Tech Archives — Page 33 of 48 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Lee under fire over voter fraud accusations (VIDEO)

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

October 24, 2011

Just over two weeks before election day, allegations of voter fraud carried out by agents of an independent expenditure committee created on behalf of Mayor Ed Lee threw a curveball into the San Francisco mayor’s race. Lee has been the clear front runner for months.

Volunteers for Sen. Leland Yee, a mayoral candidate, accused Lee supporters working on behalf of the San Francisco Neighbor’s Alliance in Chinatown of marking ballots for San Francisco voters, guiding ballot selections with stencils, and collecting ballots in a bag, in apparent violation of election law. Videos of a voting station where the activity occurred were shot by Yee volunteers and aired on major media outlets.

An onslaught of questions about these accusations were directed at Lee at a campaign event Oct. 24, in which Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former San Francisco mayor, announced his endorsement for Lee’s candidacy. Lee sought to distance himself from the independent expenditure committee in question, saying his own campaign has kept things clean. The mayor said he supported his rivals’ calls for investigation into any “fishy business,” and supported the idea of bringing in federal election monitors.

Here’s a video of Lee getting the third degree from reporters at the press event, which was held in the office of a SoMa-based tech company called BranchOut.

Video by Rebecca Bowe

The bad old days

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

October 18, 2011

tredmond@sfbg.com

Willie L. Brown, according to the Chronicle’s John Cote, is “a tremendously popular figure in the city, viewed by many as an avuncular man-about-town, elder statesman and a uniquely San Franciscan character.” The Ed Lee Story, a hagiographic campaign book, refers to Brown’s “characteristic showmanship and hypnotic charm.” Even Randy Shaw, the housing activist who clashed with Brown over gentrification once upon a time, now says in BeyondChron that Brown’s first term “was the most progressive of any mayor in modern San Francisco history.”

I feel as if I’m living in some sort of strange parallel universe, something out of Orwell or North Korea or the Soviet Union of the 1950s. It’s as if history never happened, as if the years between 1996 and 2004 have just vanished, have been deleted from San Francisco’s collective memory. It’s crazy.

I wonder:

What about the thousands and thousands of people who lost their homes and were tossed out of the city like refugees from a war? What about the rampant corruption at City Hall? What about the legions of unqualified political cronies who got good jobs and commission posts? What about the iron-fisted machine rule that kept local politics closed to all but the loyal insiders? Doesn’t any of that count?

Here are some things that absolutely, undeniable, demonstrably happened while Willie Brown was mayor:

Rents on the East Side of town, particularly in the Mission, tripled and sometimes quadrupled between 1996, when Brown took office, and 2004, when he left. Evictions more than tripled, too, and at one point more than 100 people a month were losing their homes. Most of those people were low-income, long-term tenants. They were forced out because richer people were moving into town during the dot-com boom and could pay more for those apartments. We called it the “Economic Cleansing of San Francisco.”

Every day, it seemed, we’d be out at another rally as the Tenants Union and the Mission Antidisplacement Coalition tried to save another family from the forces of gentrification. Every week, it seemed, another group house full of artists would be served an eviction notice. Everywhere you looked, nonprofits and small businesses were losing space to high-tech companies with plenty of money.

I watched the wrecking crew tear down a studio complex on Bryant Street, forcing more than 100 painters and photographers to leave, to make way for a high-tech office project that was approved even though it violated the local zoning laws — and then was never built. For two years, I walked to get my lunch past the empty hole in the ground that had once been a thriving community.

That was typical. Every developer who waved money in front of the mayor got a building permit, no matter how crazy, illogical or illegal the project was. The Planning Department and the Bureau of Building Inspection were little more than fronts for the lobbyists and Brown cronies who determined development policy in the city.

In October, 1999, the author Paulina Borsook wrote a famous piece in Salon called “How the Internet Ruined San Francisco.” I agreed with the sentiment; the influx of the dot-commers was wrecking all that was cool and weird about the city. But she got one point wrong: The Internet didn’t ruin anything. The Internet was, and is, a technology, a tool, something that, like most technological advances, can be used for good or evil.

Mayor Brown didn’t create the dot-com boom. Although he took credit for an awful lot of things, even Willie didn’t claim to have invented the Internet.

But what he did — and what ruined many San Francisco neighborhoods, and ruined the lives of many San Franciscans — was to let the economic cleansing of the city happen, without raising a finger to slow it down or prevent the evictions or protect the most vulnerable people in the city. Over and over, he encouraged it — by appointing commissioners and supervisors and department heads who allowed evictions and development and displacement in the name of growth and prosperity.

In fact, when reporters from the zine Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll asked Brown about the problems facing poor people, he told them that the city had become so expensive that poor people would be better off living somewhere else.

Because he didn’t care about poor people, or tenants, or artists, or anyone who lacked money and flash and dazzle and clout. He was the worst kind of imperial mayor.

Here’s how we put in it in our 33rd anniversary issue in 1998:

“Let’s say the next major earthquake that hits San Francisco is of roughly the same magnitude of the Loma Prieta quake of 1989, or maybe just a bit stronger. Let’s say it wipes out right 1,000 houses and leave some 5,000 people homeless … and lets say a few unscrupulous profiteers take advantage of the shortages of critical supplies and charge desperate residents triple the normal rate for food, blankets and drinking water….

“The profiteers, speculators and charlatans would be exposed in the press and roundly, loudly denounced by every political and community leader in the city. The ones who didn’t wind up in jail would be forced to leave town in disgrace.”

Or else they wouldn’t. Because when an economic earthquake ravaged San Francisco during his term, Brown — the most powerful mayor in modern history, a guy who could have had an immense impact on what was happening — went to meet the speculators and profiteers with outstretched arms, welcomed them to the city and partied with them at night.

And when he ran for re-election, they thanked him by funding an astonishing $5 million campaign.

Then there was the corruption. Not only did Brown raise pay-to-play to a new art form, he filled the city payroll and key commissions with campaign workers, former political allies, and cronies, subverting the civil service system and undermining both the function of city agencies and public respect for local government. At least seven Brown appointees were indicted or investigated for criminal misconduct. While sentencing a Housing Authority official to five years in prison, U.S. District Judge Charles Legge decried what he called Third World-style corruption at San Francisco City Hall.

When Mayor Ed Lee, who is now seeking a full four-year term, was asked to give Brown a grade for his eight years in Room 200, Lee said: A-Plus.

Which makes us a little nervous. To say the least.

I’ve been going back through the Guardian archives over the past couple of weeks, picking out some great covers to reproduce (see page 18) and looking at four and a half decades of alternative news coverage of San Francisco. And if there’s one theme that emerges from the stacks and stacks and stacks of papers, it’s that local government matters.

In the 1960s, when the underground press was talking about sex, drugs and dropping out, the Guardian was talking about the ways big corporations were stealing the taxpayers’ money at City Hall. (Okay, the Guardian wrote about sex and drugs too. But sex and drugs and political scandals.)

The difference between the independent alternative press and the underground papers of the era was more than just thematic. The underground publishers were having a great time and celebrating culture, but none of those publications was built to last. From the day they published their first issue in October, 1966, Guardian founders Bruce Brugmann and Jean Dibble intended their paper to become a permanent part of San Francisco.

The Guardian quickly demonstrated that it had a different approach than a lot of the “New Left” — particularly when it came to electoral politics. At a time when some were saying that it made no difference whether Ronald Reagan or Pat Brown won the 1966 governor’s race, the Guardian made the key point about Reagan.

“California cannot afford the luxury of this kind of conservatism,” a Nov. 7, 1966 editorial stated. “Because of the millions of people coming to California, because San Francisco and Los Angeles soon will have the greatest concentration of urban power in history, because farm land and open space is vanishing at a suicidal rate, because technology is putting vast populations out of work, because of the social neglect of our cities and the uglification of our countryside, because we now have the knowledge to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.”

And while the paper devoted considerable space to reporting on and opposing the war in Vietnam, it was also developing a reputation for local investigative reporting. One June 7, 1971 story showed how the city had all of its short-term deposits in local banks that paid no interest at all. The story parked an investigation by the city’s budget analyst, the resignation of the city treasurer — and a new investment policy that brought the city at least $1 million more revenue a year. (Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $5 million a year, times 40 years is a lot of money that the Guardian brought into the city coffers).

And from the start, the Guardian was a nonpartisan, independent foe of corruption, secrecy and undue influence at City Hall. So while the paper eagerly endorsed Phil Burton (and later his brother, John) for Congress and lauded their antiwar and environmental policies, the Guardian also blasted the Burtons for exercising undue influence back home. The paper strongly endorsed George Moscone for mayor — then denounced him when he fired Harvey Milk from a commission post after Milk had the gall to challenge the Moscone/Burton candidate for state Assembly.

The 1999 Sunshine Ordinance, which dramatically opened up City Hall records, was sponsored and promoted by the Guardian. Willie Brown and his cronies hated it.

It’s probably a misnomer to say that the Burtons, who were a dominant force in local politics in the 1970s and 1980s, ran an old-fashioned machine. They didn’t have the iron control over local politics and the patronage jobs system that the word “machine” implies.

But when Brown became mayor of San Francisco, he had all of that. Brown controlled eight solid votes on the Board of Supervisors (and through various political machinations, had managed to appoint most of them). “He ruled the building,” Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who was a supervisor during those years, recalled. “If you defied him, you were radioactive.”

And one of the people who rose through the ranks as a loyal Brown appointee was Ed Lee. Who to this day thinks things in that administration were just dandy.

The Lee campaign complains about “guilt by association,” and that’s a legitimate point. Ed Lee isn’t Willie Brown. He’s a lot more open, a lot (a lot) more humble, and as numerous progressives have pointed out to us, his door is open. He doesn’t have the history of sleaze that pretty much defined Brown’s political career.

There will be no “Ed Lee Machine.” In fact, with district elections of supervisors pretty much guaranteeing more diffuse political power in the city, there will never be another mayor able to rule the way Brown did.

And these days, Brown’s clout could easily be overstated. Until he engineered the selection of Ed Lee as mayor, his power seemed to be waning. And even Mayor Lee hasn’t done everything that Brown wanted.

Of course, the Chronicle, which he helped immensely when Hearst Corp. bought the paper and had trouble with federal regulators, has helped Brown by giving him a column that created a new, sanitized persona.

But the important thing about the Brown administration was not so much who was in charge but who benefited. The landlords, the developers, the big corporations got pretty much what they wanted from City Hall. The rest of us got screwed.

And now those same interests — in some cases, the exact same people — who supported, promoted and worked with Willie Brown are backing Lee for mayor. If they thought he was going to be an independent progressive, that money and support wouldn’t be coming in. There are people who miss the machine days — and if they think Ed Lee is their guy, it’s reason to worry.

Corruption matters. When people lose faith in local government because they see the kind of sleaze that was daily business under Brown, then they stop wanting to pay taxes for public services. After all, the mayor is wasting our money already. Lee may be a decent guy — but some of the people he hangs out with, some of the people who are supporting him, have a long and very unpleasant history in this town. And all the time he was sitting there at City Hall, while Brown was running a corrupt operation that did lasting damage, Lee never raised a public finger in protest. I hate to see all the history forgotten when people decide who to support for mayor in November, 2011.

The billionaire’s mayor

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

October 18, 2011

rebeccab@sfbg.com

Billionaire Sean Parker, the former Facebook president who was portrayed by Justin Timberlake in the film The Social Network, threw a huge bash in late September for Spotify, the digital music platform he’s invested in. The event was held at a Potrero Hill warehouse covered from top to bottom in graffiti to stand out for the occasion, its interior draped with massive, elegant curtains and adorned with chandeliers. The San Francisco Business Times called it “extraordinarily opulent,” with top-shelf booze, pigs roasting on spits, piles of lobster and fresh sushi, and a crowd peppered with celebrities, tech professionals, and venture investors. Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown made an appearance at the lavish event, donning a tux.

Parker and Brown have something in common: They’re both supporting Mayor Ed Lee’s bid for a full term in office. While campaign finance law prohibits donors from contributing more than $500 to a candidate running for office in San Francisco, the young tech investor donated $100,000 to an independent expenditure (IE) committee that’s legally separate from his official campaign, called San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government. Brown, meanwhile, has hosted fundraisers for the mayor and regularly advocates for Lee in his column in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Parker is just one of several billionaires stepping up to support Lee’s mayoral bid. While every mayoral candidate has to raise money, generous support for the interim mayor from the region’s wealthiest figures has raised eyebrows, suggesting that the wealthy and powerful trust him to carry forward an agenda that benefits their interests. Businesspeople with financial stakes in city contracts, real-estate professionals involved in major development projects, and investors in San Francisco companies who stand to benefit from specialized tax breaks can all be found in the mix of Lee’s donor base. Meanwhile, many of the backers who urged Lee to run before he became an official candidate have deep ties to Brown — and several are remembered for coming under the watchful eye of federal investigators when they served as city officials under his administration.

The IE Parker donated $100,000 to was launched by Ron Conway, a prominent tech investor and registered Republican whose net worth also stretches into the billions. Conway, who’s dubbed “The Godfather of Silicon Valley” in a book documenting his meteoric rise, had sunk $151,000 into the committee as of Sept. 24.

Marc Benioff, billionaire CEO of Salesforce.com, dropped another $50,000 into the hat. William H. Draper III, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to preside over the Export-Import Bank of the United States in the 1980s, also pitched in $1,000.

Lee is the city’s first Chinese-American mayor, appointed unanimously by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in January 2011 after his predecessor, Mayor Gavin Newsom, ascended to the Lieutenant Governor post in Sacramento. In the months following his inauguration — when he was still presumed to be a caretaker mayor who would serve only until the end of Newsom’s term — Lee earned praise from his City Hall colleagues for his inclusive style of governance, affable demeanor, and keen understanding of the nuts and bolts of city government stemming from his years of service as City Administrator. He won approval for crafting a city budget by incorporating input from multiple stakeholders, in sharp contrast with Newsom’s tendency to shut out critics.

Lee gave assurances to colleagues and newspaper editors that he wouldn’t run, but changed his mind in early August. Once he threw his hat into the ring, the honeymoon ended — and cash from venture capitalists, tech companies, global engineering firms, and high-end real estate outfits began pouring in.

Collectively, the camp that’s gone to bat for Lee envisions a San Francisco that bears little resemblance to the future progressives have in mind. Where the left advocates more equitable taxation, halting luxury housing construction in favor of affordable residential projects, and creating a municipal bank to free up lending for small business, the mayor’s moderate supporters emphasize propelling forward market-rate development, catering to tech and biotech firms with targeted tax breaks, giving streets a clean and sanitized feel to satisfy tourists, and encouraging more homeownership and less rental housing on the whole.

The rub is that in an evermore expensive city, certain populations — middle-class families, communities of color blunted by unemployment or foreclosure, and creative youth who are cash-poor but dreaming big, for instance — become vulnerable to being priced out. San Francisco is at a crossroads, and the direction it takes will be determined by this race.

SOFT MONEY SUPPORTERS

On the day Lee was inaugurated as mayor, he told a room full of supporters gathered in City Hall’s rotunda, “I was a progressive before progressive was a political faction in this town.” On the campaign trail, Lee’s cited his past work as an attorney for the Asian Law Caucus, describing how he fought to protect tenants and to promote equal opportunity in the San Francisco Fire Department. But that was decades ago — and these days, some heavyweights in Lee’s corner are downright hostile to progressives.

And while Lee does have some progressive support, the bulk of the money behind his campaign comes from people who are on the other side of the political fence — and they clearly think he’s going to listen to them.

Last fall, Conway — the billionaire angel investor who started an IE on Lee’s behalf — told an audience at a business conference that it was time to “take San Francisco back” from progressives. At the time, a polarizing debate was raging over a proposed ordinance that would ban sitting or lying down on city sidewalks, with progressives condemning it as an inhumane anti-homeless measure and advocates trumpeting it as a tool for restoring “civility” to sidewalks. Conway loaned $20,000 to the campaign supporting the law, and the moderates claimed victory.

To improve Lee’s chances of winning, Conway has tapped powerful Sacramento consultants to oversee television spots, polling, and other campaign efforts. The campaign’s law firm, Nielson Merksamer Parrinello Gross & Leoni LLP, teamed up with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) last year to advance a stunningly expensive yet failed ballot initiative designed to crush municipal electricity programs posing a threat to PG&E’s monopoly in Northern California.

Lee drew the ire of a mayoral opponent, City Attorney Dennis Herrera, for remarking that PG&E was “a company that gets it” during a media event; his ill-timed comment came on the heels of a scathing federal report detailing the utility’s culpability for the tragic Sept. 9, 2010 San Bruno gas line explosion.

Another consultant hired by Conway, Aaron McLear of The Ginsberg McLear Group, got his chops on Republican campaign trails, serving as communications director for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio, and later acting as press secretary to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Reached by phone, McLear tried to play down the fact that he was a Republican operative hired by a Republican billionaire to try and influence San Francisco voters to elect Lee. “Yes, I am a registered Republican, but everything we’re spending our money on is Democratic — we’re trying to elect a Democrat in a Democrat town,” he explained, noting that he was also working with Democratic consultant Brian Brokaw.

As part of their efforts, McLear said, the IE had conducted a “virtual precinct walk” developed by a Silicon Valley tech company called Votizen, which utilizes social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to spread the word about a candidate. Votizen was listed as part of Conway’s investment portfolio in a document published by Business Insider. Zynga and Twitter, two companies benefiting from tax cuts spearheaded by Lee, were also listed in Conway’s portfolio.

Conway’s IE is only one of several that have sprouted up apart from Lee’s official campaign. Another one, the Committee for Effective City Management, drew financial support from city contractors or close affiliates of city vendors. Raymond Lok, who listed his occupation as retired, gave $5,000, while another $5,000 flowed in from 4U Services, a New York based company. A public records search revealed that Lok is related to Melanie Lok, president and CEO of mlok Consulting, who contributed the maximum $500 to Lee’s official mayoral campaign. Melanie Lok listed her occupation as “homemaker” — even though, as the San Francisco Chronicle pointed out, her company holds a contract with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) for an invoicing system upgrade worth at least $132,000. (Lok’s odd word choice for her occupation may not be an isolated case. A total of $38,000 flowed into the coffers of Lee’s official campaign from 76 “homemakers,” while another $7,500 was contributed by 15 “housewives.”)

4U Services, which also does business as Stellar Services, holds a city contract for the same SFPUC project that mlok was tapped to work on, worth nearly $92,000. Lok’s consulting firm also does business with Kin Wo Construction, a company that contributed to Lee’s campaign and Brown’s reelection campaign in 1999 — and has been awarded multiple city contracts.

