to the notorious Haight-Asbury intersection, which is also devoid of vagabonds. An old woman and young boy, both well-dressed, squat in front of Haight Asbury Vintage, watching shoppers pass by.

Almost at the end of the block, outside a closed storefront, a scruffy young man is perched on a back pack holding a battered piece of cardboard that reads “SMILES/HAVE A NICE DAY!? OR NIGHT.”

“You have a beautiful smile,” he croons to passersby. Most stare straight ahead, some smile without making eye contact; a woman in her 30s asks to take his picture. Jay is 18, has a scarce beard and crust in the corners of his sleepy pale blue eyes. He is from Ohio and says he has been bumming on Haight and sleeping in the park for about three months. He hitchhiked to San Francisco because his sister is “a back-stabbing crack head, so I left.”

He doesn’t think panhandling has become more aggressive recently, but that business owners “just want to be asses.” He’s not much of a talker and more interested in smiles, so I leave Jay to his work.

On the next block I meet Kevin Geoppo, 31, cupping a handful of coinage, sitting on the window ledge of a storefront under renovation. Kevin says he’s a heroin addict who grew up in Orlando, Fla., and made his way to San Francisco years ago. He’s obtained an SRO and primary care doctor, but can’t get a job.

He sees both sides of the sit/lie law debate. “Those who sit and lie do cause a lot trouble, stir up energy that isn’t needed to [hurt] tourism, and [threaten] violence, so I can understand why this is being talked about,” he says.

At the same time, he is wary of how the police would use the law and at whom it would be directed. He doesn’t think things are getting worse, but he says the panhandling and menacing attitudes of some kids ebb and flow as different groups pass through the city.

“A lot of these yuppie, rich, bureaucrat people are trying to clean up everything because if you take a left or a right anywhere off Haight Street, it’s rich people living in those houses,” he says. I let him get back to business and proceed down the street.

I decide to drop into Aub Zam Zam cocktail lounge for a veteran bartender’s opinion. Owner Bob Harpe is behind the horseshoe bar, slicing limes and chatting with long-time Haight resident Paul Zmudzinski.

Harpe doesn’t have problems with aggressive or congregating street kids. “If you ask them to move and treat them with a general level of respect, they go on their way.”

He believes the rising number of homeowners in the neighborhood and businesses catering to a more affluent clientele are behind the recent uproar. “The rents on Haight Street have escalated dramatically, so boutique owners have to pump up their prices. Then you get more affluent shoppers who are turned off by the skuzzy-looking street kids coming through,” Harpe says. “The whole thing is kind of disgusting.”

Back outside, I head to the next block and come across Kasper who is “flying a sign” that reads “SEX!!! NOW THAT I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, SPARE ANY $$$?”

He is a 33-year-old traveler who just landed back on Haight, having spent the last three weeks in Berkeley. He’s headed north to a 420 Rainbow gathering and then to Idaho for work. With combat boots, Army pants, and a neck tattoo, he’s a tough-looking guy with a soft-spoken voice.

“They don’t understand all the money they’ll lose. We panhandle money in the street and then spend it in the stores here,” Kasper says. “Those liquor stores rely on street people.”

He says many tourists come to the Haight to see people playing guitars, banging drums, and selling their hemp trinkets. And when it comes to instances of violence or aggressiveness, those are limited to a few of the community and could happen anywhere, regardless of a sit-lie law.

“These things are heavy,” he says nodding to his backpack. “To have to stand, hold your straps, and fly a sign to get something to eat is just ridiculous.”

McDonalds is the last establishment before Golden Gate Park, which serves as a three-mile squatter haven stretching to the Pacific Ocean. Beneath the golden arches, three guys are singing an improvised McDonalds song, but two busted guitar strings kills their burger ballad hustle.

The three agree to an interview and form a semicircle on the sidewalk. Stoney, 19, the guitar player, is wearing sunglasses, a backwards cap, and is heavily scarred on his arms and neck. “Are you against weed?” he asks, before hitting a pipe carved from a deer antler.