Kin Wo Construction president Florence Kong also contributed $3,000 to Run, Ed, Run. That campaign, which materialized this past spring to encourage Lee to run and drew scrutiny from the city’s Ethics Commission, was driven by Rose Pak, a consultant for the San Francisco Chinatown Chamber of Commerce whose connections with the business world have imbued her with tremendous influence.

And some of the same powers behind the corrupt and anti-progressive Brown administration are Lee backers: Run, Ed, Run accepted $34,715 in contributions from 16 individuals who contributed to Brown’s reelection in 1999, either themselves or through companies they owned, representing about 70 percent of the total contributions.

Another IE called the San Francisco Neighbor Alliance , which has yet to reveal its financiers, produced a biography of Lee written by Run, Ed, Run consultant Enrique Pearce and distributed to voters. It’s a violation of election law for an official candidate campaign to coordinate with a third-party committee, but the unauthorized biography contains photographs, anecdotes, and other details of Lee’s personal life that would seem difficult to unearth without the candidate’s help.

Questions surrounding contributions to Lee’s official campaign spurred a criminal investigation by District Attorney George Gascon last week, following Bay Citizen reporter Gerry Shih’s article detailing how airport shuttle drivers were urged by managers to make maximum contributions to Lee in exchange for cash reimbursements. According to a campaign finance document detailing contributions since Sept. 24, just 54 percent of the donors to Lee’s official campaign were San Francisco residents. Among those who made maximum $500 contributions were students, servers, parking garage attendants, cashiers, and a nanny.

Third party committees formed on Lee’s behalf, meanwhile, are working in tandem. On Sept. 16, leaders from all the committees met at the office of Building Owners and Managers (BOMA), an affiliation of San Francisco landlords. “The purpose is to coordinate our efforts, both field and media, to achieve maximum effectiveness,” Alliance for Jobs and Sustainable Growth coordinator Vince Courtney wrote in an email. Recipients included Jim Lazarus and Rob Black of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, representatives from the Coalition on Jobs and BOMA, and Rodrigo Santos, a partner in a structural engineering firm called Santos & Urrita which has worked on numerous live/work loft construction projects throughout the city. The email also went to a representative of Left Coast Communications, the outfit that helped steer Run, Ed, Run.

BROWN GOVERNMENT IN EXILE

A San Francisco Chronicle article from 2001 examined the depth of Brown’s patronage politics. “It is well known this town has been for sale since Willie took office,” John DeCastro, president of the Potrero Boosters neighborhood association, was quoted as saying. “Money gets things done.”

And while Lee has a very different political persona than Brown, many of the same people who worked with the former mayor are in the Lee campaign orbit.

“The Ed Lee campaign looks the Willie Brown government in exile, from top to bottom,” Former Sup. Aaron Peskin charged. “Every scurrilous person involved in ripping off the San Francisco taxpayer is neck deep in the Ed Lee campaign. If this guy gets elected mayor, anything that’s not nailed to the floor they’re going to take.”

As the city’s chief executive, Lee comes across as a dedicated public servant who tends to side with the city’s moderates, thrust unexpectedly into the rough and tumble of San Francisco politics. Yet as a candidate, he’s rarely discussed in political circles without mention of his two most visible and influential backers, Brown and Pak. At a mayoral campaign forum in August, Board President David Chiu directed a pointed question at Lee. “So Ed, about a week or two before you told the world that you wanted to — that you were considering — running for mayor, you told me that you had looked at yourself in the mirror, you didn’t have the fire in the belly, you didn’t want to run — but that you were having trouble saying ‘no’ to Willie Brown and Rose Pak,” Chiu said.

A Brown-era City Hall insider told the Guardian that Lee, who previously served as head of the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW) and City Administrator, ascended to his high-ranking posts in part because he was favored by Brown and Pak.

“It was no secret, at least in Room 200, that when Ed was summoned to the office, he got his instructions directly from Willie Brown to do something for someone,” this person recounted. “Willie Brown was smart, he put Ed in positions (Purchaser, DPW) that don’t have commission oversight by charter, and can spend millions. That was not by mistake.”

The statement could be chalked up to mudslinging from any disgruntled foe with an axe to grind, but the wariness of Brown-era politics may stem from past experience. There’s a history of federal investigators looking closely at Brown-appointed city officials for questionable behavior, and several of those former officials turned out at the kickoff for Run, Ed, Run this spring.

Among them was Zula Jones, who worked at the city’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) and was indicted by a grand jury in April 2000 on charges that she allowed a construction company, Scott Co. of San Leandro, to game the city’s minority business certification by creating a false minority-owned contracting company with a Brown donor. The phony front, Scott-Normal Mechanical, Inc., received $64 million in city contracts. According to a 2002 San Francisco Chronicle story, federal investigators found documents they’d subpoenaed next to a paper shredder in Jones’ office — but a judge ruled the evidence was inadmissible, and charges against her were dropped.

In March of 2010, Lee presented Jones with a Community Advocate of the Year award at a banquet hosted by Global Arts and Education to celebrate International Women’s Day. Former Mayor Brown hosted the event.

Another person who turned up at the Run, Ed, Run kickoff was Frank Chiu, who headed up the Department of Building Inspection under Brown’s administration. In 2000, the FBI investigated that department for possible kickbacks and allegedly pressuring permit seekers to use specific contractors. In 2003, the San Francisco Civil Grand Jury issued a report concluding that the department gave “breaks to politically connected developers,” by accelerating approval for their projects.

Also in attendance was Walter Wong, who worked as a consultant to companies seeking project approval from DBI. He came under scrutiny for his cozy relationships with DBI officials, and a 2001 Chronicle article noted that Wong “is often spotted behind the counter before business hours at [DBI], which passes judgment on almost all construction in the city.” The article noted his close ties to Brown and Pak.

In the late 1990s, when Lee served as City Purchaser under Mayor Brown, a company called GSCI was approved as a contractor for DBI even though it was repeatedly rejected by city staff. The company won millions in city contracts, but came under federal investigation for setting up a kickback scheme to defraud the city.

According to the transcript of a deposition carried out by the law firm Gonzalez & Leigh, Deborah Vincent-James — who oversaw contracting for technology companies and has since passed away — testified that GCSI didn’t meet the minimum qualifications (See “Dirty Business,” Feb. 8, 2011). “From day one, I knew that they were not qualified,” Vincent-James’ deposition transcript reads. She went on to say that the official city process for evaluating contractors was “totally bypassed.” Nonetheless, “We had to admit them.” Asked who told her they had to be admitted, she responded, “The director of purchasing. Ed Lee.” She went on to testify that Lee had been acting under the direction of Mayor Brown, who had ties to GCSI principals. When the Guardian contacted Lee for a response to that story, his office did not respond.

Mohammad Nuru, whom Lee recently appointed to lead DPW, was also at the Run, Ed, Run kickoff. He previously served as deputy director of DPW, but drew scrutiny after workers from the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), a city-funded nonprofit he previously ran, testified that he and SLUG had required them walk precincts and deliver campaign literature for Gavin Newsom for Mayor in 2004 on days they should have been performing street cleaning duties. SLUG was banned from receiving further city contracts following a city attorney’s investigation. Lee says on the campaign trail that he’s going for a full term to continue the tone of civility at City Hall. Yet to longtime observers, his candidacy has come to be defined not by a vision he articulates for San Francisco, but by the past dealings and shady reputations of his supporters. Progressives fear that a Lee administration will be a rehash of the Brown era, with its rampant evictions and favoritism to politically-connected businesses. Lee has voiced his support for inclusivity, smart governance, and fairness, yet some of his greatest boosters seem motivated purely by profit. If Lee wins, his first test will be whether or not he can stand up to the power brokers circling his camp.

Students with deep pockets pony up for Lee

By Christine Deakers

When you talk about students getting involved in politics, you typically think of canvassing, voter registration, and protests. Campaign contributions aren’t anywhere near the top of the list.

In fact, with the bad economy, the soaring cost of education and the crushing burden of student debt, it’s hard to imagine most students having an extra $500 to give to a candidate for mayor of San Francisco.

But nine people identified as “students” gave the maximum $500 to the Ed Lee for Mayor campaign, records show. Two other students, one living in Montana, gave smaller amounts.

Two of those maximum contributions came from young members of the Sangiacomo family, whose senior members have been among the largest and most notorious landlords in San Francisco.

Students Christina and Natalie Sangiacomo both donated $500 dollars. They are the daughters of James Sangiacomo, who helps run Trinity Management Services, a family real estate operation.

Signing a check to Ed Lee seems to be all in the family— the Sangiacomo name appeared 12 times on the donation list, and documented addresses spanned outside of Bay Area zip codes to Corona Del Mar.

We couldn’t reach Christina or Natalie at the family home, but we asked their dad if he knew his daughters gave such substantial amounts to a mayoral campaign. He simply replied, “[Natalie] is 20 and registered to vote.” (For the record, both daughters are over 18, the minimum legal age to make a campaign contribution.)

Hamdiah A. Ahmed (Oakland), Leanna L. Chan (S.F.), Kelly L.L. Chen (S.F.), Stephanie Chen (Danville), Jasmin Perez, Michael Perez (both from Hillsborough), and Yusra M. Sharif (Oakland) also donated $500 to the Ed Lee campaign. Selina Sun (S.F.) donated $250 and Philip O’Connor, on record as a student in Missoula, Montana, gave $175.

Sun’s father, Andrew Sun, is a lobbyist and fundraising consultant at Sun Associates. He gave Lee $100. His wife, Selina’s mother, is Alicia Wang, a long time Democratic Party activist and former candidate for supervisor. Her name did not appear on Ed Lee’s campaign records.

Some students from outside San Francisco kicked in the maximum contribution. Take Hamdiah Ahmed and Yusra Sharif, two unemployed students who live at the same residence in Oakland. The Sharif family owns Oasis Food Market in the East Bay.

There’s no legal reason why a student can’t donate to a campaign — unless someone else provided the money specifically for that purpose. And that’s almost impossible to prove, particularly if a students parents are helping support him or her anyway.

In a phone conversation, Bill Barnes, campaign manager for Ed Lee, emphasized the importance of complying with campaign finance law. He said no one is barred from contributing, and there is “no reason to believe that [students] shouldn’t be helping”.

As for the students who aren’t current San Francisco denizens, Barnes said, “I don’t find it that interesting that second or third generation native San Franciscans feel an obligation to the city.”

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

October 18, 2011

Music listings are compiled by Emily Savage. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Anika, Jel, Starving Weirdos Independent. 8pm, $15.

Arcadio, Turtle Rising El Rio. 9pm, $6.

Rome Balestrieri vs. JC Rockit Johnny Foley’s, 243 O’Farrell, SF; www.duelingpianosatfoleys.com. 9:30pm.

Lindsey Buckingham Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $39-$59.

“Dark Knights: A Very Spooky Birthday” Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.verdiclub.net. 8pm, $3-$5. With Tartufi, Michael Musika, Aan, and Night Genes.

El Elle, Boyz IV Men, Puce Moment Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

K.D. Lang, Siss Boom Bang Fillmore. 8pm, $59.

Laughing Prophets of Doom, Family Stoned, Bad Daddies Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

Modern Day Moons 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 10pm, free.

Nick Waterhouse and the Tarots, Allah-Las Slim’s. 8:30pm, $19.

Violet Hour, Myonics, Symbolick Jews Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Chris Amberger Trio Yoshi’s. 6 and 9:30pm.

Cosmo AlleyCats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo Place, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com; 7-10pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Greg Gotelli Quartet Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

Jazz organ party Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

La Ruya Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. With dance by Melissa Cruz and Fanny Ara, plus special guest Radio Istanbul.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

Third Wednesdays Underground SF. 10pm-2am, $3. With Ms. Jackson, DJ Loryn, and Becky Knox spinning electro, tech, house, and breaks.

Vespa Beat Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 9pm, free. MSK.fm spins raregrooves, electroswing, and boogie.

THURSDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bleak Ethnique, S.F. Blows Knockout. 9:30pm, $5.

“Communion” Swedish American Hall. 7:30pm, $15. With Matthew and the Atlas, David Mayfield Parade, and Lauren Shera.

John Doe, Dead Rock West Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Victoria George, Or, The Whale Independent. 8pm, $15.

Hank IV, Dead Farmers, Outdoorsmen, Switftumz, Lenz Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10. Plus more.

Mason Jennings Fillmore. 8pm, $35.

Mercury Falls Brick & Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $13.

Miyavi Slim’s. 8pm, $30.

MJ’s Brass Boppers, El Cajon Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Theophilus London Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $13.

Parties, Bye Bye Blackbirds, Trevor Childs and the Beholders Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Rags Tuttle vs Rome Balestrieri Johnny Foley’s, 243 O’Farrell, SF; www.duelingpianosatfoleys.com. 9:30pm.

San Cha Black Glitter 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 10pm, free.

Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, Kill Moi, Symbolick Jews Milk. 9pm, $5.

Struts, Hi-Nobles, Lydia & the Projects El Rio. 9pm, $7.

Total B.S., Lecherous Gaze Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, free. Black Heart Tattoo 7th Anniversary and SFO Tattoo Convention Pre-Party.

David Vandervelde, Fling, Lee Malone Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Blues Organ Party Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Jamie Dubberly & Orquesta Dharma Rassela’s Jazz Club, 1534 Fillmore, SF; (415) 346-8696. 8pm, $12.

Kai Eckhardt Group Savanna Jazz, 2937 Mission, SF; www.savannajazz.com. 7:30pm, $10.

NaJe Yoshi’s, 6pm.

Ricardo Scales Yoshi’s. 8pm, $25.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Tom Lander & Friends Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

DaMaDa Revolution Cafe, 3248 22nd St, SF. (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Arcade Lookout. 9pm, free. Indie dance party.

Double Down John Collins, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncollins.com. 9pm, $5-$7. Live performance by 40 Love, with DJs E Da Boss, Kung Fu Chris, B Maj, and Whooligan.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Airborne Toxic Event Fillmore. 9pm, $31.

Bang Data, Candelaria, V for Volume, Tender Box, DJ Kool Kyle, Roger Mas Elbo Room. 9pm, $8-$10.

Battlehooch, Chuck Prophet, This Old Earthquake Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $10-$12. Save KUSF benefit.

Rome Balestrieri, Jason Marion, JC Rockit Johnny Foley’s, 243 O’Farrell, SF; www.duelingpianosatfoleys.com. 9pm.

Beehavers, Magic Leaves, Arborea Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Jesse Brewster, Luvplanet, Kyle Alden and the Bee-Loud Glade Band Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10-$12.

Bryan Minus & the Disconnect, Antenna, EndRoit, Blah Boutique Kimo’s. 9pm.

“Check Yo Ponytail” Mezzanine. 9pm, $20. With Spank Rock, Death Set, Big Freedia, Pictureplane, and DJ Franki Chan.

Cool Water Canyon, Skyline Taxi Slim’s. 9pm, $13-$15.

Fab Faux Yoshi’s. 8 and 10pm, $46.

Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Anders Osborne Independent. 9pm, $25.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller Make-Out Room. 7:30pm. Performing Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.

Fixx Showroom, 1000 Van Ness, SF; www.theshowroomsf.com. 7:30 and 9pm, $25.

Rip Offs, Nobunny, Statics, Personal and the Pizzas, Shrouds Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $20.

Tom Morello and the Nighwatchmen Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $23.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Cat Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

Gina Harris and Torbie Phillips Savanna Jazz, 2937 Mission, SF; www.savannajazz.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Justin & Mattias Yoshi’s. 6pm.

Tony Ybarra and Ken Ryals Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Mucho Axe 50 Mason Social House, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 10pm, free.

Zahara! Swedish American Hall. 8pm, $25. With Kina Mendez, Moroccan Musicians of El Hamideen, and more.

Vaughan Johnson Jazz Combo Jack’s Club, 2545 24, SF; (415) 641-1880. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

DJ Greg J Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm.

DJ What’s His Fuck Riptide Tavern, 3639 Taraval, SF; (415) 681-8433. 9pm, free. Spinning old school punk.

Dubstep Producer Battle Club Six 1, 60 Sixth St., SF; www.clubsix1.com. 10pm, $5-$10.

Damian Lazarus, Art Department, Droog Public Works. 10pm, $15-$17.

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-$4. Doo-wap, one hit wonders, and soul with DJ Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

Old School Dance Party El Rio. 9pm. DJs spinning freestyle, new wave, hip-hop, and old school jams.

Pledge: Fraternal Lookout. 9pm, $3-$13. Benefiting LGBT and nonprofit organizations. Bottomless kegger cups and paddling booth with DJ Christopher B and DJ Grind.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Afrofunk Festival” Brick & Mortar Music Hall. 8pm, $15. With Sila, Black Nature, DJ Jeremiah, and more.

Mickey Avalon Slim’s. 8:30pm, $26.

Blank Stares, Slouching Stars, Rabbles Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Calle 13 Fillmore. 8pm, $58.

Conspiracy of Venus, Alameda, Bridgit Jacobsen Amnesia. 5pm.

Mano Cherga, Chervona, Makru Musica Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Anders Osborne Independent. 9pm, $25.

Lyres, Roy Loney and the Phantom Movers, Subsonics, Dukes of Hamburg Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $15.

Jason Marion, Rags Tuttle, Rome Balestrieri Johnny Foley’s, 243 O’Farrell, SF; www.duelingpianosatfoleys.com. 9pm.

No Statik, Future Skullz, Hunting Party El Rio. 9pm, $7.

Ocean Grove, Voxhaul Broadcast Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $13-$15.

Rantoul, Lone Surfer and his Highlander 2’s, Tee N Dee Explosion Thee Parkside. 2pm, $5. Plus more.

Ronkat Spearman’s Katdelic Boom Boom Room, 1600 Fillmore, SF; www.boomboomroomblues.com. 10pm, $10.

Ana Sia Mezzanine. 9pm, $10. With Eprom, Debut, DJG, Salva, Chrissy Murderbot, B.Bravo & the Starship, and more.

Maria Taylor, Big Harp, Dead Fingers Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10-$14.

This Charming Band, Jean Genies Cafe Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Broken Strongs Yoshi’s. 6pm.

Joshua Redman and Brad Mehidau Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfwmpac.org. 7 and 9pm, $30-$75.

Suzanna Smith Savanna Jazz, 2937 Mission, SF; www.savannajazz.com. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Cradle Duende featuring MCRAI Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $12-$20.

Dark HollowRiptide Tavern, 3639 Taraval, SF; (415) 681-8433. 10pm, free.

Eoin Harrington Band Yoshi’s. 10pm, $25.

Go Van Gogh Revolution Cafe, 3248 22nd St, SF. (415) 642-0474. 9pm, free.