Angelo, 23, is a self-dubbed vagabond originally from Virginia. He just got out of jail for selling weed to a cop in the Tenderloin. Nick, 18, wears a mighty Afro and says almost nothing.

Two bike cops zip up and tell us to move it. “You’re blocking the sidewalk,” one cop says. Everyone stands up. “It’s not illegal yet, dude!” Stoney yells back toward the cops as we cross Stanyan to enter the park.

Stoney and Angelo agree with each other that lawmakers are focusing on the bad actions of a few to push all street kids off Haight. “We have the right to use the sidewalk just like anyone else,” Angelo says. “It’s crazy, man. We’re all just fuckin’ a bunch of cells put together, floating around a ball of fire in space.”

The sit-lie ordinance could be considered by the Board of Supervisors next month. For details on a March 27 citywide protest of the measure, visit www.standagainstsitlie.org.

The new War on Fun

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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46
The new War on Fun

news@sfbg.com

For several years, the Guardian has been running regular stories chronicling what we’ve dubbed the Death of Fun, a trend of official crackdowns and shakedowns on people who throw parties and festivals in San Francisco. In the last year, that trend has started to morph into an often brutal War on Fun, with a growing list of atrocities and casualties associated with this overzealous new approach to killing the city’s entertainment industry.

Why this is happening is baffling to those most affected: nightclub owners and workers, party promoters, DJs and VJs, fundraising activists, and people just out to have a good time without being harassed by a cop. But in recent months, we’ve learned much more about what’s happening and who the main perpetrators are.

Two undercover enforcers have been at the center of just about every recent case of nightclubs or private parties being raided without warrants and aggressively shut down, their patrons roughed up (see “Fun under siege,” 4/21/09) and their money, booze, and equipment punitively seized “as evidence” (see “Police seize DJs laptops,” 11/24/09) even though few of these raids result in charges being filed in court.

Officer Larry Bertrand of the San Francisco Police Department’s Southern Station and Michelle Ott, an agent with the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, are plainclothes partners who spend their weekends undercover, crashing parties, harassing disfavored nightclubs, brutalizing party-goers, and trying to send the unmistakable message that they’re in charge of San Francisco nightlife. Neither responded to our interview requests.

Isolated incidents of intolerant cops and NIMBY citizens who repeatedly complain about certain clubs or festivals has been a problem for years (see “Death of fun,” 5/24/06 and “Death of fun, the sequel,” 4/24/07). Top city officials have opted to cancel events such as Halloween in the Castro District rather than try to manage them better, and the nightlife community has tried to organize in defense of its interests (see “Fighting for the right to party,” 7/1/08) with mixed results.

But the personal War of Fun by Bertrand and Ott seems to have galvanized and united the nightlife and festival community like never before, leading to the creation of a new California Music and Culture Association and prompting threats of a federal lawsuit alleging the ABC-SFPD collaboration is a racketeering scheme designed to harass, disrupt, and extort people engaged in otherwise lawful activity.

The myriad horror stories associated with Bertrand and Ott have also finally begun to draw attention from the Mayor’s Office, which has quietly pushed the SFPD to rein in Bertrand and change its policies on raiding parties and seizing property. State Sen. Mark Leno also has gotten involved, brokering a March 12 meeting between club owners and Steve Hardy, director of ABC (which, in addition to cracking down on nightclubs — see “Busting bars,” 6/23/09 — has recently announced a campaign against fruit-infused liquor).

“They were going to see how they could unwind this a bit,” Leno told us, adding that he was “infuriated” by stories of abusive treatment of the public. “The fear that it spreads through the community is unacceptable.”

The question now is what Hardy, Mayor Gavin Newsom, and Police Chief George Gascón — who has ordered some crackdowns and wants greater authority to discipline problem officers — is going to do about it.