Saturday Night Salsa Ramp, 855 Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/therampsf. 5:30pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Bootie SF: DJ Tripp vs. FarOff DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-$15. Video mashup battle, live rock band Smash-Up Derby, Peach Chante, indie-electro with Six & Candy.

Debaser: Hip-Hop Edition Knockout. 9pm, $5. G-funk, hip-hop, classic b-sides with DJ Jamie Jams, EmDee, and Stab Master Arson.

DJ Nick Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 10:30pm.

4OneFunktion Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. Live hip-hop and DJs Quest, 2 Fresh, and Cue.

Mango El Rio. 3-8pm, $8-$10. Hip-hop, dancehall, salsa, and reggaeton with DJs Edaj, Marcella, Ola, and La Coqui.

Masquerotica Concourse Exhibition Center, 620 Seventh St, SF. 8pm, $45. With Mutaytor, DJ Dan, Afrolicious All-Stars, Unkle Paul’s Dark Kabaret, Eric McFadden Experience, and more.

SUNDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Anthrax, Testament, Death Angel, Chimaira, Rise to Remain Warfield. 6pm, $35.

Atriarch Knockout. 9pm, $6.

Browntown West, Okie Rosette, Ampro’s Chuck Lido Bottom of the Hill. 2-6pm. Benefit for Starr King Elementary.

Nero Order, Ninth Moon Black, Embers Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Phantom Surfers, Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Lateenos, Harold Ray Budget Rock Review Thee Parkside. 1pm, $10. Plus more.

Saves the Day, Bayside, I Am the Avalanche Fillmore. 7pm, $26.50.

War on Drugs, Purling Hiss, Carter Tanton Independent. 8pm, $12-14.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jazz Organ Party with Lavay Smith and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Jim Hall Quartet Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfwmpac.org. 7pm, $20-$45.

Little Brown Brother Blues & Jazz Jam Savanna Jazz, 2937 Mission, SF; www.savannajazz.com. 7pm, $5.

Organsm Jazz Show Braza Theater, 2781 24 St, SF. (401) 286-7871. 11am-4pm, free. With Tender Tim Shea, Jim Gunderson, and David Schaff.

Louis Prima Jr. Yoshi’s. 7pm, $25.

Tom Lander & Friends Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Sunday Streets Bluegrass Jam” Amnesia. 12-4pm. With Rock Falls and more.

Sunday Night Salsa Ramp, 855 Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/therampsf. 5:30pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Batcave Club 93, 93 9th St, SF 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot, XChrisT, Necromos and c_death.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, dubstep, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludichris, and Sake One.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Gillian Grassie. Red Poppy Art House. 7pm, $10-$15.

Andrew Ripp, Steve Moakler, Michael Annuzzi Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bossa Nova Tunnel Top, 601 Bush, SF; (415) 722-6620. 8-11:30pm, free. Live acoustic Bossa Nova.

David Hardiman’s SF All-Star Big Band Yoshi’s. 8pm, $10-$25.

Todd Murray Rrrazz Room, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $30.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Earl Brothers Amnesia. 6pm.

Brian Joseph El Rio. 8pm, $20-$200. Benefit for Community Boards.

DANCE CLUBS

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

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

Sucker Punch reunion Elbo Room. 10pm, $5. With original resident DJs Rapid Fire and more. Hosted by Nate Always.

TUESDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Death Valley High, Simoom, They Are All Dead, Seatraffic Kimo’s. 9pm, $6.

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

Fist Fam, Rec-League, Grand Invincible, BPos Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Jeffrey Foucault, Kate Gaffney, Jim Hanft with Samantha Yonack Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

Gold Panda, Jonti, Blackout Make Out Independent. 8pm, $15.

Grieves and Budo, Prof, MC Type Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $14.

Male Bonding, WATERS, Lilac Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Garrett Pierce, Himalayan Bear Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Tech N9ne with Jay Rock, Krizz Kaliko, Kutt Calhoun, Flawless Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $32.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Hot Club of San Francisco Yoshi’s. 8pm, $14.

Todd Murray Rrrazz Room, 222 Mason, SF; www.therrazzroom.com. 8pm, $30.

Tin Cup Serenade Burritt Room at Crescent Hotel, 417 Stockton, SF; www.crescentsf.com. 6-9pm, free. DANCE CLUBS Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

The odd twist to the Chron’s Chiu endorsement

Zelda Bronstein

October 12, 2011

The odd twist to the Chron’s Chiu endorsement

The most obvious interpretation of the San Francisco Chronicle’s endorsement of David Chiu is that the Chron thinks Chiu has completely left the progressive camp and is now aligned with the political wing the daily paper calls “moderates:”

What is impressive about Chiu is that “change” and “jobs” are not just campaign slogans for him. He can go into detail about the redundancies and red tape at City Hall that are holding back economic development: the 15 departments that regulate the private sector, the hundreds of fees that burden businesses big and small, a payroll tax that is a disincentive to hire … If elected, he would have a mandate to make city government more efficient and effective.

(I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but the payroll tax is NOT a disincentive to hire.)

The Chron — which, on economic issues like taxes and development, is a very conservative paper — clearly thinks Chiu can be trusted, which ought to make progressives nervous.

But here’s the other interesting twist.

Hearst Corporation bought the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, at the top of the market, for more than $500 million. I guarantee the paper isn’t worth more than a tiny fraction of that today. It’s still losing money, and has been for years, and nobody’s buying daily newspapers any more, and if Hearst wanted to unload the Chron, the New York publishing chain would be lucky to get $50 million. Hell, they’d be lucky to get $25 million.

So the bean counters in New York have this nonperforming half-billion-dollar asset on their balance sheets, and there’s no way to recover that money — except for one thing: The Chron owns a bunch of land around Fifth and Mission, including its own historic building. And that property is potentially worth a whole lot of money. When the economy picks up, Hearst can develop the parking lots, old press facilities and even its HQ; turn it all into condos and office space, and suddenly there’s a real chance of recouping some of those deep losses.

The process is already underway — the Chron’s been moving tech firms into vacant space in its building, and is working with developers on the shape of what could be a major project still to come.

And guess what? In June, William Randolph Hearst III — heir to part of the Hearst fortune and a member of the Hearst Corp. board — made a rare campaign contribution to a San Francisco political candidate. He gave the maximum allowable $500 to … David Chiu. Around the same time, Michael Cohen and Jesse Blout, the partners in a firm called Strada that’s working on the redevelopment of the Chron’s property, also gave Chiu the maxiumum $500.

I figured the top people at the Chron would back Ed Lee because they figured he’d be down with whatever they wanted to do with that land — particularly since Lee’s good buddy Willie Brown is now a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. But it appears they’ve cast their lot with Chiu. As Mr. Spock would say, fascinating.

On Guard!

Andrew Lam

October 11, 2011

news@sfbg.com

ORACLE’S DIRTY SECRET

If wealth trickled down from Oracle’s OpenWorld conference in San Francisco last week, very little of it reached a small group of low-wage laborers hired from out of state to set up for a concert hosted as an event highlight on Treasure Island.

Oracle is a prominent Bay Area tech company helmed by Larry Ellison, the billionaire CEO who worked closely with top city officials to bring the America’s Cup sailing regatta to San Francisco.

The Oct. 5 Oracle OpenWorld concert on Treasure Island featured Sting and Tom Petty as headliners. Registration packages for the weeklong tech conference, which drew some 45,000 attendees to San Francisco, ranged from $1,395 to $2,595.

A member of the carpenters union contacted the San Francisco Office of Labor Standards & Enforcement (OLSE) Sept. 16 to formally complain that a construction crew assembling a large seating structure for the event was being paid less than the city-mandated minimum wage of $9.92 per hour, city documents show.

Josh Pastreich, an OLSE official, went to the worksite to interview crew members. Their names were redacted from public records, but Pastreich described them as monolingual Spanish speakers who travel from city to city building seating arrangements for major events.

“Everyone is being paid $8 an hour (except for the supervisors),” he reported in a city document. “Workers generally started at 6:30 am but there was a little confusion about quitting times.” At least one work day lasted 11 and a half hours, according to a timesheet. The workers were hired by subcontractors brought in by Hartmann Studios, an events management outfit working directly for Oracle.

“We made a phone call, and sent them some emails,” OLSE director Donna Levitt explained. “Nobody said, ‘we intended to pay them the [legal] rate,'” but the subcontractors increased workers’ hourly wages to comply with San Francisco minimum wage ordinance requirements, Levitt said. Since the company adjusted the rate immediately, no fines were issued. There were fewer than 20 workers on the project.

OLSE did not correspond with Oracle directly, but spoke to the subcontractors. One was T & B Equipment, a Virginia-based company. “We were not aware of the minimum wage there, but we fixed it before the payroll was done,” a T & B representative identified only as Mr. Waller told the Guardian. Lewmar, a Florida-based subcontractor, assisted with staffing for the job. Oracle, Hartmann Studios, and Lewmar did not respond to Guardian requests for comment.

Since the enforcement agency intervened, the laborers earned $9.92 per hour instead of $8 — still well below the average Bay Area payscale for similar work. Building bleachers is comparable to raising scaffolding for major construction projects, and the prevailing wage for unionized scaffolding erectors in California is $37.65 per hour, or $62.63 when benefits are factored in.

None of the workers were from San Francisco, which likely spurred the carpenters union complaint — Carpenters Local 22 has faced significant losses in membership since the economic downturn due to high levels of unemployment disproportionately impacting the construction sector. Represenatives from Local 22 did not return calls seeking comment.

Boosters of the America’s Cup have hailed the upcoming sailing event as an engine for local job creation, but Oracle’s use of low-wage, out-of-state laborers at its pricey, high-profile OpenWorld event raises questions. While the tech company is a separate outfit from the America’s Cup organizing team, Ellison holds leadership positions at both.

Ellison was named the world’s sixth wealthiest individual in a Forbes profile in 2010, with a net worth of $28 billion. His total compensation last year was listed as $70,143,075. That’s 3,399 times the amount a person earning $9.92 an hour would make in a year working 40 hours every week — before taxes, of course. (Rebecca Bowe)

LEE’S TELLING VETO

The Board of Supervisors approved legislation to close a gaping loophole in the city’s landmark Health Security Ordinance on Oct. 4, in the process forcing Mayor Ed Lee to promise his first veto and reveal his allegiance to business interests over labor and consumer groups.

Sup. David Campos sponsored legislation that would prevent SF businesses from pocketing money they are required to set aside for employee health care, seizures that totaled about $50 million last year. These health savings accounts are often used by restaurants who charge their customers a 3-5 percent surcharge, ostensibly for employee health care, instead simply keeping most of the money.

Despite aggressive lobbying against the measure by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce — which went so far as to threaten to withdraw support for Prop. C, the pension reform measure it helped craft with Lee and labor unions — the Board of Supervisors approved the measure on a 6-5 vote on first reading (final approval was expected Oct. 11 after press time).

But then Lee announced that he would veto the measure, claiming it was about “protecting jobs,” a stand that was criticized in an Oct. 5 rally on the steps of City Hall featuring labor unions, consumer advocates, and mayoral candidates John Avalos, Leland Yee, Dennis Herrera, and Phil Ting.

Lee and Board President David Chiu — who voted against the Campos legislation, along with Sups. Sean Elsbernd, Mark Farrell, Carmen Chu, and Scott Wiener — have each offered alternative legislation that lets businesses keep the money but make some minor reforms, such as requiring businesses to notify employees that these funds exist.

Both Lee and Chiu talk about seeking “compromise” and “consensus” on the issue, but Campos and his allies say it’s simply wrong for businesses to take money that belongs to the employees, to gain a competitive advantage over rivals who actually offer health insurance or pay into the city’s Healthy San Francisco program, and to essentially commit fraud against restaurant customers.

“This money belongs to the workers and it’s something that consumers are paying for,” Campos said. “We have a fundamental disagreement.” (Steven T. Jones)

ET TU, DAVID CHIU?

In a press release on Oct. 6, mayoral candidate David Chiu stated his concerns over Mayor Ed Lee’s potentially illegal campaign contributions from employees of the GO Lorrie airport shuttle service. That company benefited from a decision by airport officials in September and then offered to reimburse employees for making $500 contributions to Lee, according to a Bay Citizen report.

“These revelations raise deeply troubling questions that merit a full investigation by state authorities. City Hall cannot be for sale. Pay-to-play politics has no place in San Francisco, and will have no place in a Chiu administration — you can count on that,” he said in the release.

But has Chiu — one of the top fundraisers in the mayoral field — been engaging in a little pay-to-play of his own? That was the question we had after we saw that he had received lots of donations from restaurant owners, whose side he took last week in opposing Sup. David Campos’ legislation to keep them from raiding their employee health care funds.

The Golden Gate Restaurant Association (GGRA) waged unsuccessful legal battles against the Health Care Security Ordinance and lobbied against Campos’ recent reforms of its loophole. And in the latest donation cycle, the GGRA donated the maximum $500 to the Chiu campaign. Other Bay Area food services contributed up to $5,950.

So the question remains, despite Chiu’s posturing against “pay-to play politics”— are these food service companies contributing to Chiu’s campaign because he’s doing their bidding in opposing the Campos measure and sponsoring an alternative that lets them keep most of the money?

When Liane Quan, co-owner of SF’s Lee’s Deli, was asked if the health care legislation was a reason she donated, she said, “Yes, that’s one reason.” She then hesitated to elaborate why. Members of the Quan family associated with Lee’s Deli contributed a total of $1,000 to the campaign.

Maurizio Florese, an Italian-speaking co-owner of Mona Lisa’s Restaurant who contributed $100, didn’t want to talk about his contribution or employee health care. Neither did his wife and co-owner, Filomena Florese, who is also President of Mona Lisa Inc., which manufactures chocolate and pastry products.

In fact, despite leaving messages at seven local restaurants who donated to Chiu, none wanted to talk. But we did finally get ahold of Chiu campaign manager Nicole Derse, who said Chiu has a broad array of supporters and his donations from restaurants had nothing to do with his stance on the Campos legislation.

“There definitely is no correlation at all,” she told us. “Any suggestion to the contrary is ludicrous.” (Christine Deakers)

SFPD raids OccupySF camp, seizes gear, but protesters remain

Sasha Cuttler

October 6, 2011

Last night, San Francisco Police officers showed up at Occupy San Francisco for the first hostile altercation that the SF movement has had with cops so far, and among the first police crackdowns on the larger Occupy Wall Street movement. The encampment was cleared of tents and supplies, but protesters remained at the site and the incident could serve to broaden the movement and strengthen its resolve.

Around 9:30 pm, a police officer pulled up in an unmarked car and, with little comment, distributed fliers amongst the approximately 200 protesters camped out in front of the Federal Reserve building at 101 Market Street, where I was camping with the protesters and reporting a story for next week’s Guardian.

The fliers stated that we were in “violation of one or more of the following local ordinances or state laws,” and then listed six laws, including open flames on a city street without a permit, lodging in a public place, preparing or serving food without a permit, and violating the city’s sit/lie ordinance. The order did not look legitimate, as it did not include an author, a timeline for the police action, or any dates. The atmosphere turned tense as protesters tried to decide how to react.

The camp had substantial infrastructure at this point, with a kitchen area, medical tent, supplies tent, tech area, and about 20 other tents for meeting and for lodging. The kitchen was largely set up by Food Not Bombs and had a propane-powered stove. Kitchen committee members immediately turned off the stove and closed the kitchen upon receipt of the notice, eliminating any open flames and serving of food.

A general assembly was called and emotions ran high as protesters fleshed out the intricacies of nonviolent protest, resistance, and the consensus-based decision making system that had served them so well in past weeks, when faced with a more urgent and high-stakes situation. Despite anger and disagreements, the group vowed to remain nonviolent.

A call was put out via Twitter, Facebook, email, and phone for supporters to come to the scene. Within a half hour at least 100 more people had come, including members of Occupy Oakland, which just began this week.

Around 11 pm, about 60 cops showed up as well as four Department of Public Works trucks. The cops stood on the far side of Main Street, seemingly awaiting orders. Thirty minutes later one protester, Alexandra List, told the General Assembly that she had speaking to the commanding officer, Captain Charlie Orkes. He told her that if the camp and all the food, equipment, and other items that the camp had amassed were not completely removed in 30 minutes, they would arrest everyone.

Some protesters sprang to action taking down tents, while others discussed the possibility of risking arrest. It was unclear what would happen to confiscated items and for many travelers and homeless individuals currently living and organizing at the camp, they risked losing most or all of their personal belongings. All the tents were taken down, but the stuff was not removed. The camp had been receiving truckloads of donations per day, and finding a vehicle and destination to transport it all was difficult.

Fear and anticipation mingled with the excitement of having so much support and interest, locally and around the country. One protester, Zaigham Kabir of Oakland, said “There’s been a lot of confusion. It looks like a couple hundred people just came here. I also heard that there’s 10,000 people watching on livestream right now.”

Sup. John Avalos – the only mayoral candidate to take part in last week’s rally and march – came to the site around 12:40 am. He spoke several times with Capt. Orkes and also reportedly called Police Chief Greg Suhr in an attempt to mediate the situation and protect the protesters. He was the only supervisor or mayoral candidate to arrive on the scene.

Around 1 am, protesters saw cops put on riot gear and bring out batons. They then marched up Main to Market and formed a line around the remainder of the physical encampment, blocking protesters from their belongings. As protesters sat on the ground, imploring the cops to leave their things alone and chanting “Join Us! You’re the 99 percent too!” DPW workers loaded everything into five trucks. Tubs of food were spilled on the ground as they dismantled the kitchen, taking donated food, water. and supplies (there was so much food in the kitchen that only hours before, protesters had begun turning away food donations).

It was 1:45 am when protesters began taking to the streets to block the trucks. About 20 ran in front of the line of trucks to link arms and stacked wooden pellets, which had been used to elevate the camp during the rain, to form a barricade. One man lay down in front of the truck, smiling with his banjo in hand. They yelled, “That’s not trash! Don’t throw it away!” Soon, about 250 protesters were linking arms, surrounding the line of trucks. A few brought over municipal trash cans and road blocks to form a barricade around the perimeter.

Throughout the night, many protesters reported conflicted expressions on officers’ faces. One such officer stood now in front of a truck with an American flag that had flown in the camp still valiantly flying from its post in the DWP truck-bed garbage heap.

Eventually, the trucks backed out of the circle and began driving down Main Street, when protesters ran to try stand, sit, and lie in front of them. While trying to remove the protesters, one woman was hit and pushed and another man was beaten down and reportedly kneed in the stomach. There was one arrest. It has been reported that the officer responsible for most of this behavior was Officer Pascua, who apparently said to several protesters, including Dylan Brignon of Fremont, “I can’t wait til I get the chance to beat your faces in.”