 

CHAOS AT A STUDENT PARTY

It was after midnight on Jan. 31 when Krystal Peak, a journalist with San Francisco State University’s Golden Gate Xpress, received a call from her managing editor. There was a commotion and a swarm of police cars outside a student party at Seventh and Minna streets near her home, and she was asked to investigate.

She came upon the aftermath of a melee between police and partygoers that had taken place after a fundraising event at a SoMa warehouse art space was upended. The benefit was organized to raise legal funds for students who staged a building occupation at the University of California at Berkeley, in defiance of budget cuts.

The event was clearly chaotic, and it’s hard to sort out exactly what happened and when. City officials say the partiers were throwing bottles and firecrackers at the police; people at the event say the cops started it all.

But the tales partygoers tell about the behavior of Bertrand and Ott, the undercover enforcers, are similar to a series of other stories involving the pair, stories published in the Guardian and elsewhere.

There had been multiple arrests by the time Peak arrived on the scene. Numerous witnesses asserted that things were going along without incident until a fire marshal arrived in response to a complaint, and in short order, two officers who’d been there in plainclothes for hours — Bertrand and Ott — began shouting, tackling people, and kicking in doors.

Police Chief George Gascón acknowledged that the department has been targeting underground parties. “We get a lot of resident complaints about it,” he said in a recent Guardian interview. “We’re talking about a lot of the underground parties, or the parties where the promoters are exceeding their authorities to a number of people.”

Several hundred attended this particular party. Of the 11 people arrested, eight were either detained or cited and released. None faced underage drinking or drug charges. At least five were charged with resisting arrest. One individual was charged with vandalism, two were charged with battery on an officer, and two detained for being drunk in public.

Peak began photographing the scene: busted-up chairs, uniformed officers guarding the entrance, police cars everywhere. She zoomed her lens to capture the wreckage inside. None of the uniformed officers seemed to have a problem with her — but when she spotted the undercover officers with exposed badges, that changed.

The cops broke through the door, yelling. “They said, ‘This is an investigation, you’re not allowed to be here.'<0x2009> she said. “We told them we were with the press.” They threatened to arrest her.

Shortly after, the plainclothes officers crossed in front of her to an unmarked car. She took another picture. Bertrand, a tall guy with a shaved head, allegedly turned and grabbed her arm, and both officers shouted at her. “[Ott] said to me, ‘Your flash has impeded my investigation,'” Peak recounted. She was cuffed and arrested on the spot, and her camera was confiscated.

She was cited for obstruction of justice, but the charges were dropped. And she got her camera back — but says the SD memory card, where all the photos were stored — was missing.

“I flipped [the camera] open … and found the SD card was missing,” she said. She asked Bertrand where it was. “He said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,'” Peak recalled. Bertrand, she recalled, then looked around at a group of officers watching the exchange, and announced, “This woman is refusing to leave. I’m going to have to re-arrest her.” Ott appeared, according to Peak, and insisted that there was no evidence the memory card had been in the camera in the first place.

“My camera will not ignite a flash unless there’s a memory card in there,” Peak explained. In the end, she left empty-handed — without photos of the undercover officers.

 

BUSTING DOORS

Earlier, when the party was in full swing, a 24-year-old California State University, Fullerton student visiting from Los Angeles says when the fire marshal entered, Bertrand flashed his badge, yelling at everybody to get out. “It was really aggressive from the get-go,” said the Fullerton student, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he had a pending legal case. “It’s very hard for me to describe the intensity to which this guy was busting down doors.”

Later, the young man from L.A. said, he was following people who left in a rush, and ran to catch up. “Shortly after, I felt a blow to the back right of my head,” he said. “My glasses flew off, and I was tackled to the ground. My forehead was being pushed straight into the ground and they were holding my hair. I kept repeating … please, I can’t see — I’m legally blind. I thought three or four officers were on top of me, and they were saying, ‘Fuck you, you little anarchist punk.'<0x2009>”

That’s when he said he felt a sensation like “a bunch of really intense bee stings on my left side, just above my hipbone.” He thought he was Tasered — and photos he showed us depict a skin burn. SFPD officers are not authorized to carry Tasers.

“It sounds like a stun gun, not a Taser gun,” Ken Cooper, a firearms and Taser instructor based in New York, noted when the incident was described to him.

When we shared the photos with SFPD’s media relations department, Lt. Lyn Tomioka noted, “I can tell you that we do not have any tool that would produce the type of wounds shown in the picture that you attached, or produce a stinging sensation.”

The L.A. visitor said he was delivered this explanation from an officer while in the holding cell: “One of your anarchist buddies must’ve had a Taser, ran over to you trying to get one of our officers, got you instead, and ran away.”

Cooper Brislain, a Web developer from Santa Cruz, told us his iMac was destroyed that night. A friend of the owners of the art space, he was there doing video mixing for the party, he explained. After the trouble started, he began carrying his computer and mixing equipment toward the door. “The uniformed officers were going to let me go. I told them, ‘I just came here to perform.’ They seemed OK,” he said. Then he encountered Bertrand.

“He … grabbed me by the collar, led me over toward the wall, and sat me down,” Brislain told us. He says Bertrand and Ott seized his computer. Brislain says no charges were filed against him.

The morning after, he found that his computer had been smashed up. His friends found it in pieces at the bottom of the stairs. To this day, he says he has not been able to retrieve his ID, which was seized that night. “I tried calling [Bertrand] on his extension to leave a message and never heard back,” he says. “They told me he probably wouldn’t return voicemails.” The District Attorney’s Office has a different perspective. D.A. spokesperson Brian Buckelew said the partygoers were drunk and “going nuts on police.” People were throwing firecrackers, he said. “It obviously got out of hand, and people were throwing bottles at police,” he said.

The student from L.A. allegedly shoved a female officer, Buckelew said. According to the report, he said, police officers were taking someone into custody, and he tried to pull them free.

Nevertheless, even Chief Gascón agrees that it’s not okay to destroy someone’s personal property. “If in fact the allegations were proven to be the case that an officer took somebody’s laptop and threw it down the stairs,” Gascón told us, “that would be inappropriate, and that officer would be sanctioned accordingly.” He noted that he met with an attorney from the Electronic Frontier Foundation about a recurring trend of officers — Bertrand in particular — seizing DJ laptops at underground parties. “We’ve met with them and we’ve agreed to actually tighten up the protocols in how this would be handled,” Gascón noted.

 

A RICO SUIT

The list of local nightclub clubs that have been recently targeted by Bertrand and Ott or subjected to ABC sanctions is long. It includes Great American Music Hall, Slim’s, DNA Lounge, Mist, Whisper, the Room, Vessel, Azul, Butter, and Club Caliente (which closed down after its mostly Latino customers were scared away by repeated raids).

“Using the now familiar pattern and ruse of ABC authority, these raids have been without warrant and without probable cause, under the pretext of finding liquor violations,” attorney Mark Webb wrote in a claim against the city, describing the harassment of Caliente owner Maurice Salinas and later adding, “Despite numerous raids, the invading officers [Bertrand and Ott] managed to ‘uncover’ a single infraction: one customer used his brother’s ID card, claiming he was over 21 to gain entry. For this reason, Mr. Salinas was cited and fined, bullied, intimidated, and yelled at on the spot.”

Webb said such behavior isn’t legitimate police work, but unlawful harassment. In fact, this experienced litigator said it’s far closer to the shakedowns and extortion rackets familiar to him from the start of his legal career in the late 1970s prosecuting organized crime cases in New York City.