The Guardian has called Chief Suhr, Mayor Ed Lee, and the SFPD and is awaiting a statement on the tactics and decision to raid the camp.

The trucks made it out of there by about 2:30 am. About 50 cops and 100 protesters remained in a standoff on Main and Market, and protesters chanted, sang, and held a large sign reading “We love you” and police stayed in a silent line, batons in hand.

By 3 am, protesters had regrouped. All of the structure was gone, but the occupation was still there. Protesters pledged to remain indefinitely despite the night’s events, and to continue to grow. Around 4 am, some cops returned to the site, and throughout the night there were seven or eight police cars circling the block at all times.

Protesters awoke this morning to a dozen or so police officers guarding the Federal Reserve building. There had already been donations of money, blankets and sleeping bags at 3 am in response to the events, and at 7 am the first food donation since raid came in and the protesters ate a free breakfast.

Said Kabir, “The fact is, we’re all here in solidarity. We’re still here. And we’re not leaving.”

Brown, Kim raise money for Lee — in Millbrae

Zelda Bronstein

September 30, 2011

Brown, Kim raise money for Lee — in Millbrae

I guess they couldn’t find a suitable restaurant in San Francisco, so Willie Brown and Sup. Jane Kim will be hosting a $5,000-a-table fundraiser Oct. 3 for an Ed Lee independent expenditure committee at The Kitchen on El Camino Real in Millbrae. Officially, the invite is from the Committee for Effective City Management, which is trying to raise big gobs of unregulated cash to promote Lee. It reads:

Please Join the Committee for Effective City Managment in honoring Mayor Willie Brown and Supervisor Jane Kim for their dedication to advancing accountability in government.

Yes, that’s right. Willie Brown, the least accountable politician in modern San Francisco history, a mayor who didn’t even allow his staff to take notes in meetings for fear someone could demand them under the Sunshine Ordinance, and a supervisor who won’t talk to her critics (us, for example) are being lauded for “advancing accountability in government.” In Millbrae. To help Ed Lee get elected mayor of San Francisco.

When I called the person who is listed as a contact for tickets, Melanie Lok, and introduced myself as a reporter, she hung up on me. I called right back and she didn’t pick up the phone.

The treasurer of this here committee is my old friend David Looman. I called him and asked him about the Millbrae event, and he didn’t know anything. “My job is to make sure that we have a contract and an invoice for all vendors, or I’m not writing any checks,” he said. Who is the head of the committee? Francis Wong. “I communicate with him only by email,” Looman said.

The fact that Looman — who has been very involved in Asian community politics over the years — doesn’t know Wong except as an email contact (and other Asian political leaders we’ve spoken to say they don’t know him either) suggests that Wong hasn’t been very active in city politics. There’s a Francis Wong who gave $100 to the Progress For All (that is, the Run Ed Run committee) on June 23, 2011, and he lists his occupation as “accounting, Friendster.” We found what appears to be a facebook page for him — or at least, for a Francis S. Wong who worked at Friendster — suggesting that he’s a tech guy. I’ve emailed him but I haven’t heard back.

That’s the thing about these i.e. committees — they can be set up and operate with nowhere near the scrutiny that normal campaign committes get. But they can raise a buttload of money. And Brown and Jane Kim are helping them do it.

In Millbrae.

Shop local, Ed. Shop local.

Hot sexy events: September 28-October 4

Andrew Lam

September 28, 2011

In her soon-to-be-released look at the Bay Area BDSM scene, Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality (2012, Duke University) Margot Weiss raises some tough questions for those that would tout the pansexual “new guard” scene – the techie, mostly white, mostly hetero clique in the Bay’s BDSM panoply – as subverting societal norms.

In its reliance on expensive classes and even more expensive gadgetry as condition for entry, she sees silent class division. When familiar societal situations are re-enacted on the kink stage, Weiss sees not a refutation of incest, slave auctions, and male dominance over females, but instead a neoliberal refusal by the practioners involved to accept their position in society.

Weiss would probably be down, then, with this week’s Arse Elektronika tech-sex syposium (Thu/29-Sun/2). The event raises tough issues like whether having the lifestyle that allows one to enjoy kink is a luxury, class struggle among perverts, and the fossil footprint of a technologically-assisted orgasm. There will be talks and workshops, inventions and performance – go to question the meanings of desire.

The League

A hint of Barbary Coast class, please: this is Mission Control’s cigar club night. Regardless of the gender you walked in with, tonight’s an opportunity to go dapper dandy (ascots and pinstripes), or va-va-voom (backseams and lace straps).

Thu/29 8 p.m.-midnight, $20 free membership required

Mission Control

www.missioncontrolsf.org

Arse Elektronika

This symposium on issues surrounding the politics and point of alt sex takes place from the Center of Sex and Culture to Chicken John Rinaldi’s Chez Poulet. Check here for a full schedule of events.

Thu/29-Sun/2 $10-50

Various locations, SF

www.monochrom.at

“An Afternooon Delight with Reid Mihalko and Susie Bright”

What don’t you know about sex activist Susie Bright’s work? The woman’s done more than most for sex-positive feminism — even writing woman-friendly erotica reviews for Penthouse in the 1980s. Today, she sits down with sex educator Reid Mihalko (who, by the way, submitted a rambunctious threesome story to our call for Bawdy Storytelling’s greatest hits).

Sun/2 1-3 p.m., $10-40 sliding scale

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

www.sexandculture.org

Rites of Love and Math

Last time we wrote about Berkeley math professor Edward Frenkel and the erotic movie he made and starred in, the film played to a packed house. “We had to turn away more than 100 people,” Frenkel wrote to us in an email announcing his next Berkeley screening, which is coming up on Sun/2. Inspired by Yukio Mishima’s samauri movie Yukoku, this skin-heavy film has scared up its fair share of controversy in radical-prude Berkeley.

Sun/2 7:05 p.m., $15

Landmark Shattuck Cinemas

2230 Shattuck, Berk.

(510) 843-3699

www.berkeleyvideofilmfest.org

Time and space pilot

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

September 27, 2011

MUSIC Pioneering electronic composer Pierre Schaeffer used a specific word to describe his work, which took ‘common’ noises and manipulated them into music — acousmatic: “referring to sounds that one hears without seeing the causes behind it.”

Every sound on genre-defying musician Amon Tobin’s latest album is a mystery. The 2007 album Foley Room utilized cinematic studio techniques, reaching back to the roots of electronic music. Now Tobin has shot that line of inquiry into the other direction, seemingly returning from the future with ISAM, an album as alien as it is familiar. “As technology develops, you can go one of two ways,” Tobin says in a phone interview. “You can do the same things that people did ten years ago just with less stress involved, or you can take that tech and try to get more out of what it was designed to do — things other people haven’t figured out yet.”

Tobin occasionally lets people peak behind the curtain. A video earlier in the year showed his hands at work, recording light bulbs (they make sounds, if you know how to play them), plugging them into a high-end, triple axis, pressure sensitive MIDI controller. This last instrument, a Haken Continuum, comes with enough of a learning curve to exclude most people from duplicating what Tobin does with it: morph conventional sounds into conceptual instruments that only exist in the artist’s mind. When it came time to post ISAM online, Tobin annotated the album, revealing sonic origins. The enchanting female vocals that appear on tracks like “Wooden Toy,” for instance, are his own, gender-modified.

There was also a warning: “anyone looking for jazzy brks [sic] should look elsewhere at this point or earlier :). it’s 2011 folks, welcome to the future.” A clear statement, breaking away from the sample heavy style that Tobin was once known for, material tailored for DJ sets, in a club. With ISAM, that’s not the whole story. “Electronic music isn’t always dance music, in fact dance music is just a section of electronic music,” Tobin says. “This record isn’t dance music, its not about raving or any of that stuff.” It’s the kind of album that might make you want to put on headphones and let the mind run wild. For all its meditative qualities, though, it’s hard on the bass and expressive, with a range that begs to be heard in a louder arena.

Thinking of a tour, Tobin “had the problem that all electronic musicians have, which is how the fuck do you present electronic music, which is so not to do with performance, as a live thing that’s engaging?” The solution, a next-level stage set created by L.A.’s V Squared Labs, Chicago’s Leviathan, and S.F.’s Blasthaus, has Tobin cast as the pilot of a space-going vessel in a narrative that the artist admits is “not War and Peace, not a brilliant epic thing, but it’s enough to give meaning and direction to the visual content.”

A 25-foot-long, multi-dimensional structure of giant pixel cubes resembling a game of Tetris going very badly, the ISAM installation comes to life via a system that allows multiple projectors to transform every surface into a screen. It’s effectively 3D without the need for dorky glasses and eye strain. (A promo video released on YouTube surely sold more tickets than a hundred articles like this.) Tobin’s place on stage is within the piece, positioned like a magician or contortionist: inside a box. Which, perhaps, is just where he’d like to be. “I always kind of put myself in the corner of a stage if I can,” Tobin says, “because there’s nothing worse than standing in front of a thousand people who are all staring at my every minute movement and feeling like maybe I should just turn the lights off, because there’s nothing to see here.”

The unconventional choice of positioning the artist more like ghost in the shell than man on a pedestal has its limit. Alex Lazarus, the creative director on the project says in conceptualizing the performance Tobin “wanted people to focus more on the actual music and visual representation as opposed to focusing on him.” But Lazarus says “he can’t just not be seen, so I had to open my big mouth and tell him that we could use this smart glass in his cube, which can be turned on and off to see inside. It’s cool and all, but it’s extremely expensive and every single time we have to touch it I’m petrified that we’re gonna break it.”

Seeing the wizard at work alleviates the creeping possibility of a Milli Vanilli situation, but still, like Brad Pitt in Se7en, I want to know what’s in the box. (What can I say? I’m no fun — I also want to know how magicians do their tricks and how Pepperidge Farms draws the little faces on Goldfish crackers.) Is Tobin manning extra controls to sync the visuals? Is it all automated? Specific details, however, are generally off limits, as both Lazarus and Tobin invoke “proprietary technology.” Which is fair. Considering how many people worked on innovating the project, a trade secret is valuable. (Years after debuting, the similarly impressive LED tech behind Daft Punk’s ‘pyramid’ paid off again when its designers essentially reshaped it into deadmau5’s ‘cube.’)

Tobin says there’s absolutely no compromise musically. Even when he does a more traditional DJ set, he has it all worked out ahead of time. “When I go and see a show I don’t want to see people wanking off on their equipment,” Tobin says. “I love to watch things that have been really well thought out and practiced.” Whatever he’s doing in that box, he’s enjoying it. “I feel like I’m in an Apollo 13 capsule. The whole thing is based on the idea of it being a spaceship and the funny thing is I come into the cube and it literally looks like a cockpit from the inside.”

I ask him if this means he doesn’t have to pretend for the part. “Well,” Tobin says, “if I was pretending I’d probably have a band up there trying to play the record. Kind of a waste of every one’s time.” His voice is deadpan, but sounds like he’s grinning, just a bit. *

AMON TOBIN

Sat/1 (sold out) and Sun/2, 8 p.m., $29.50–$39.50

The Warfield

982 Market, SF (415) 345-0900 www.thewarfieldtheater.com

The worst-kept secrets

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

September 27, 2011

rebeccab@sfbg.com

In an age of blogs, tweets, hacks, and piles of beans spilled by Wikileaks, the notion of media censorship may seem dated. But the rundown of stories Project Censored calls attention to this year serves as a reminder that mainstream media outlets favoring the superficial over the substantive don’t give us all the information we need.

Since 1976, Project Censored has endeavored to spotlight important news articles that didn’t find their way into mainstream headlines. Originating with a classroom assignment in a communications course taught by Carl Jensen at Sonoma State University, the perennial project has evolved into a book, a radio show, and the Project Censored and Media Freedom International websites, which aggregate underreported independent news stories from around the globe.

Students and professors engaged in unearthing oft-ignored stories, part of a nationwide network of affiliates working under the direction of history professor Mickey Huff, bringing a harsh critique to standard mainstream media fare.

“Corporate media (singular) is the information control wing of the global power structure,” former Project Censored director Peter Phillips writes in the introduction to Censored 2012: Sourcebook for the Media Revolution. “The corporate media systematically censors the news stories that challenge the propaganda of empire.”

In Huff’s words, “We try to highlight the things that are highly relevant, that seem to be conspicuously absent.”

Huff says the selection process for the top censored stories begins with nominations of independent articles that readers feel warrant greater attention than they’ve received. From there, students comb through Lexis Nexis or other databases to see whether they’ve been adequately covered. If not, they fact-check the stories with professors or other experts in the field.

Once they’ve been “validated” in this way, they’re posted to Project Censored’s sister site, Media Freedom International. The famed Top 25 Censored Stories list, which has long served as the tagline of the organization, is the result of a ranked-choice voting process in which judges and affiliates select from the entire pool of validated news articles posted from April to April.

The end product — an annual book featuring a compilation of the censored stories as well as sociological essays on media censorship and scathing critiques of “junk food news” churned out by the likes of Fox News — can be considered a kind of historical almanac, Huff says.

“Journalism is the rough draft of history,” he notes, “and if you have these mainstream corporate news outlets getting so much of it wrong or missing it, how does that impact historical construction?”

For the most part, Project Censored’s story list offers a sampling of smart, investigative journalism produced by the independent press. They include deep investigative pieces such as “Diet Hard With A Vengeance,” by David Moberg of In These Times, and a heart rending portrayal by Chris Hedges of a marine stationed in a mortuary unit in Iraq.

Yet there are instances when Project Censored seems to wander too far afield. Their claims of “censorship” seem dubious at times, as with the charge that the mainstream media has ignored the real unemployment rate because it hasn’t turned an eye toward the analysis of economist John Williams, who maintains a website called Shadow Government Statistics.

Huff and Phillips regularly discuss questions surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center on their KPFA radio show, and their emphasis on this particular issue, along with a recent tendency to give weight to fringe theories concerning things like suspicious contrails issuing from airplanes, have caused allies of the organization to defect in the past.

The organization’s definition of censorship has evolved, too, to the point where the authors cast it as a form of propaganda that is “intentional by nature … In essence, this is a conspiracy.”

Nevertheless, the Project Censored team delivers yet another rundown of surprising, alarming, and thought-provoking stories that are worth noting — more so, perhaps, because they received so little attention to begin with. Without further ado, here are the top 10.

#1 MORE SOLDIER SUICIDES THAN COMBAT DEATHS

Six more, to be exact. That’s the figure reported by Good Magazine and spotlighted by Project Censored in an article highlighting the fact that 462 American soldiers were killed in combat in 2010 while 468 soldiers, counting enlisted men and women as well as veterans, took their own lives.

This was the second consecutive year that more soldiers died by their own hands than in combat; in 2009, the 381 suicides of active-duty soldiers recorded by the military also exceeded the number of deaths in battle. The Good report, which references Congressional Quarterly as a source, was published in January 2011, just weeks after military authorities announced that a psychological screening program seemed to be stemming the suicide rate among active-duty soldiers.

“This new data, that American soldiers are now more dangerous to themselves than the insurgents, flies right in the face of any suggestion that things are ‘working,'” Good Senior Editor Cord Jefferson wrote.

Project Censored also spotlighted Chris Hedges’ sobering portrayal of Jess Goodell, a marine who was stationed in the Mortuary Affairs unit in Iraq. Goodell published a memoir titled “Death and After in Iraq,” also the name of Hedges’ column.

#2 US MILITARY’S ‘FRIEND’ FAKE-OUT

Anyone suspicious of “sock puppets,” those online commenters pretending to be someone they’re not, would be unnerved by the US military’s “online persona management service,” a little-known program described in The Guardian UK, Raw Story, and Computerworld stories unearthed and highlighted by Project Censored.

The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) secured a contract with a Los Angeles-based tech company to develop the program, which enables US service workers to use fake online personas on social media sites to influence online chatter. Using up to 10 false identities, they can counter charged political dialogue with pro-military propaganda.

“These ‘personas’ were to have detailed, fictionalized backgrounds, to make them believable to outside observers, and a sophisticated identity protection service was to back them up, preventing suspicious readers from uncovering the real person behind the account,” according to a Raw Story account.

A Centcom spokesperson told the Guardian UK that the program would only intervene in online conversations in Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, or Pashto, and that it wouldn’t initially target Twitter or Facebook. However, critics likened this U.S. endeavor to manipulate social media to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the Internet.

#3 OBAMA’S HIT LIST

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. military have the authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad, outside war zones, if strong evidence exists that they’re involved terrorist activity, the Washington Post reported in a front page story in January of 2010.

Despite this prominent press treatment of targeted assassinations under the Obama administration, Project Censored deems this an underreported news story because “a moral, ethical, and legal analysis of the assassinations seems to be significantly lacking inside the corporate media.”

The authors instead point us to coverage in Salon, the Inter Press Service, Common Dreams, and several other sources that sharply question the president’s authority to license extrajudicial executions of individuals. In December of 2010, Human Rights Watch asked for clarification of the legal rationale behind this practice after a judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging the notion.

Columnist Glenn Greenwald blasts the practice in Salon: “Bush merely imprisoned [Jose Padilla] for years without a trial. If that’s a vicious, tyrannical assault on the Constitution — and it was — what should they be saying about the Nobel Peace Prize winner’s assassination of American citizens without any due process?”

#4 HUMAN CAUSED FOOD CRISIS

David Moberg offers an in-depth breakdown of the global food crisis for In These Times in an article highlighted by Project Censored, touching on the environmental context of worsening droughts and flooding, as well as the economic ramifications of a system in which free-market speculators stand to profit from volatile food prices.

Beyond crop reductions resulting from irregular weather patterns, Moberg places the blame for rising food prices and increasing malnutrition on flawed economic policies. “Hunger is currently a result of poverty and inequality, not lack of food,” he concludes.

The food price index rose to its highest level since 1990 in February 2011, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. “Since 2010 began, roughly another 44 million people have quietly crossed the threshold into malnutrition, joining 925 million already suffering from lack of food,” Moberg writes. “If prices continue to rise, this food crisis will push the ranks of the hungry toward a billion people.”

#5 PRISON COMPANIES FUND ANTI-IMMIGRANT LEGISLATION

When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer ran for reelection in 2010, her greatest out-of-state campaign contributions came from high-ranking executives of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), one of the nation’s largest prison companies. Brewer gained notoriety among immigrant rights advocates after championing SB 1070, strict anti-illegal immigration legislation that drew criticism for legitimizing racial profiling.

SB 1070 established new crimes and corresponding prison sentences relating to illegal immigration; CCA profits directly from building and operating prisons and detention centers. Bringing it closer to home, CCA previously employed two of Brewer’s legislative aides as lobbyists.

In a Counterpunch article entitled “Wall Street and the Criminalization of Immigrants” that is spotlighted by Project Censored, Peter Cervantes-Gautschi spotlights Brewer’s links to CCA and goes deeper still, offering an historic account of how investors in CCA and prison giant Geo Group have for years actively pushed for legislation that would result in the widespread incarceration of undocumented immigrants.

#6 GOOGLE SPIES?

A flurry of stories aired in the spring of 2010 when it became apparent that Google Street View vehicles, in the process of collecting data for its mapping service, also picked up consumer “payload” data on Wi-Fi networks, including e-mail messages, website data, user names, and passwords.

The tech giant publicly apologized for what it characterized as a mistake, saying it had “failed badly.” The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) admonished Google in a letter, but declined to pursue it further. From there, Project Censored authors make the leap that the FTC abandoned its inquiry because a week earlier, Obama attended a Democratic Party fundraiser at the Palo Alto home of Google executive Marissa Mayer, citing a San Francisco Chronicle article about the $30,000-per person affair.

Project Censored authors also point to an article by Eric Sommer titled “Google’s Deep CIA Connections,” appearing on Pravda.ru (a website whose most most-read article was “Bermuda Triangle: New Anomalous Phenomenon Discovered”). Sommer claims that “Google is, in fact, a key participant in U.S. military and CIA intelligence operations,” basing his argument on a perplexing set of links between investors in Google and CIA technologies.

#7 STAY POSITIVE — AT ALL COSTS

A military training program that Project Censored has deemed “U.S. Army and psychology’s largest experiment — ever” was profiled in a detailed American Psychologist series in early 2011. Comprehensive Solider Fitness (CSF) is described as a “holistic approach to warrior training,” emphasizing positive psychology as a means to counter mental health problems arising from horrific combat situations.

While the American Psychologist series reads like a puff piece finessed by the professionals who developed CSF, Project Censored spotlighted articles in Truthout and The Psychology of Well-being that raised questions about the wisdom of launching a required, untested psychology program for more than 1 million soldiers, one that encourages soldiers to think positive even in the face of traumatizing events.

In an article appearing on OpEdNews.com, authors Roy Eidelson, Marc Pilisuk, and Stephen Soldz write that the CSF “training” program would better be described as a research project. They point out that a hypothesis of the program’s success lies at the very core of CSF, “yet it is merely a hypothesis — a tentative explanation or prediction that can only be confirmed through further research.”

#8 THE MYTH OF CLEAN NUCLEAR POWER

The terrifying meltdowns of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear reactors reignited a worldwide debate about the wisdom of relying on nuclear energy as an electricity source. While Germany opted to phase out its nuclear facilities by 2022 in the wake of the tragedy, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) came under scrutiny after a Union of Concerned Scientists report analyzed 14 “near misses” at nuclear power plants in 2010, revealing the shortcomings in NRC inspections.

Project Censored’s critique of mainstream media’s treatment of nuclear power is that it’s too willing to endorse the idea that nuclear power is safe so long as proper safety measures are in place, and that major news publications readily go along with the nuclear industry’s branding of the power source as “clean” and “carbon free” when it’s really not.

Claiming that “the refrain of the corporate media” is that nuclear power is “perfectly harmless,” the authors spotlight a number of articles and literature from anti-nuclear nonprofit organizations explaining the health hazards of radiation, plus Jeff Goodell’s “America’s Nuclear Nightmare,” an in-depth Rolling Stone article investigating ties between the NRC and the nuclear industry.

#9 THE GOVERNMENT IS MANIPULATING THE WEATHER

This one stretches credulity, and it’s probably the best example of why Project Censored has gained detractors even on the left in recent years. The authors point us to a Centre for Research on Globalization article entitled, “Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation, Contrails and Chemtrails,” by Rady Ananda, who begins by informing readers, “The military-industrial complex stands poised to capitalize on controlling the world’s weather.”

It describes an “international symposium” held in Belgium in May of 2010 during which “scientists asserted that manipulation of climate through modification of Cirrus clouds is neither a hoax nor a conspiracy theory,” and is “fully operational.”

That sounds rather serious, but a web video of that symposium easily located online offers a closer look. One speaker begins by showing slides of old paintings to demonstrate “what the sky is supposed to look like,” then offers evidence of a chemtrail cover-up by quoting an unnamed pilot who tells someone in an online comment that he could reveal the truth about chemtrails, but is bound by contract to shoot anyone he tells.

Scientific American and other publications have reported that geoengineering — spreading tiny atmospheric particles to reflect sunlight as a method to counter climate change — has actually come under serious consideration in recent years. Yet Project Censored seems to conflate this with a fringe obsession with supposedly suspicious airplane contrails.

#10 THE “REAL” UNEMPLOYMENT RATE

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calculates the “official unemployment rate” by counting everyone who had no job, was available for work, and had actively sought work in the last four weeks, according to the BLS website. But alternative BLS statistics incorporate so-called “discouraged workers,” unemployed individuals who’ve given up on the job hunt.

In the first four months of 2011, the national unemployment rate officially stood at around 9 percent, while a BLS statistic incorporating discouraged workers and the marginally employed bumped that figure up to 15.9 percent.

However, Project Censored highlights an article by Greg Hunter published on Information Clearinghouse, claiming that the “real” unemployment rate is actually 22.1 percent, or one out of five US residents. Hunter’s claim is based on his interview with San Francisco-based economist John Williams, who maintains a website called Shadow Government Statistics. By ignoring the claims of this economist, Project Censored argues, the mainstream media is engaging in censorship.

As with several claims in this year’s list, that may be stretching things a bit. *

The Censored 2012 book release party will be at at Moe’s Books in Berkeley, 2475 Telegraph Ave, Oct. 1, 7 P.M.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

September 20, 2011

WEDNESDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Black Cat Cabaret, Slim Jenkins, Cyril Noir DNA Lounge 9pm, $5-$8.

Blank Tapes, Chloe Makes Music, Range of Light Wilderness Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $14.

Cataldo, Rin Tin Tiger, Owl Paws Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Lumineers Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho with Tamar Korn, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

Greg Gotelli Quartet Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

Jazz organ party Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Branford Marsalis Yoshi’s. 8 and 10pm, $20-$30.

Ricardo Scales Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 6:30pm, $5.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Galeet Dardashti JCCSF, 3200 California St., SF; www.jccsf.org. 8pm, $12-15.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Mary Go Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

Megatallica Fiddler’s Green, 1333 Columbus, SF; www.megatallica.com. 7pm, free. Heavy metal hangout.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

Third Wednesdays Underground SF. 10pm-2am, $3. With Ms. Jackson, DJ Loryn, and Becky Knox spinning electro, tech, house, and breaks.

THURSDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Black Cobra, Walken, Hightower Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 6-8pm, free with admission.

Delhi 2 Dublin Independent. 9pm, $20.

Colour Revolt, Colourmusic Cafe Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Covox, Bud Melvin, Zen Albatross, Wizwars DNA Lounge. 8pm, $15.

Casey Neil, Barbary Ghosts Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Cut Loose Band Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Dominique Leone, Body Parts Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Monarchy, Penguin Prison Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $15.

Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, Austin Lucas and the Bold Party Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $10.

John Trubee and the Ugly Janitors of America, V.Vale, Wounded Stag El Valenciano, 1153 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-9561. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Blues Organ Party with Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Tom Lander and Friends Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

Branford Marsalis Yoshi’s. 8 and 10pm, $30-$40.

“Polish Soul” JCCSF, 3200 California, SF; www.jccsf.org. 7:30pm, $25-$40. With Tomasz Stanko.

Return to Forever, Zappa Plays Zappa Warfield. 8pm, $65-$102.50.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 7:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Black Crown Stringband Atlas Cafe, 3049 20th SF; www.atlascafe.net. 8-10pm, free.

Twang! Honky Tonk Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm. Live country music, dancing, and giveaways.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

dBridge, Lynx, Bachelors of Science, Method One Mighty. 9pm.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Live from the Control Room 330 Rich. 9pm, $7. 16 producer beat battle and live performances.

1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party features video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.

Supersonic Bollyhood Café. 10pm, $5. Fly the friendly skies with SF’s Tasty Crew, spinning wold beats from the Balkans, Brazil, Colombia, and more.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

FRIDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Joseph Arthur, Caracol, Elisapie Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

Back Pages Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Baxtalo Drum Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Blah Blah Blah, Headboggle, Coffis Brothers Brainwash, 1122 Folsom, SF; www.brainwashcafe.com. 8pm.

5 Cent Coffee, Rhubarb Whiskey, Plasterkatz Plough and Stars. 8pm, $10.

400 Blows, Pins of Light, Horns Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Hammers of Misfortune, Brainoil, Futur Skullz Elbo Room 10pm, $12.

Junior Boys, Young Galaxy, DJ Aaron Axelsen Mezzanine. 9pm, $17.

Man/Miracle, Vacant Lots, Hiking Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Ziggy Marley Amoeba. 6pm, free.

James Vincent McMorrow, William Elliot Whitmore Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Paladino Connecticut Yankee, 100 Connecticut , SF; www.theyankee.com. 9pm, $20.

Pop Rocks, Notorious Bimbo’s. 9pm, $20.

Santos Perdidos Red Poppy Arts House. 8pm, $10-$12.

Two Door Cinema Club, Grouplove, Lonely Forest Warfield. 8pm, $25.

Two Gallants, Mumlers Independent. 9pm, $20.

Ventid, Cartographer, Worker Bee Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Cat Orchestra Top of the Mark, 999 California, SF; www.topofthemark.com. 9pm, $10.

Jazz Organ Party with Grahmm Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Branford Marsalis Yoshi’s. 8 and 10pm, $30-$40.

Miami Fox Trio Swedish American Hall. 8pm, $20.

Soundlab Arup, 560 Mission, SF; www.arup.com. 7:30, 8:15, 9, 9:45pm, $20-$200. Listening chamber by acoustic engineers, ARUP.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Duniya Dancehall Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 10pm, $10. With live performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and DJs dub Snakr and Juan Data spinning bhangra, bollywood, dancehall, African, and more.

Trannyshack: Lady Gaga Tribute DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $20.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bay Area Heat Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

“Bay Vibes Fest 4” Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF; www.bayvibessf.com. Noon, $15. Bayonics, Alma Desnuda, La Gente, Forro Brazuca, and more.

Bloody Hollies, Hot Lunch, Winter Teeth Knockout. 10pm, $7.

Dream Theater, Trivium Warfield. 8pm, $50-$65.

Foolproof Four, Sean Flinn and the Royal We, Taxes Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

Hank3, Hell Billy, Attention Deficit Domination Regency Ballroom. 8:30pm, $28.

JGB with Melvin Seals Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $25.

Love Dimension, Secret Secretaries, Hairspray Blues Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Midnight Bombers, Go Time, Moss, Psychology of Genocide Thee Parkside. 9pm, $6.

“Polk Street Blues Festival” Polk from Broadway to California, SF; www.polkstreetbluesfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free.

Systems Officer Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Translators, D’Jelly Brains Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Two Gallants Independent. 9pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Jazz Organ Party with Grahmm Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Branford Marsalis Yoshi’s. 8 and 10pm, $40.

Pat Metheny, Larry Grenadier Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter, SF; www.marineclub.com. 7 and 9pm, $45-$85.

Soundlab Arup, 560 Mission, SF; www.arup.com. 7:30, 8:15, 9, 9:45pm, $20-$200. Listening chamber by acoustic engineers, ARUP.

Venus Loops Lost Church, 65 Capp, SF; www.thelostchurch.com. 8-10pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Lagos Roots Afrobeat Ensemble, DJ Jeremiah Elbo Room. 10pm, $12.

Jim Lauderdale, Maurice Tani and Jenn Courtney St. Cyprian’s Church, 2097 Turk, SF; www.noevalleymusicseries.com. 8pm, $20.

Saturday Night Salsa Ramp, 855 Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/therampsf. 5:30pm, $10.

Skillet Licorice Cafe International, 508 Haight, SF; www.cafeinternational.us. 4 and 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Blow Off Slim’s. 10pm, $15. Dance party hosted and DJ’d by Bob Mould and Rich Morel.

Bootie SF Pre-Folsom Party DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-$15. Seven different DJs and bands. With Smash-Up Derby, Purple Crush, RawBurt and more.

Industry Beatbox. 10pm, $35-$45. Folsom Street Fair party with DJs Pagano and Jamie J Sanchez.

“Public Works One Year Anniversary Party” Public Works, SF; www.publicworkssf.com; 9pm. With DJs Kramer, Shawn Reynaldo (Icee Hot), Adnan, Maco De La Vega, Afrolicious, and more.

Sanafrica Bollyhood Café. 9pm, $7-10. West African and Latin fusion party with Jose Luis, DJ Nado, and DJ Mignane.

Roots and Rhythm Series Amoeba. 2-5pm, free. DJ Harry Duncan. Donations go to Save KUSF.

SUNDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bud E. Luv with the Trio, Whole Enchilada Band Rrazz Room. 5pm, $30.

MC Chris, MC Lars, Mega Ran, Adam WarRock Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Pale Chalice, Bosse-de-Nage, Wreck and Reference, Planning for a Buriel Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $7.

Ladytron, Sonoio, Polaris at Noon Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $27.

New Diplomat Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; www.vesselsf.com. 8pm.

Lee “Scratch” Perry Independent. 9pm, $25.

“Polk Street Blues Festival” Polk from Broadway to California, SF; www.polkstreetbluesfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free.

Terry Savastano Johnny Foley’s. 9pm, free.

Janis Siegel and her Trio Rrazz Room. 7pm, $35.

Shondes, Schande, Wild Assumptions Cafe Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Slow Poisoner Plough and Stars, 116 Clement, SF. 4:30pm, free.

Twin Shadow, Diamond Rings Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17-$19.

Voodoo Glow Skulls, Atom Age, Started Its Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Wheeler Brothers Amnesia. 9pm.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Blues Organ Party with Lavay Smith and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

“Bossa Nova Poet” Florence Gould Theatre, Legion of Honor, SF; www.legionofhonor.famsf.org. 2pm, $25-$50.

Bryan Girard Trio Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St., SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30-7:30pm, $10.

Tom Lander and Friends Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

Branford Marsalis Yoshi’s. 7 and 9pm, $30-$40.

Navitas Ensemble, Collected Community Music Center of SF, 544 Capp, SF; www.sfcmc.org. 7:30pm, $10-$20.

Inga Swearingen Red Poppy Arts House 7pm, $12-15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Justin Ancheta Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-$15.

“Chinatown Music Festival”Portsmouth Square, Kearny between Clay and Washington, SF. 1-6:45pm, free.

Howlin’ Houndog, Slow Poisoner, POPs Plough and Stars. 4:30pm.

Sunday Night Salsa Ramp, 855 Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/therampsf. 5:30pm, $10.

“Twang Sunday” Thee Parkside. 4pm, free. With Coffin Hunter, Jummy and the Blackfish, Lester & Possum.

DANCE CLUBS

Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Poirier and DJ Sep.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

MONDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Arch Enemy, DevilDriver, Skeletonwitch, Cthonic Regency Ballroom. 7:30pm, $26.

Honeymoon, Infantree, Grahame Lesh Elbo Room 9pm, $8.

Kings Go Forth Independent. 8pm, $15.

Neon Trees Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Porchlight Open Door Hemlock Tavern. 6:30pm, $5.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Django by the Bay, Le Jazz Hot, Doug Martin’s Avatar Ensemble, Vic & Nick Yoshi’s. 8pm, $15.

B.B. King, Buddy Guy Nob Hill Masonic Center, 1111 California, SF; www.masonicauditorium.com. 8pm, $49.50-$69.50.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Earl Brothers Amnesia. 6pm.

DANCE CLUBS

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

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

TUESDAY 27

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Braids, Pepper Rabbit, Painted Palms Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Idiot Glee Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Moreland and Arbuckle Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Never Shout Never, A Rocket to the Moon, Carter Hulsey Warfield. 6:30pm, $22.

Nurses, Dominant Legs Cafe Du Nord. 9pm, $10-$12.

Daniel Whittington Hotel Utah. 9pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Infrasound, Jason Kahn, Francisco Meirino Lab, 2948 16th St., SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 8pm, $8-$12.

DANCE CLUBS

“Benefit for Capoeira Brasil” Elbo Room 9pm, $10. With DJs Dion and Kwala spinning Brazilian dance hits, samba, funk, and bossa nova. Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead or check the venue’s website to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

A new progressive agenda

Andrew Lam

September 13, 2011

Over the past three months, the Guardian has been hosting a series of forums on progressive issues for the mayor’s race. We’ve brought together a broad base of people from different communities and issue-based organizations all over town in an effort to draft a platform that would include a comprehensive progressive agenda for the next mayor. All told, more than 100 people participated.

It was, as far as we know, the first time anyone tried to do this — to come up with a mayoral platform not with a few people in a room but with a series of open forums designed for community participation.

The platform we’ve drafted isn’t perfect, and there are no doubt things that are left out. But our goal was to create a document that the voters could use to determine which candidates really deserve the progressive vote.

That’s a critical question, since nearly all of the top contenders are using the word “progressive” on a regular basis. They’re fighting for votes from the neighborhoods, the activists, the independent-minded people who share a vision for San Francisco that isn’t driven by big-business interests.

But those of us on what is broadly defined as the city’s left are looking for more than lip service and catchy phrases. We want to hear specifics; we want to know that the next mayor is serious about changing the direction of city policy.

The groups who endorsed this effort and helped plan the forums that led to this platform were the Harvey Milk LGBT Club, SEIU Local 1021, the San Francisco Tenants Union, the Human Services Network, the Community Congress 2010, the Council of Community Housing Organizations, San Francisco Rising, Jobs with Justice, and the Center for Political Education.

The panelists who led the discussions were: Shaw-san Liu, Calvin Welch, Fernando Marti, Gabriel Haaland, Brenda Barros, Debbi Lerman, Jenny Friedenbach, Sarah Shortt, Ted Gullicksen, Nick Pagoulatos, Sue Hestor, Sherilyn Adams, Angela Chan, David Campos, Mario Yedidia, Pecolio Mangio, Antonio Diaz, Alicia Garza, Aaron Peskin, Saul Bloom, and Tim Redmond.

We held five events looking at five broad policy areas — economy and jobs; land use, housing and tenants; budget and social services; immigration, education and youth; and environment, energy and climate change. Panelists and audience participants offered great ideas and the debates were lively.

The results are below — an outline of what the progressives in San Francisco want to see from their next mayor.

ECONOMY AND JOBS

Background: In the first decade of this century, San Francisco lost some 51,000 jobs, overwhelmingly in the private sector. When Gavin Newsom was sworn in as mayor in January 2004, unemployment was at 6.4 percent; when he left, in January 2011, it was at 9.5 percent — a 63 percent increase.