That’s why he’s threatening to bring a novel lawsuit against the city and ABC under federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act, a law designed go after the mob, but which has since been adapted to target entities ranging from the tobacco industry to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Webb told us that interference with legitimate business operations, such as running a nightclub, is the essence of RICO suits. As part of the case, Webb plans to submit a surveillance video that shows Bertrand kneeling on the neck of bartender Javier Magallon from The Room and twisting his arm. Webb gave us a copy of the video.

Another element of making a RICO case is the use of intimidation and retaliation against those who complain — which was central to a March 17 SF Weekly story about promoter Arash Ghanadan being inappropriately singled out for arrest by Bertrand as retaliation for filing a complaint against the officer with the Office of Citizen Complaints.

Webb says he has a strong case that he intends to file soon, but that most of his clients just want the SFPD to rein in Bertrand and stop facilitating ABC actions. “I want to have a sit-down with Gavin Newsom,” Webb said. “I am calling on Mayor Newsom to come in and mediate what would be an expensive, divisive fight that will generate national interest … I think this thing can go way quickly without litigation.”

Newsom press secretary Tony Winnicker, who said Newsom has brought concerns about Bertrand to the chief’s attention, didn’t immediately embrace Webb’s offer. “The mayor would rather leave it to the chief,” Winnicker said.

So the question for Gascón is whether he’s willing to take on the cowboy cops within the SFPD’s ranks. After all, Bertrand is also on the San Francisco Police Officers Association Board of Directors.

The nightlife community is organized like never before and plotting its next move in fighting a war it didn’t initiate and barely understands. Whether that war continues now seems to be a question for the party crashers and their supervisors.

Developers win, but just this round

Zelda Bronstein
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16

So the developers won the first round of the 555 Washington battle — and the role of the Recreation and Parks and City Planning Commissions said a lot about the state of local politics today. In both cases, you had the equivalent of a party-line vote: Every commissioner appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom voted in favor of the project, and every commissioner appointed by the Board of Supervisors voted against it.


And since the Rec-Park commission is entirely made up of mayoral appointees, that vote was unanimous.


The fact that there were dissenting views on the Planning Commission is a clear indication of why it’s so important that the supes and the mayor both get to name members of that panel. And perhaps it’s time to apply the same standard to Rec-Park.


A sign of how bad it was at planning: Toward the end of the discussion on the certification of the environmental impact report, after board-appointed commissioner Christina Olague complained about the threats to the redwood trees on the site, commissioner Bill Lee insisted on taking some expert testimony on the issue. And who did he call up? The landscape architect for the project sponsor. Guess what? She thought the trees would be just fine.


But this shady deal is not done yet. The Planning Commission was set to vote not only on the EIR but on the other various approvals the project needs, but Sue Hestor, a lawyer and project foe, pointed out that the developer had made some last-minute changes to the plans, and by law, the public needed more time to review the new material. And the City Attorney’s Office, to its credit, agreed, and told the commission to continue that part of the vote for two weeks.


Meanwhile, it’s pretty clear that opponents will appeal the EIR certification to the Board of Supervisors — and the board will also have to approve the zoning changes and the sale of a public street that are necessary for the project to go forward.


And interesting twist at the commission meeting: Former Sup. Aaron Peskin pointed out that in 1992, a similar project came before the Recreation and Parks Commission — similar except that it was about half as tall. And the commission rejected it because it would cast shadows on public parkland.


And yet, a much bigger project, which must more extensive shadows, sailed through Newsom’s park panel — with no discussion at all. “This thing was a greased as it gets,” Peskin told me.


 

Sunshine sleuth nets $3.5 million for SF

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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5
Sunshine sleuth nets $3.5 million for SF

Sunshine advocate Kimo Crossman is sometimes counted as a thorn in the side of city government agencies due to his tendency to pepper them with public-records requests. But in the last couple days, he earned a gold star from the San Francisco Assessor-Recorder for pointing out that when Morgan Stanley walked away from five high-profile San Francisco properties, it neglected to pay a transfer tax. Thanks to an email from the ever-inquisitive Crossman, the assessor-recorder was able to collect roughly $3.5 million and feed it to the city’s ailing General Fund.