Clearly, part of the problem was the collapse of the national economy. But the failed Newsom Model only made things worse. His approach was based on the mistaken notion that if the city provided direct subsidies to private developers, new workers would flock to San Francisco. In fact, the fastest-growing sector of the local economy is the public sector, especially education and health care. Five of the 10 largest employers in San Francisco are public agencies.

Local economic development policy, which has been characterized by the destruction of the blue-collar sector in light industry and maritime uses (ironically, overwhelmingly privately owned) to free up land for new industries in business services and high tech sectors that have never actually appeared — or have been devastated by quickly repeating boom and bust cycle.

Instead of concentrating on our existing workforce and its incredible human capital, recent San Francisco mayors have sought to attract a new workforce.

The Mayor’s Office has, as a matter of policy, been destroying blue-collar jobs to promote residential development for people who work outside of the city.

There’s a huge disconnect between what many people earn and what they need. The minimum wage in San Francisco is $9.92, when the actual cost of living is closer to $20. Wage theft is far too common.

There is a lack of leadership, oversight and accountability in a number of city departments. For example, there is no officiating body or commission overseeing the work of the Office of Economic and Workforce Development. Similarly the Arts Commission, the chartered entity for overseeing cultural affairs, is responsible for less than 25 percent of the budget reserved for this purpose

There’s no accountability in the city to protect the most vulnerable people.

The city’s main business tax is highly regressive — it’s a flat tax on payroll but has so many exceptions and loopholes that only 8,500 businesses actually pay it, and many of the largest and richest outfits pay no city tax at all.

Agenda items:

1. Reform the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development to create a department with workforce development as a primary objective. Work with the San Francisco Unified School District, City College and San Francisco State to create sustainable paths to training and employment.

2. Create a municipal bank that offers credit for locally developed small businesses instead of relying on tax breaks. As a first step, mandate that all city short-term funds and payroll accounts go only to banks or credit unions that will agree to devote a reasonable percentage of their local loan portfolios for small business loans.

3. Reform procurement to prioritize local ownership.

4. Link economic development of healthcare facilities to the economic development of surrounding communities.

5. Link overall approval of projects to a larger economic development policy that takes as its centerpiece the employment of current San Francisco residents.

6. Enforce city labor laws and fund the agency that enforces the laws.

7. Establish the Board of Supervisors as the policy board of a re-organized Redevelopment Agency and create community-based project area oversight committees.

8. Dramatically expand Muni in the southeast portion of the city and reconfigure routes to link neighborhoods without having to go through downtown. Put special emphasis on direct Muni routes to City College and San Francisco State.

9. Reform the payroll tax so all businesses share the burden and the largest pay their fair share.

10. Consolidate the city’s various arts entities into a single Department of Arts & Culture that includes as part of its mandate a clear directive to achieve maximum economic development through leveraging the city’s existing cultural assets and creative strengths and re-imagining San Francisco’s competitive position as a regional, national and international hub of creative thinking. Sponsor and promote signature arts programs and opportunities to attract and retain visitors who will generate maximum economic activity in the local economy; restore San Francisco’s community-based cultural economy by re-enacting the successful Neighborhood Arts Program; and leverage the current 1-2 percent for art fees on various on-site building projects to be directed towards non-construction-site arts activity.

LAND USE, HOUSING AND TENANTS

Background: Since the office market tanked, the big land-use issue has become market-rate housing. San Francisco is building housing for people who don’t live here — in significant part, for either very wealthy people who want a short-term pied a terre in the city or for commuters who work in Silicon Valley. The city’s own General Plan calls for 60 percent of all new housing to be below-market-rate — but the vast majority of the new housing that’s been constructed or is in the planning pipeline is high-end condos.

There’s no connection between the housing needs of city residents and the local workforce and the type of housing that’s being constructed. Family housing is in short supply and rental housing is being destroyed faster than it’s being built — a total of 21,000 rental units have been lost to condos and tenancies in common.

Public housing is getting demolished and rebuilt with 2500 fewer units. “Hotelization” is growing as housing units become transitory housing.

Planning has become an appendage of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, which has no commission, no public hearings and no community oversight.

Projects are getting approved with no connection to schools, transit or affordable housing.

There’s no monitoring of Ellis Act evictions.

Transit-oriented development is a big scam that doesn’t include equity or the needs of people who live in the areas slated for more development. Cities have incentives to create dense housing with no affordability. Communities of concern are right in the path of this “smart growth” — and there are no protections for the people who live there now.

Agenda items:

1. Re emphasize that the Planning Department is the lead land-use approval agency and that the Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development should not be used to short-circuit public participation in the process.

2. Enact a freeze on condo conversions and a freeze on the demolition of existing affordable rental housing.

3. Ban evictions if the use or occupation of the property will be for less than 30 days.

4. Index market-rate to affordable housing; slow down one when the other is too far ahead.

5. Disclose what level of permanent affordability is offered at each project.

6. Stabilize existing communities with community benefits agreements before new development is approved.

BUDGET AND SOCIAL SERVICES

Background: There have been profound cuts in the social safety net in San Francisco over the past decade. One third of the city’s shelter beds have been lost; six homeless centers have closed. Homeless mental health and substance abuse services have lost $32 million, and the health system has lost $33 million.

None of the budget proposals coming from the Mayor’s Office have even begun to address restoring the past cuts.

There’s not enough access to primary care for people in Healthy San Francisco.

Nonprofit contracts with the city are flat-funded, so there’s no room for increases in the cost of doing business.

The mayor has all the staff and the supervisors don’t have enough. The supervisors have the ability to add back budget items — but the mayor can then make unilateral cuts.

The wealthy in San Francisco have done very well under the Bush tax cuts and more than 14 billionaires live in this city. The gap between the rich and the poor, which is destroying the national economy, exists in San Francisco, too. But while city officials are taking a national lead on issues like the environment and civil rights, there is virtually no discussion at the policy level of using city policy to bring in revenue from those who can afford it and to equalize the wealth disparities right here in town.

Agenda items:

1. Establish as policy that San Francisco will step in where the state and federal government have left people behind — and that local taxation policy should reflect progressive values.

2. Make budget set-asides a budget floor rather than a percentage of the budget.

3. Examine what top city executives are paid.

4. Promote public power, public broadband and public cable as a way to bring the city millions of dollars.

5. Support progressive taxes that will bring in at least $250 million a year in permanent new revenue.

6. Change the City Charter to eliminate unilateral mid-year cuts by the mayor.

8. Pass a Charter amendment that: (a) Requires the development of a comprehensive long-term plan that sets the policies and strategies to guide the implementation of health and human services for San Francisco’s vulnerable residents over the next 10 years, and (b) creates a planning body with the responsibility and authority to develop the plan, monitor and evaluate its implementation, coordinate between policy makers and departments, and ensure that annual budgets are consistent with the plan.

9. Collect existing money better.

10. Enact a foreclosure transfer tax.

YOUTH, IMMIGRATION, AND EDUCATION

Background: In the past 10 years, San Francisco has lost 24,000 people ages 12-24. Among current youth, 5,800 live in poverty; 6,000 have no high school degree; 7,000 are not working or attending school; 1,200 are on adult probation.

A full 50 percent of public school students are not qualified for college studies. Too often, the outcome is dictated by race; school-to-prison is far too common.

Trust between immigrants and the police is a low point, particularly since former Mayor Gavin Newsom gutted the sanctuary ordinance in 2008 after anti-immigrant stories in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Some 70 percent of students depend on Muni, but the price of a youth pass just went from $10 to $21.

Agenda items:

1. Recognize that there’s a separate role for probation and immigration, and keep local law enforcement from joining or working with immigration enforcement.

2. Improve public transportation for education and prioritize free Muni for youth.

3. Create family-friendly affordable housing.

4. Restore the recreation direction for the Recreation and Parks Department.

5. Implement police training to treat youth with respect.

6. Don’t cut off benefits for youth who commit crimes.

7. Shift state re-alignment money from jails to education.

ENERGY, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Background: When it comes to land use, the laws on the books are pretty good. The General Plan is a good document. But those laws aren’t enforced. Big projects get changed by the project sponsor after they’re approved.

Land use is really about who will live here and who will vote. But on a policy level, it’s clear that the city doesn’t value the people who currently live here.

Climate change is going to affect San Francisco — people who live near toxic materials are at risk in floods and earthquakes.

San Francisco has a separate but unequal transportation system. Muni is designed to get people downtown, not around town — despite the fact that job growth isn’t happening downtown.

San Francisco has a deepwater port and could be the Silicon Valley of green shipping.

San Francisco has a remarkable opportunity to promote renewable energy, but that will never happen unless the city owns the distribution system.

Agenda items:

1. Promote the rebirth of heavy industry by turning the port into a center for green-shipping retrofits.

2. Public land should be for public benefit, and agencies that own or control that land should work with community-based planning efforts.

3. Planning should be for the community, not developers.

4. Energy efficiency programs should be targeted to disadvantaged communities.

5. Pay attention to the urban food revolution, encourage resident owned farmers markets. Use unused public land for local food and community gardens.

6. Provide complete information on what parts of the city are fill, and stop allowing development in areas that are going to be inundated with sea level rise.

7. Prioritize local distributed generation of electricity and public ownership of the power grid.

8. Change Clean Energy San Francisco from a purchasing pool system to a generating system.

Deep-pocketed Lee supporter aims to take back S.F. from progressives

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee

September 13, 2011

Power brokers Willie Brown and Rose Pak aren’t nearly the only influential backers working behind the scenes to help elect Mayor Ed Lee to a full term. Three different committees have been set up to support his candidacy and are fundraising independently from his official campaign, according to Ethics Commission filings.

The principal officer and treasurer of one of these independent expenditure committees are, respectively, a Republican Silicon Valley tech investor who’s spoken publicly about taking San Francisco back from progressives, and a political attorney who worked on Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s failed yet stunningly expensive Proposition 16 campaign.

“San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government, Supporting Ed Lee for Mayor 2011,” was created in late August with a San Rafael address, according to an Ethics filing. Its principal officer is Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley angel investor who made his fortune in the tech industry. Conway was quoted in a San Francisco Business Times article last year as saying “we must take our city back” from progressives, a rallying cry he delivered at a dinner hosted by the the Bay Area Council, a business association. A book written about Conway by Gary Rivlin dubs him “The Godfather of Silicon Valley.”

According to campaign finance records, Conway, a registered Republican, has donated more than $320,000 to Republican state and federal candidates since 1999. He also contributed $1,000 to a Draft Ed Lee for Mayor committee, a separate effort from Progress for All which was formed before Lee announced his candidacy to encourage him to run. Conway has made substantial contributions to Democratic hopefuls, too, but the majority of his campaign donations over the last decade have benefited GOP candidates.

The treasurer of “San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government” is Elli Abdoli, a political attorney who works in the San Rafael office of Nielsen Merksamer Parrinello Mueller & Naylor, a heavyweight political firm based in Sacramento whose services were tapped last year by PG&E to advance the Proposition 16 ballot initiative that the company bankrolled. Prop 16 was designed to crush municipal power programs that threatened to compete with PG&E by requiring a supermajority approval of the voters before they could move forward. Despite sinking more than $45 million into that campaign, voters rejected Prop. 16.

Abdoli served as the assistant treasurer for the Yes on 16 committee, according to a form filed with the Fair Political Practices Commission. She was listed as a contact for the “San Franciscans for Jobs and Good Government” committee and had not returned calls by press time.

Keep it raw

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

September 6, 2011

emilysavage@sfbg.com

MUSIC Does the Godfather of Punk really need an introduction? It’s Iggy Pop. He’s been doing this — this meaning spitting out underground ethos in a signature growl and writhing shirtless — for nearly 50 years. With the untimely death of original Stooge guitarist Ron Asheton, Pop regrouped and tapped Raw Power-era player James Williamson to rejoin the band a couple of years back.

I spoke to Pop in Paris over the phone — his current world tour was supposed to land in San Francisco on Sept. 12 and 13. As we were going to press, however, we were informed that the ever-wild Pop broke his foot and his appearance here will be rescheduled, with new dates TBA Dec. 4 and 6 at the Warfield. We wish him a speedy recovery!

SFBG: What songs are you playing this tour?

Iggy Pop: All of Raw Power, some of Funhouse, some songs from the eponymous debut the Stooges, and some stuff that was too hot to handle, too raw for the times — stuff that came out on bootlegs in the ’70s like “Cock in My Pocket,” “Open Up and Bleed,” “Head on the Curve.”

SFBG: And James Williamson is on guitar?

Iggy Pop: Yeah, it’s James. The three principles in the group are James, myself and [drummer] Scott Asheton, — [Scott] had a medical emergency…after our appearance at the Hellfest. He’s now home — he’s benched for the rest of the year. I expect he’ll fully recover and be back next year. His replacement on drums is somebody that grew up listening to our records — Toby Dammit. And Mike Watt is with us, and Steve Mackay. Mike’s there being Mike, you know?

SFBG: I do. At this point in your career do feel pressure to maintain this ‘Wild Child’ image?

Iggy Pop: You mean you’ve noticed my style? [Laughs]. It’s interesting. I feel a desire to — [screams] “still do that, BABY!” — at certain times when it’s going to do me good. And I can’t think of a better time than when the Stooges are cranking, and there are a bunch of people who are sick of this shit-soup that white rock has become and want to see some action. I let some of those elements live and breath, and I always feel good about it.

I don’t think there’s so much an image I have to live up to because one of the beautiful things about being me and about being the Stooges is that we never, ever received any legitimate or uncontested exposure from either the official music industry, when it existed, or the official media. We’re more popular now than we ever were. I’m 64 and I’m just starting to hit a career peak. I consciously try to introduce as many new things as I can into what I do and try to keep moderating it. My hair’s not gray, I haven’t lost interest in life.

SFBG: So what are you looking forward to in the future? The future being later tonight, and six months down the line?

Iggy Pop: [Laughs] well, later tonight, my wife’s with me, and I’m going to open half a bottle of Bordeaux, watch the French news, and practice my French. I’ve made a small album of my own [Existence] that’s along the lines of [2009’s] Préliminaires so I’m working on seeing if I can bamboozle some record company into putting that out. But I’m also working on [Stooges] stuff with James. He’s a real prolific talent, and wasn’t playing music for something like 37 years — he’s got a lot of pent-up energy. It’s funny because he’s an eminently sane, responsible family man who has become a very successful tech executive in San Jose. But he has still reserved his unreasoning, adolescent, spiteful side for our group — so out it comes!

SFBG: How did you end up on American Idol?

Iggy Pop: Well, my agent was begging and threatening — and I’m the sort of person that likes to take a dare. I don’t know how many times I’ve slunk past the television set when that thing was on fuming, “this stinks, what a bunch of shit this is, look at these people — they might as well be parrots!” Yet, behind all that you’re always thinking, “I can do better than that.” I thought of all 102 reasons why I shouldn’t do it, but you’re being offered a chance to do one of your own songs…on the same stage, with the chance to do it your way. I did it for that. To give four minutes of my life and put that on the record in America.

SFBG: On that same note, what was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame experience like for you, finally getting inducted in 2010?

Iggy Pop: It always reminds me of that movie Carrie. She didn’t start out wanting to be homecoming queen, did she? They keep nominating you, and I didn’t ask, nobody asked me if I wanted to be nominated. So then with every nomination comes the rejection, so you start feeling all like, “fuck!” Then you start looking around and think, “well there’s a silly-ass prick and he’s in the Hall of Fame” and “there’s a no-talent weasel and he’s in the Hall of Fame” — why the hell can’t I be in the Hall of Fame?

Shortly after Ron and Scott and I started working together again I said, “are there any specific things you want to accomplish?” And both said, “well, I want to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That would be the big thing.” So at that point I started doing things that would tend to let that happen. I did a couple of Grammy-related events. And then we did Madonna’s [induction]. I figured if the voters for this thing didn’t know who we were before, they’d know now. It’s a shame, Ron was really pissed when they didn’t induct us the next year — he hated doing the Madonna song but I didn’t mind. Hell, we could do “Happy Birthday” and it would sound good, too. It would sound like us.

Team Avalos

Andrew Lam

September 6, 2011

When Supervisor John Avalos chaired the Budget & Finance Committee in 2009 and 2010, his office became a bustling place in the thick of the budget process. To gain insight on the real-life effects of the mayor’s proposed spending cuts, Avalos and his City Hall staff played host to neighborhood service providers, youth workers, homeless advocates, labor leaders, and other San Franciscans who stood to be directly impacted by the axe that would fall when the final budget was approved. They camped out in City Hall together for hours, puzzling over which items they could live without, and which required a steadfast demand for funding restoration.

“One year, we even brought them into the mayor’s office,” for an eleventh-hour negotiating session held in the wee morning hours, recounted Avalos’ legislative aide, Raquel Redondiez. That move came much to the dismay of Steve Kawa, mayoral chief of staff.

Avalos, the 47-year-old District 11 supervisor, exudes a down-to-earth vibe that’s rare in politicians, and tends to display a balanced temperament even in the heat of high-stakes political clashes. He travels to and from mayoral debates by bicycle. He quotes classic song lyrics during full board meetings, keeps a record player and vinyl collection in his office, and recently showed up at the Mission dive bar El Rio to judge a dance competition for the wildly popular Hard French dance party.

Yet casual observers may not be as familiar with the style Avalos brings to conducting day-to-day business at City Hall, an approach exemplified that summer night in 2010 when he showed up to the mayor’s office flanked by grassroots advocates bent on preserving key programs.

“My role is, I’m an insider, … but it’s really been about bringing in the outside to have a voice on the inside,” Avalos said in a recent interview. “People have always been camped out in my office. These are people who represent constituencies — seniors, recipients of mental health care, unions, people concerned about violence. It’s how we change things in City Hall. It’s making government more effective at promoting opportunities, justice, and greater livelihood.” Part of the thrust behind his candidacy, he added, is this: “We want to be able to have a campaign that’s about a movement.”

That makes Avalos different from the other candidates — but it also raises a crucial question. Some of the most important advances in progressive politics in San Francisco have come not just from electoral victories, but from losing campaigns that galvanized the left. Tom Ammiano in 1999 and Matt Gonzalez in 2003 played that role. Can Avalos mount both a winning campaign — and one that, win or lose, will have a lasting impact on the city?

Workers and families

No budget with such deep spending cuts could have left all stakeholders happy once the dust settled, but Avalos and other progressive supervisors did manage to siphon some funding away from the city’s robust police and fire departments in order to restore key programs in a highly controversial move.