It started when Crossman read an article on Bloomberg.com about Morgan Stanley walking away from five San Francisco skyscrapers last December that it purchased in 2007: One Post, Foundry Square I, 201 California St., 60 Spear St. and 188 Embarcadero — collectively valued at around $279 million.

He was annoyed. “Individuals can’t walk away from their obligations,” he said. But for the huge financial firm, “it doesn’t appear that they have any negative repercussions.”

The surrender of properties was described as a “transfer,” so he sent a note to the city asking, “is the SF city transfer tax incurred when Morgan Stanley walks away from SF office buildings which they are calling a ‘Transfer’?”

Why indeed it is, came the reply.

“Some transactions trigger transfer tax, while others may not trigger transfer tax because of an existence of an exlusion in the SF Real Property Transfer Tax Ordinance,” explained Zoon Nguyen, deputy assessor-recorder, in an email. “I wanted to let you know that no exclusion was applied toward the Morgan Stanley transaction. As a result, the Assessor-Recorder’s Office collected about $3.5M in transfer tax revenue for the City and County General Fund. I want to thank you, once again, for being engaged in these tax issues. I certainly appreciate knowing that there are people, like you, who are also monitoring these transactions. I would ask that you continue to send us these emails.”

Crossman told the Guardian, “I did it just to help the city and because I was mad at the banks walking away from their loans.”

However, this might just turn out to be the most lucrative cut-and-paste that Crossman has ever executed. There is a possibility of earning a “taxpayers reward” for bringing this to the city’s attention, he tells us. According to legislation passed by the Board of Supervisors in 2006, taxpayers who sniff out tax evasions such as this can, in certain cases, earn up to 10 percent of the collected tax revenue as a bonus — in this case, the maximum would be a whopping $350,000. But it’s entirely at the discretion of the assessor-recorder, and Crossman isn’t holding his breath.

“I’m not the most favorite person in City Hall,” he laughed. We placed a call to the assessor-recorder for details, but haven’t heard back yet.

Thawing ICE

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0
Thawing ICE

sarah@sfbg.com

Top San Francisco officials are still refusing to implement legislation approved by the Board of Supervisors that requires due process to play out before immigrant youth accused of felonies are turned over to the federal government, despite recent developments that call into question arguments that have been made against that policy.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose veto of the legislation was overridden by the board in November 2009, has been the main obstacle to putting the new policy in place. He has argued that it violates federal law, that the city faces civil liability for harboring undocumented immigrants accused of crimes, and that only serious criminals have been affected by his unilateral 2008 decision to turn minors over to federal authorities before they have been convicted.

But then Muni bus driver Charles Washington’s wife, Tracey Washington, and 13-year-old stepson, undocumented immigrants from Australia, were placed under the control of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and ordered deported after the boy got into a fight at his middle school.

The case generated sympathetic media coverage because the felony charges and deportation order seemed excessive, so the federal government issued a 60-day reprieve to allow the family to finish applying for green cards and so the boy could have his day in juvenile court.

“All this got triggered by the non-implementation of a law that the board duly enacted last year,” Washington said March 11, a week after getting his reprieve, expressing exasperation with city officials. “The police are overcharging kids and waiting for someone else to whittle the charges down, and the probation officers are referring the kids to ICE, waiting for someone else to deal with the situation.”

Newsom’s policy required the city’s juvenile probation department to refer Washington’s stepson to federal immigration authorities after local police charged the boy with felony robbery, assault, and extortion in a dispute over 46 cents. Authorities then required his mother, rather than his stepfather, to come pick him up and placed an electronic monitoring device on her pending a deportation hearing.

Newsom’s policy has had a big impact in the city’s immigrant communities. Since July 2008 when the mayor ordered changes to Sanctuary City policies that had been in place for two decades, 125 youths have been referred to ICE, according to a March 9 report from the city’s Juvenile Probation Department.