“There’s a Johnny Cash song I really like, written by Tom Petty, called ‘I Won’t Back Down.’ I sang it during that time, because I didn’t back down,” Avalos said at an Aug. 30 mayoral forum hosted by the Potrero Hill Democratic Club. “We made … a symbolic cut, showing that there was a real inequity about how we were doing our budgets. Without impacting public safety services, we were able to get $6 million from the Fire Department. A lot of that went into Rec & Park, and health care programs, and to education programs, and we were able to … find more fat in the Police Department budget than anybody had ever found before, about $3 million.”

Last November, Avalos placed a successful measure on the ballot to increase the city’s real-estate transfer tax, which so far has amassed around $45 million in new revenue for city coffers, softening the blow to critical programs in the latest round of budget negotiations. “Without these measures that community groups, residents, and labor organizations worked for, Mayor Ed Lee would not have been able to balance the budget,” Avalos said.

More recently, he emerged as a champion of the city’s Local Hire Ordinance, designed as a tool for job creation that requires employers at new construction projects to select San Francisco residents for half their work crews, to be phased in over the next several years. That landmark legislation was a year in the making, Redondiez said, describing how union representatives, workers, contractors, unemployed residents of Chinatown and the Bayview, and others cycled through Avalos’ City Hall office to provide input.

His collaborative style stems in part from his background. Avalos formerly worked for Service Employees International Union Local 1877, where he organized janitors, and served as political director for Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth. He was also a legislative aide to former District 6 Sup. Chris Daly, who remains a lightning rod in the San Francisco political landscape.

Before wading into the fray of San Francisco politics, Avalos earned a masters degree in social work from San Francisco State University. But when he first arrived in the city in 1989, with few connections and barely any money to his name, he took a gig at a coffee cart. He was a Latino kid originally from Wilmington, Calif. whose dad was a longshoreman and whose mom was an office worker, and he’d endured a climate of discrimination throughout his teenage years at Andover High in Andover, Mass.

Roughly a decade ago, Avalos and a group of youth advocates were arrested in Oakland following a protest against Proposition 21, which increased criminal penalties for crimes committed by youth. Booked into custody along with him was his wife, Karen Zapata, whom he married around the same time. She is now a public school teacher in San Francisco and the mother of their two children, ages 6 and 9, both enrolled in public schools.

“John has consistently been a voice for disenfranchised populations in this city,” said Sharen Hewitt, who’s known Avalos for more than a decade and serves as executive director of The Community Leadership Academy & Emergency Response Project (CLAER), an organization formed to respond to a rash of homicides and alleviate violence. “He understands that San Francisco is at a major turning point in terms of its ability to keep families and low-income communities housed. With the local hiring ordinance, most of us who have been working around violence prevention agree — at the core of this horrible set of symptoms are root causes, stemming from economic disparity.”

Asked about his top priorities, Avalos will invariably express his desire to keep working families rooted in San Francisco. District 11, which spans the Excelsior, Ingleside, and other southeastern neighborhoods, encompasses multiracial neighborhoods made up of single-family homes — and many have been blunted with foreclosure since the onset of the economic crisis.

“Our motto for building housing in San Francisco is we build all this luxury housing — it’s a form of voodoo economics,” Avalos told a small group of supporters at a recent campaign stop in Bernal Heights. “I want to have a new model for how we build housing in San Francisco. How can we help [working-class homeowners] modify their loans to make if more flexible, so they can stay here?” He’s floated the idea of creating an affordable housing bond to aid in the construction of new affordable housing units as well as loan modifications to prevent foreclosures.

“That’s what is the biggest threat to San Francisco, is losing the working-class,” said community activist Giuliana Milanese, who previously worked with Avalos at Coleman Advocates for Youth and has volunteered for his campaign. “And he’s the best fighter. Basically, economic justice is his bottom line.”

Tenants Union director Ted Gullicksen gave Avalos his seal of approval when contacted by the Guardian, saying he has “a 100 percent voting record for tenants,” despite having fewer tenants in his district than some of his colleagues. “David Chiu, had he not voted for Parkmerced, could have been competitive with John,” Gullicksen said. “But the Parkmerced thing was huge, so now it’s very difficult to even have David in same ballpark. Dennis [Herrera] has always taken the right positions — but he’s never had to vote on anything,” he said. “After that, nobody comes close.”

Cash poor, community rich

There’s no question: The Avalos for Mayor campaign faces an uphill climb. Recent poll figures offering an early snapshot of the crowded field peg him at roughly 4 percent, trailing behind candidates with stronger citywide name recognition like City Attorney Dennis Herrera or the incumbent, Mayor Ed Lee, who hasn’t accepted public financing and stands to benefit from deep-pocketed backers with ties to big business.

Yet as Assembly Member Tom Ammiano phrased it, “he’s actually given progressives a place to roost. He doesn’t pussy-foot around on the issues that are important,” making him a natural choice for San Francisco voters who care more about stemming the tides of privatization and gentrification than, say, rolling out the red carpet for hi-tech companies.

One of Avalos’ greatest challenges is that he lacks a pile of campaign cash, having received less than $90,000 in contributions as of June 30, according to an Ethics Commission filing. “He can’t call in the big checks,” said Julian Davis, board president of Booker T. Washington Community Service Center, “because he hasn’t been doing the bidding of big business interests.” A roster of financial contributions filed with the Ethics Commission shows that his donor base is comprised mainly of teachers, nonprofit employees, health-care workers, tenant advocates, and other similar groups, with almost no representatives of real-estate development interests or major corporations.

Despite being strapped for cash, he’s collected endorsements ranging from the Democratic County Central Committee, to the Harvey Milk Democratic Club, to the city’s largest labor union, SEIU 1021; he’s also won the backing of quintessential San Francisco characters such as renowned author Rebecca Solnit; San Francisco’s radical bohemian poet laureate, Diane di Prima; and countercultural icon Diamond Dave.

While some of Avalos’ core supporters describe his campaign as “historic,” other longtime political observers have voiced a sort of disenchantment with his candidacy, saying it doesn’t measure up to the sweeping mobilizations that galvanized around Gonzalez or Ammiano. Ammiano has strongly endorsed Avalos, but Gonzalez — who now works for Public Defender (and mayoral candidate) Jeff Adachi — has remained tepid about his candidacy, stating publicly in an interview on Fog City Journal, “I like [Green Party candidate Terrie Baum] and John fine. I just don’t believe in them.”

Ironically, Sup. Sean Elsbernd, often Avalos’ political opposite on board votes, had kinder words for him. “John is intelligent, John is honest, and John has integrity,” Elsbernd told the Guardian. “I don’t think he knows the city well enough to serve as chief executive … but I’ve seen the good work he’s done in his district.”

Meanwhile, Avalos is still grappling with the fallout from the spending cut he initiated against the police and fire departments in 2009. Whereas those unions sent sound trucks rolling through his neighborhood clamoring for his recall from office during that budget fight, the San Francisco Police Officers Association (SFPOA), the San Francisco Fire Fighters union, and the plumbers’ union, Local 38, have teamed up now that Avalos is running for mayor to form an independent expenditure committee targeting him and Public Defender Jeff Adachi, a latecomer to the race.

“We’ll make sure we do everything we can to make sure he never sees Room 200,” SFPOA President Gary Delagnes told the Guardian. “I would spend as much money as I could possibly summon to make sure neither ever takes office.” Delagnes added that he believes the political makeup of San Francisco is shifting in a more moderate direction, to Avalos’ disadvantage. “People spend a lot of money to live here,” he said, “and they don’t want to be walking over 15 homeless people, or having people ask them for money.”

If it’s true that the flanks of the left in San Francisco have already been supplanted with wealthy residents whose primary concern is that they are annoyed by the sight of destitute people, then more has already been lost for the progressive movement than it stands to lose under the scenario of an Avalos defeat.

The great progressive hope?

Despite these looming challenges, the Avalos campaign has amassed a volunteer base that’s more than 1,000 strong, in many cases drawing from grassroots networks already engaged in efforts to defend tenant rights, advance workplace protections for non-union employees, create youth programs that aim to prevent violence in low-income communities, and advance opportunities for immigrants. According to some volunteers, linking these myriad grassroots efforts is part of the point. Aside from the obvious goal of electing Avalos for mayor, his supporters say they hope his campaign will be a force to re-energize and redefine progressive politics in San Francisco.

“All the candidates that are running are trying to appeal to the progressive base,” Avalos said. But what does it really mean? To him, being progressive “is a commitment to a cause that’s greater,” he offered. “It’s about how to alter the relationship of power in San Francisco. My vision of progressivism is more inclusive, and more accountable to real concerns.”

N’Tanya Lee, former executive director of Coleman Advocates, was among the people Avalos consulted when he was considering a run for mayor. “The real progressives in San Francisco are the folks on the ground every day, like the moms working for public schools … everyday families, individual people, often people of color, who are doing the work without fanfare. They are the unsung heroes … and the rising progressive leaders of our city,” she said. “John represents the best of what’s to come. It’s not just about race or class. It’s about people standing for solutions.”

When deciding whether to run, Avalos also turned to his wife, Zapata, who has held leadership positions in the San Francisco teacher’s union in the past. She suggested rounding up community leaders and talking it through. “The campaign needed to be a movement campaign,” Zapata told the Guardian. “John Avalos was not running because he thought John Avalos was the most important person in the world to do this job. Our question was, if John were to do this, how would it help people most affected by economic injustice?”

Hewitt, the executive director of CLAER, also weighed in. “My concern is that he has been painted as a leftist, rooted in some outdated ideology,” she said. “I think [that characterization] is one-dimensional, and I think he’s broader than that. My perception of John is that he’s a pragmatist — rooted in listening, and attempting to respond.”

Others echoed this characterization. “He doesn’t need to be the great progressive hope,” said Rafael Mandelman, an attorney who ran as a progressive in District 8 last year. “If people are looking for the next Matt Gonzalez, I’m not sure that’s what John is about. He’s about the communities he’s representing.”

As to whether or not he has a shot at victory, Mandelman said, “It’s a very wide field, and I think John is going to have a very strong base. I think he will get enough first-choice votes to be one of the top contenders. And with ranked choice voting, anything can happen.”

The America’s cup confusion

Zelda Bronstein

September 2, 2011

If the sponsors (and city officials) are right, the America’s Cup is going to be a huge event, attracting hundreds of thousands of spectators, many of whom will want to be on the San Francisco waterfront to watch. But it’s never been clear to me exactly how that’s going to work — how are all those (rich) people who are used to getting around in limos going to travel from their downtown hotels to the viewing areas? If the city wanted to do this right, we should close down the Embarcadero and some of the feeder streets to all vehicles (except ambulances — always needed when rich old people get excited) and force everyone to travel by pedicab. Buy up a fleet of several hundred of the human-powered vehicles and let all the unemployed teenagers get a shot at driving them. Job creation for youth; environmentally sound transportation; potentially fun bumper-car action with well-heeled patrons screaming in fear.

Remember: The f-line, even with improvements, can’t possibly handle the necessary traffic. And the AC types aren’t going to ride the train anyway. No way private cars can all fit without massive gridlock.

So: Pedicabs. My suggestion.

In the meantime, there’s this little problem of 8 Washington.

See, the developer of what would be the city’s most expensive condos ever is planning on excavating 110,000 cubic yards of soil for a massive underground parking garage — right along the Embarcadero, and right during the America’s Cup events. The Draft Environmental Impact Report for 8 Washington indicates that the dump trucks (about 20 big trucks per day, and possibly a lot more) would be using that roadway to get to 101 or 280.

Actually, if activist Brad Paul is correct, there’s no way the developer can excavate that much dirt in the time frame that it’s supposed to happen unless the number of trucks is closer to 300 a day. Imagine all of that happening while 100,000 people are trying to get to the waterfront to watch the show. Oh, and according to the DEIR for the America’s Cup, the Embarcadero will be CLOSED during that period.

The fact is, the 8 Washington project is not only a terrible idea (just what the city needs — more condos for mega-millionaires) but would directly screw up the whole America’s Cup effort. And the amazing thing is that the AC people and the Mayor’s Office don’t seem to be paying attention.

Paul has put together a lengthy critique of the whole mess that makes great reading if you’re into this sort of thing. So I thought I’d just post it all here. Warning: It’s long. Enjoy.

August 15, 2011

Bill Wycko
Environmental Review Officer
San Francisco Planning Department
1650 Mission Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94103

Re: COMMENTS ON DRAFT EIR FOR 8 WASHINGTON STREET/
SEAWALL LOT 351 PROJECT
Case No. 2007.0030E

Dear Mr. Wycko:

I am writing to my provide my comments on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (“DEIR”) for this project, a document that is incomplete, inadequate and in places quite misleading. I’ve organized my comments in sections beginning with a detailed discussion of how the project’s construction schedule has been greatly underestimated. This is followed by discussions of the DEIR’s failure to address key Housing and Population issues, misstatements regarding historic obligations related to Golden Gateway, comments on recreation issues, and more. In general, I believe the DEIR fails to present objective information and analysis, it omits a number of relevant issues that are critical to the ability of public officials to make objective and informed decisions about the project and it is filled with judgments and assertions that are not supported by facts.

The DEIR is incomplete and inadequate in the following areas:

I. THE DEIR CONSTRUCTION SCHEDULE FOR 8 WASHINGTON IS BOTH INACCURATE AND MISLEADING.

The DEIR construction schedule is based on overly optimistic assumptions that are totally unrealistic; the ramifications of these erroneous assumptions need to be carefully considered as they will cascade throughout the project requiring major revisions to the DEIR before it can be considered accurate and complete.

At the bottom of page II.19 it states:

      Project construction, including demolitions, site and foundation work,
      construction of the parking garage, and construction of the buildings,
      would take 27-29 months. Assuming that construction would begin in 2012,
      the buildings would be ready for occupancy in 2014. The first phase of the
      construction would take about 16 months and would include demolition
     (2 months), excavation and shoring (7 months), and foundation and below
      grade construction work (7 months).

While the DEIR unequivocally states the project will take 27-29 months to construct, from 2012 to 2014, facts provided elsewhere in the DEIR together with current city policies, the City’s America’s Cup Host and Venue Agreement and basic math indicate that this schedule is not tenable. The remainder of this section provides the data and analysis that lead to the conclusion that construction of 8 Washington will take much longer than 27-29 months, almost TWICE AS LONG, with excavation taking 2.5 to 3 TIMES longer.

Table 1: Requested Changes to the overall DEIR construction schedule

ACTIVITY MINIMUM MAXIMUM

DEIR’s construction schedule: 27 months to 29 months

    Actual excavation schedule:  18 months          22 months
    — DEIR estimate for excavation – 7 months           – 7 months
    + Increased excavation time  11 months      to       15 months
    + Archeology delays              .5 months      to         2 months
    + America’s Cup delays                  2.5 months       to         5 months
    + Weather delays                        .25 months      to         1 months

ACTUAL CONSTRUCTION TIME 41 months to 52 months

To refute the numbers in Table 1, project sponsors must present additional, verifiable data supporting their unrealistic assumptions, beginning with the claim that the first phase of construction takes 16 months with a mere seven months allocated for excavation/shoring.

A. The DEIR fails to accurately ascertain and analyze the excavation/shoring schedule.

The DEIR states on page II.20 that “approximately 110,000 cubic yards of soil” will be excavated from the site for an underground garage (approximately 90,000 cubic yards) and other foundation work during the seven (7) month “excavation” portion of the projected timeline. It later states excavation will take place 6.5 hours per day with an average of 20 truck trips per day (pg.IV.D.31). Assuming the average dump truck holds 12 cubic yards of dirt (typical payload for a dump truck), that would mean:

· 110,000 cu. yards/12 cubic yards per truck = 9,166 truck trips

· 20 trucks/day X 12 cubic yards/trip = an average of 240 cu. yards/day

· 110,000 cu. yards/240 cu. yards per day = 458 working days for this task

Could this task be completed in seven (7) months as claimed in the DEIR? NO.

     ·5 working days per week X 52 weeks = 260 working days per year
             – 11 holidays per year
                   249 total working days/year

·458 days to finish task/249 working days per year = 22 months (not 7)

For this to take 7 months as the DEIR asserts, the following would have to be true:

· 20 trucks/day X 7 months (145 working days ) = 2,900 total truck trips

· 110,000 cu. yards/2,900 trucks = each truck must average 38 cubic yards/trip
Empirical evidence exists, however, proving the DEIR’s claim that the excavation portion of the schedule will take seven months is inaccurate and misleading:

CASE STUDY #1: San Francisco General Hospital Rebuild Project

A recent SF General Hospital (SFGH) Newsletter reports the hospital’s contractor just finished hauling 120,000 cu. yards of dirt from the 45’ deep hole that was dug to build two basement levels and the foundation for a new hospital building. This is as close as anyone is likely to get to replicating what 8 Washington proposes, a three level 40’ deep underground garage accounting for most of the 110,000 cubic yards of dirt that must be removed from the site.

A call to the SFGH Rebuild office revealed their excavation process took seven (7) months with an average truck load of 13 cu. yards per trip. How was that possible?

“The average truck load was 13 cubic yards. Some days we had
over 300 truck loads hauled in one day. This volume was possible
through use of a paved drive that allowed trucks to enter the side, be
loaded up then tires washed to prevent dirt on road causing storm-
water pollution and dust.”

The SF General site is just a few blocks from U.S. 101 with direct access via Potrero Ave., thus minimizing potential traffic conflicts. The 8 Washington site will require driving long distances on city streets including “The Embarcadero, Harrison Street, and King Street… likely the primary haul and access routes to and from I-80, U.S. 101, and I-280 (pg. IV.D.31).” Imagine 300 trips a day on one of these streets.

CASE STUDY #2: SF PUC’s New Hetch Hetchy Reservoir Tunnel

A recent Oakland Tribune story (4/8/11) describes construction of a new 3.5-mile tunnel designed to protect the water supply from SF’s Hetch Hetchy reservoir from major earthquakes by boring a 2nd, state-of-the-art tunnel from Sunol to Fremont alongside the existing 81-year-old Irvington Tunnel. The article states:

      “By the time the New Irvington Tunnel is completed in 2014, crews will have
        excavated about 734,000 cubic yards of material—the equivalent of 61,000
        dump-truck trips, said officials with the SF Public Utilities Commission.”

Dividing 734,000 cubic yards of soil by the 61,000 dump truck trips that the PUC says are necessary equals 12 cubic yards per truck trip. Given this job’s overall size and $227 million budget, it would seem to confirm the fact that the most efficient excavation equipment for the 8 Washington site will be 12 cubic yard dump trucks.