In addition to the Mayor’s Office, the JPD has refused to enforce policies enacted through legislation by Sup. David Campos that are technically supposed to be the new city policy on referring undocumented youth, and the City Attorney’s Office has not required city employees to follow the new law, arguing it can only give advice and not compel departments to take action.

“With the benefit of legal advice provided by the City Attorney’s Office and outside legal counsel, and in light of current restrictions imposed by federal law, particularly the position taken by federal law enforcement authorities, the department has concluded that it cannot modify its policies and practices,” probation chief William Siffermann said at a March 4 hearing of the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee on why his department didn’t implement the legislation.

Grilled by Campos, Siffermann could not identify a federal law that requires city officials to report kids to federal immigration authorities upon arrest. Instead, Sifferman pointed to what many in the criminal justice community see as U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello’s overly broad interpretation of federal immigration laws, including his allegation that transporting arrested juveniles to court hearings amounts to “harboring aliens.”

But the Washingtons’ case struck a raw nerve at City Hall, and the Obama administration’s conciliatory response, along with other recent legal developments, indicate that it isn’t the feds that are preventing implementation of Campos’ legislation.

In February, Superior Court Judge Charlotte Woolard ruled in a civil case that the Bologna family — of which three members were murdered in 2008, allegedly by Edwin Ramos, an undocumented immigrant who had been in city custody as a juvenile — can’t hold the city liable for failing to prevent the murders.

That crime had been sensationalized by the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, and nativist groups, putting pressure on Newsom to change the Sanctuary City policy. Newsom’s spokespeople repeatedly have referred to it as an example of the civil liability the city faced.

On March 1 (the same day Washington first went public), City Attorney Dennis Herrera replied to allegations that his office has not done enough to implement Campos’ amendment by citing its victory in the Bolognas’ civil case, which sought punitive damages and to invalidate the city’s sanctuary ordinance.

Herrera also asked Gary Grindler, acting deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, to direct the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of California to “not use its limited resources to criminally prosecute local officials and employees who abide by California and local laws regarding the reporting of undocumented juvenile immigrants to the federal immigration authorities.”

Herrera based his March 12 request on an Oct. 19, 2009 memo that Grindler’s predecessor, David Ogden, issued curtailing federal action against medical marijuana dispensaries, which Herrera argued could serve as the model for clarifying the federal position on the city’s sanctuary law.

“If city officials and employees follow the mandates of state law, including those regarding the confidentiality of records of juvenile detainees, and the requirements of the amendment permitting the reporting to ICE of juveniles only after they have been adjudicated as wards of the court for criminal conduct, then the U.S. Attorney should not make it a priority to use its scarce federal resources to prosecute those city officials on the theory that by not reporting them at an earlier point, the city officials or employees are guilty of harboring,” Herrera wrote.

Campos said he welcomes any effort to get clarification from the feds, but believes such clarification is not necessary — and may not be forthcoming anyway. “So San Francisco should move forward. The law, in my view, allows us to do so, and it’s the right thing to do.”

Why Muni is in such trouble

David Talbot
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10
Why Muni is in such trouble

OPINION The Municipal Transportation Agency’s Web site states a goal of providing a "convenient, reliable, accessible, and safe transit system that meets the needs of all transit users" in San Francisco. I have a feeling that if you ask most Muni riders, few would use those words ("convenient," "reliable," "safe," "meeting the needs of all transit users") to describe Muni today.

Riders have been put in the untenable position of paying higher fares for less service. Yet Muni still faces a $17 million deficit (projected to grow to $55 million next year), which it proposes to close by again increasing fares and cutting services. When asked about Muni recently, Mayor Gavin Newsom pointed to a $179 million reduction in state funding as the culprit. And while no one can dispute the devastating impact of such a cut, there are a few questions that suggest that the state alone is not to blame for Muni’s troubles.

For one, we just learned that the MTA has not had a management and performance audit since 1996. Although it’s undergone a number of fiscal audits, a management audit is different; such an audit would actually evaluates Muni’s operations to determine if the system is run effectively and efficiently. How is it that an $800 million operation can go for 14 years without that type of evaluation?

Moreover, what does it say about how Muni is managed when the agency has consistently failed to control overtime costs? We just learned that Muni accounts for about half of the city’s overtime expenses. This fiscal year alone, Muni has spent $23.8 million in overtime, or 45.6 percent of the city’s total. What kind of management and operational practices allow an agency to function like this?

And why is Muni spending 9 percent of its budget ($67 million) on work orders (with other departments) for services that may or may not have much to do with its mission — including $12.2 million for the Police Department, $8.5 million for the Department of Telecommunications, and $6.9 million for the General Services Agency that runs 311? Since a quarter of the value of these work orders would suffice to wipe away its deficit, what, if anything, has Muni done about this?

And speaking of Muni’s deficit, why is it that increasing fares and reducing services seem to be the only tools in its tool box? As a number of transportation experts have suggested, there are several options that should have been on the table — raising parking fees, adding parking meters, charging for blue placards, and putting a revenue measure on the ballot, just to name a few. While some of these options may not be the answer, has Muni at least considered them? Did it consider them before proposing more fare increases and service cuts, including doubling fares for seniors, the disabled, and youth?

All this points to a more fundamental question — what about the MTA Board? Has the board provided the type of engaged and independent oversight needed to guarantee effective management? And is independent oversight even possible when all board members are appointed by one person, the mayor?

Because of these and other questions, I am proud that the Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion I introduced asking the budget analyst to conduct an independent management audit of the MTA. Given the timing of the budget process, the first phase of the audit will be completed by May 1, with the remainder in the summer. The audit will evaluate key areas of Muni’s operations to shed light on whether it is truly following best practices. We owe it to the ridership to face these questions head on. We no longer have the luxury to wait for the state to do the right thing.

SF Supervisor David Campos represents District 9.

Editor’s Notes

David Talbot
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0
Editor’s Notes

Tredmond@sfbg.com

For decades, the San Francisco City Charter has had a fairly simple process for filling vacancies in local elected offices: the mayor makes an appointment. A supervisor leaves office, or the district attorney leaves office, or the city attorney leaves office, or the controller leaves office, or the assessor leaves office, or the public defender leaves office … there’s no election. It’s up to the mayor to fill the job. It gives the person in Room 200 a tremendous amount of power.

Gavin Newsom’s a beneficiary of this system — he didn’t run for election the first time he took elected office. A mayor named Willie Brown appointed him to the Board of Supervisors.

If the mayor leaves office, on the other hand, the Board of Supervisors, by a majority vote, gets to fill that position. And while Newsom has never complained about any of this in the past, now that he thinks he’s going to get elected lieutenant governor, he’s got a campaign underway to make sure the current district-elected board doesn’t get to name his successor. He wants to change the City Charter to mandate a special election if a mayor leaves office before the end of his or her term.

It’s about as hypocritical and self-serving as you can imagine, although he carefully talks about “democracy” and “the voters choosing.”

I find it kind of silly (and expensive) to plan a special election for mayor in March or April of next year when there’s already a regular election for mayor in November. And special elections have notoriously low turnout (favoring candidates with money and name recognition). But let’s play this out.

I’ve always thought it was odd that the mayor got to appoint supervisors. The governor can’t appoint state legislators; the president doesn’t appoint members of Congress. So if we’re going to change things, let’s be sure to change that, too. And then let’s take away the mayor’s ability to fill any vacancy in any elected office.

But you see, Newsom’s office told me he’s against that. He doesn’t want to limit the mayor’s power — just the power of the supervisors. Go figure.

 

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