In light of these facts and the analysis provided above, the only way 8 Washington could meet its proposed seven (7) month excavation schedule would be to:

a) schedule up to 300 TRUCK TRIPS A DAY, over 10 TIMES the average number of trips per day (20) stated in the DEIR and 3 TIMES the absolute maximum of 100 truck trips per day (pg. IV.D.31) along the Northeast Embarcadero during a period of time that directly overlaps with the major America’s Cup events and activities, something specifically prohibited by the City’s America’s Cup Host and Venue Agreement ,

b) average 38 cubic yards of dirt per truck trip, 3 TIMES the average truck payload of both the PUC’s Irvington Tunnel project and SF General Hospital’s 120,000 cubic yard excavation project—assuming that 38 cubic yard trucks: a) exist in sufficient quantity in the Bay Area, b) would be available during that period of time described and c) would be allowed on The Embarcadero, Harrison St., King St., Washington St. and Drumm St. by the City. [see photo comparison of 12 cubic yard vs. 30 cubic yard trucks below]

Unless the project sponsor can demonstrate that one of these two highly unlikely scenarios is possible, then the EIR must reanalyze a number of impacts (e.g. Land Use, Air Quality, Greenhouse Gases) based on a revised excavation schedule, one that takes 2.5 to 3 TIMES as long as the one described in DEIR to complete excavation work, and this 22 month timeline assumes NO archeological remains are found on site and the City imposes NO stop work orders related to America’s Cup (see below).

This 15-month difference between the excavation period analyzed in the DEIR and the ACTUAL time it will take to complete the excavation (22 months vs. 7 months) is a major deficiency in the DEIR with profound impacts. For instance, some of the most significant unavoidable negative impacts described in the DEIR involve degraded air quality both during and after construction. Adjusting the environmental analysis to reflect how long excavation will actually take means significant air quality impacts related to excavation (with the greatest detrimental effect on seniors, children and people exercising) will persist for 2.5 to 3 TIMES LONGER than described in the DEIR. This flaw also requires significant revisions to other sections of the DEIR.

In light of this new information, the next draft of the EIR must contain an analysis of this longer overall construction period—two months for demolition; a range of 18 to 22 months for excavation (not seven months); a built-in range of time for the shutting down of the site when archeological artifacts are uncovered, documented and extracted (something the DEIR’s archeology consultant states is “likely” ); and the building construction period. Finally, given these overly aggressive excavation schedule estimates, all other estimates for later construction phases must now to be cross checked for accuracy by independent contractors (e.g. not working for 8 Washington developer or the source of the prior DEIR excavation estimate).

B. The actual construction timeline for 8 Washington will be 41-52 MONTHS.
If the project sponsors disagree with this assessment, they must provide the Planning Department with much more detailed information on how they expect to achieve a shorter construction period given the restrictions described in the DEIR itself as well as mathematical analysis described above. For instance,

– Did the developers err when they reported that the average number of truck
   trips per day would be 20 as analyzed in the DEIR? If so, what number do they
   choose to use now and how does that impact various aspects of the DEIR analysis
   such as air quality, conflicts with pedestrians, MUNI and America’s Cup, etc..

– Does the developer plan to raise the limit of truck trips per day from 100 (as
   per the DEIR) to 300 truck trips per day? If so, how often will this happen and
   how will these changes impact various aspects of the previous EIR analysis (e.g. air
   quality, traffic/transit/pedestrian conflicts, America’s Cup)?

– Does the developer plan to lengthen the average workday or work six days a
   week? If so, how often and how would this impact the previous DEIR analysis?
   NOTE: The DEIR construction schedule (27-29 months) was not predicated on the
   trucks operating 6 days a week EVERY WEEK. But even if the developer ran dump
   trucks 6 days a week for the ENTIRE excavation period it would still take TWICE AS
   LONG as the DEIR states to remove 110,000 cubic yards of dirt .

– Where is the project sponsor planning to route 100 to 300 trucks a day as they
   leave the site, particularly during the various America’s Cup trials (2012) and
   finals (2013) when vehicular traffic will be severely limited or prohibited?
   Washington Street? The Embarcadero? Drumm Street? Clay Street?, where exactly?

– Have the developers located a source of 30+ cubic yard trucks and secured
   city permission to use them on the specific streets described in the DEIR?
   It seems fair to assume the SF General Hospital’s excavation contractor would have
   done this if it were possible (and the SF PUC’s Irvington Tunnel contractor). See the
   three photos below to get a sense of the size difference between a typical 12 cubic yard
   dump truck and the type of tractor-trailer rig required to carry 30 cubic yards or more.

As the questions and examples (SF General Hospital) above demonstrate, the DEIR’s claim that 110,000 cubic yards can be excavated in seven months defies the laws of physics and math, not to mention the America’s Cup Host & Venue Agreement between the City and Larry Ellison’s Oracle BMW Racing Team

A thorough reading of the DEIR’s Archeology section and the America’s Cup Host and Venue Agreement indicate that additional time must be built into the construction schedule for predictable work stoppages related to both issues.

KNOWN ARCHEOLOGICAL RESOURCES IDENTIFIED ON THIS SITE IN THE DEIR

On page IV.C.12, the DEIR’s archeology consultant, Archeo-Tec, identifies the Gold Rush ship Bethel as located under a portion of the site and states that “If discovered, the Bethel would be the oldest known (and perhaps most intact) archeological example of an early Canadian built ship (Pg. IV.C.3)”. On page IV.C.11, the archeology consultant states “Significant archeological resources are likely to exist at this site”. The DEIR, goes on to state the proposed project will destroy a portion of city’s original Seawall causing “the largest disturbance of the Old Seawall to date”.

As a result of these DEIR findings, the archeology consultant should now be asked for an estimate of the time required to mitigate the discovery of the Bethel and other likely finds (e.g. original Seawall, other Gold Rush ships, original Chinatown). This “likely” work delay should be built into the construction schedule and stated as a range. For purposes of the matrix below (Table 1) we chose a time of two weeks to two months based on anecdotal information from other similar sites. Archeo-Tec, the archeology consultant, should be able to come up with a more precise estimate.

KNOWN AMERICA’S CUP SCHEDULING CONFLICTS

Based on recent MTA staff presentations on protocols for the America’s Cup, it seems clear that traffic, particularly construction dump trucks, will be banned from Washington Street, Drumm Street and The Embarcadero during major America’s Cup events that include, at a minimum, the America’s Cup World Series warm-up races (July/Sept. 2012), the penultimate Louis Vuitton Cup Series (July/August 2013) and the America’s Cup finals (Sept. 2013).

This represents a minimum of 2.5 months that must be added to the construction schedule, something the DEIR authors should have included if they had read the America’s Cup DEIR which states there are 9+ weeks of races associated with this event in 2012/2013. The extra few weeks added to the low end range in Table 1 (below) are there to accommodate last minute weather delays and various large non-racing events held along the waterfront that will require closure of The Embarcadero, Washington Street, Drumm Street, etc.

Table 1 below lays out a more credible and realistic construction schedule based on the factors described at length above, taken directly from the DEIR or readily available from the city (e.g. America’s Cup DEIR) and the America’s Cup Host and Venue Agreement.

Table 1: Requested Changes to the overall DEIR construction schedule

ACTIVITY MINIMUM MAXIMUM

DEIR’s construction schedule: 27 months to 29 months

    Actual excavation schedule:  18 months          22 months
    — DEIR estimate for excavation – 7 months           – 7 months
    + Increased excavation time  11 months      to      15 months
    + Archeology delays              .5 months      to         2 months
    + America’s Cup delays                   2.5 months        to         5 months
    + Weather delays                        .25 months      to         1 months

ACTUAL CONSTRUCTION TIME 41 months to 52 months

To refute these numbers, the project sponsors must not only present a verifiable and detailed plan to remove 110,000 cubic yards (9,167 truck trips) in seven months that the City has signed off on but also produce a letter from the City and Oracle BMW Racing granting a waiver from Section 10.4 of the America’s Cup Host and Venue Agreement that would allow 20 to 300 trucks a day to drive along The Embarcadero, Washington Street or Drumm Street during major America’s Cup events in 2012 and 2013.

D. Significant Transportation and Energy issues that were not addressed in DEIR.

More specific information related to the construction process needs to be provided and analyzed in the EIR, particularly regarding the far reaching impacts of those 9,166 dump truck trips, impacts that go beyond the immediate Northeast Waterfront.

The DEIR states “While the exact routes that construction trucks would use would depend on the location of the available disposal sites, The Embarcadero, Harrison Street, and King Street would likely be the primary haul and access routes to and from I-80, U.S. 101, and I-280”. At a minimum, The EIR needs to include information on where the two or three most likely disposal sites are located, based on recent experience (SF General Hospital excavation) so that one can analyze the extent of potential conflicts on the Bay Bridge or 101 South where other trucks will be transporting dirt to and/or from the Transbay Terminal project, Hunters Point Shipyard, Mission Bay, Treasure Island, etc. Without this information, the City could find itself creating significant traffic conflicts on the Bay Bridge or highway 101 that greatly increase air quality, traffic and transit problems without having analyzed these potential impacts in a flawed EIR.

Simply saying “While the exact routes that construction trucks would use would depend on the location of the available disposal sites” isn’t adequate or acceptable. Assumptions must be made regarding most likely disposal sites and routes to those sites and what additional cumulative impacts these routes (and 9,166 trucks) will create. The EIR must provide a MAP of the route to be used for hauling soil, all the way from the departure point at 8 Washington to the final destination(s) with an explanation of where trucks will drive and what restrictions there are on hours, size of payload, safety, etc. for the various streets, highways and bridges they will travel on. If the options include trucking the soil to San Francisco’s southern waterfront to transfer it to barges, then this needs to be disclosed and analyzed, including the potential routes and destinations of those barges.
In addition, to accurately compare the environmental impacts of the project sponsor’s ‘Preferred Project’ to the “No Project” alternative (energy consumption, traffic impacts, air quality degradation, etc.), one needs to know not only the destination of the approximately 9,166 dump truck trips but also the average miles per gallon of a typical dump truck. For instance, if the final destination for the soil was 100 miles away and a typical dump truck averages 8 miles per gallon of diesel fuel, then:

9,166 truck trips X 200 miles per round trip = 1,833,200 miles for all dump trucks;

1,833,200 gallons/8 MPG = 229,150 gallons of diesel fuel that would be burned.

In other words, the city’s choices would be:

229,150 gallons of diesel fuel used to transfer 110,000 cubic yards 1,833,200 miles

VS.

ZERO (O) gallons of diesel fuel used if the NO PROJECT alternative were approved.

E. Importance of accurate, detailed information re: the construction process.

Given the above discussion, it is clear that the construction schedule set forth in the DEIR is inaccurate at best and has led, in many cases, to the significant understating of major negative impacts associated with this project. The lack of a detailed discussion of some of the key aspects of the construction process, e.g. the route and destination of 9,166 dump trucks, is also highly problematic.

Without a complete and thorough analysis of the impacts of a of an overall construction schedule that is TWICE AS LONG as the one analyzed in this DEIR, city officials will be missing much of the critical information they need to determine whether or not the developer’s ‘Preferred Project’ is necessary, desirable or feasible. A complete and factual analysis of this issue must be included in the next draft of the EIR which, given this and other major inaccuracies and omissions (see below), should be recirculated in draft form.

II. THE DEIR FAILS TO DISCUSS OR ANALYZE ANY CRITICAL HOUSING ISSUES RELEVANT TO 8 WASHINGTON OR UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY IMPACTS THOSE HOUSING ISSUES CREATE.

A. Impacts of the project on the City’s Housing Needs were Not Analyzed in DEIR. The DEIR states that potentially significant impacts to Population and Housing will not be discussed because the 2007 NOP/Initial Study found that the proposed project would not adversely affect them. Unfortunately the DEIR lacks the basic information needed to reach such a conclusion and, as we will demonstrate, an objective review of relevant 2008-2011 housing data contradicts this conclusion.

The world, particularly regarding housing, has changed radically since 2007. Relying on housing and population information from 2007 ignores the financial and housing meltdown of 2008 and is simply indefensible. In addition, back in 2007, the EIR consultants were relying on stale, seven-year-old census data while today they have access to a multitude of fresh 2010 census data. No one can dispute that the housing environment today could not be more unlike the housing environment in 2007.
By relying solely on pre-2008 housing data from the 2007 NOP/Initial Study, this DEIR lacks any of the basic information needed to conclude that this project would not have adverse effects on Population and Housing and must now revisit and thoroughly analyze these issues.

B. The DEIR fails to analyze how the type and price of housing proposed for
8 Washington determines whether or not it meets the city’s housing needs.

One of the project objectives (Pg II.14) is to “help meet projected City housing
needs.” How is that possible, given the fact that the developer has publicly stated
that these will be “the most expensive condominiums in the history of SF” ? With a
$345,000,000 project cost , 8 Washington’s 165 units will cost $2.0 million a unit
just to build . To secure financing and a ‘reasonable’ profit, each unit will have to
sell for $2.5-$5 million with penthouses selling for $8-$10 million.

Nowhere in the DEIR is ANY of this discussed. There is no analysis of how these
very high sales prices will determine who lives at 8 Washington (e.g. how many San
Francisco families could afford these prices?) and how the incomes of these new
residents ($250,000 to over $1 million/year) will dramatically change a number of
the environmental impacts of the project, with major implications for sustainability
and energy use, among other things.

The final EIR must state the average cost to build each unit and the range of
sales prices expected so that public officials can assess for themselves whether
the proposed condos will or will not “help meet projected City housing needs.”

The 2009 Housing Element, signed into law by Mayor Ed Lee on June 29, 2011, states that 61% of the housing need in San Francisco is for below-market-rate housing—serving families making 30-120% of Area Median Income (AMI), and only 39% of the city’s housing need is for market rate housing (120% to 500+% AMI).

As Planning staff and Commissioners know from their Housing Element discussions, the luxury condos proposed for this project are so expensive they will not help the city meet its current unmet housing needs. If this project objective (Pg II.14) is left in the final EIR, it should include a note explaining that the project, as proposed, is unlikely to meet this objective for the following reasons:

Condominiums selling for $2.5 million and more fall into the one segment of the city’s housing market that is currently overbuilt and has historically been over represented in relation to the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) goals that underpin the updated 2009 Housing Element of the city’s General Plan. An ABAG report on housing needs vs. housing production in SF (1999-2006) that came out in 2007—a report that should have informed the 2007 NOP/Initial Study for 8 Washington—states RHNA Allocations (Goal), Permits Issued (Permitted) and % of Allocation Permitted (% of RHNA Goal) by income category as follows:

Table 2: SF Housing Production (1999-2006)*

Housing Type  Very Low    Low              Moderate       Market Rate
by Income    Income Income Income           Housing
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
% of AMI:    21-50% 51-80% 81-120%         120-500+%
Annual income: [21-50K] [57-81K] [85-123K]   [123K-$1million+]
———————————————————————————————————-
·RHNA Goal (units)   5,244       2,126   5,639                7,363

·Permitted 4,203 1,101 661 11,474

·% of RHNA Goal 80% 52% 12% 156%

* from a 2007 ABAG report entitled: A Place to Call Home

A chart like this, showing housing goals by income group (based on RHNA numbers from the State Office of Housing and Community Development), must be included in the DEIR so public officials can analyze what portion of the city’s unmet affordable and middle income housing needs, if any, the proposed project would meet. It illustrates something local housing experts have long known, that the city consistently comes in well above its RHNA goals for market rate condos, and has historically fallen short of its goals in all other categories for affordable housing, the housing that serves the 61% of San Franciscans that cannot afford ‘market rate’ housing.
C. Dramatic changes to the San Francisco housing market since the 2007 NOP/ Initial Study were not acknowledged and analyzed in the DEIR. All the traditional (pre-2007) sources of funding for the city’s affordable housing programs have dried up since the 2008 housing crash. Redevelopment tax increment funds will either be significantly reduced to pay the state to avoid closure of the SF Redevelopment Agency, or they will be eliminated altogether. Proceeds from the state’s $2.8 billion Affordable Housing Bond (Prop. 1C) are all spent. The federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit, a major source of funding for affordable housing, is under attack by House and Senate Republicans and may not survive.

This indicates that San Francisco won’t come close to meeting its pre-2007 affordable housing production levels until we find a new permanent local source of funding for affordable housing. How long will that take? The DEIR must address this issue.

Another chart that must be included in the DEIR shows the city’s RHNA goals by income category combined with a summary of a recent SF Business Times (6/24/2011) chart showing all San Francisco residential projects under construction, permitted or in the planning pipeline . Such a chart would look something like Table 3 below:

Table 3: Where does the city need help in meeting its RHNA goals?

          Extremely Low       Very Low            Low             Moderate          Market Rate
                 Income          Income           Income            Income               Housing
         Below 30% AMI          31-50%            51-80%           81-120%              120-500+%
    [21K-30K]         [35K-50]        [57K-81K]      [85K-120K]        [120K-$1M+]
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RHNA      439/yr.                   439/yr.           738/yr.            901/yr.                    1,632/yr.
Goals:      10.5%        +          10.5%      +      18%        +     22% = 61%           39%
# of units                    of total        of total
% of goal
                             All Affordable Categories Combined            Market Rate_

Underway: 470 units 1,557 units

Approved: 8,751 units 30,878 units

In Pipeline:                   780 units                     4,184 units
________________________________________________________________________
                          10,000 units             36,619 units
            or                     or
          21.5% of all units                 78.5% of all units

56% of RHNA goals 300% of RHNA goal
in all affordable categories in market rate category
Some version of Table 3 must be included in the revised DEIR to help public officials determine whether the significant negative environmental impacts this project creates are outweighed by the ‘need’ for the type of housing that 8 Washington provides given the priorities set forth in the Housing Element of the General Plan and what the above-mentioned SF Business Times chart tells us about likely housing production for each segment of the city’s housing needs (from 2011-2014).

Table 3 demonstrates that in a few years, if nothing changes, the city will have approved and built out 300% of its RHNA goal for Market Rate projects (such as 8 Washington) but only 56% of its RHNA goals for all other housing that serves San Franciscans making 30% AMI to 120% AMI. But given what we now know about the current lack of funding for affordable housing, the exact opposite of what was true in 2007 (when the city had significant amounts of Redevelopment tax increment and other affordable housing funds), many of the affordable housing projects listed by the Business Times are now on hold and unlikely to come on line by 2014. This means the mismatch between market rate (39% of need but 300% of production) and all categories of affordable will be even greater than Table 3 indicates.

To be fair, one could argue that some of the market rate housing on the Business Times chart may not be built soon either given that banks have been reluctant to lend money lately. However, a recent article in the SF Chronicle (8/11/11) entitled “Rents Go Through Roof” indicates that the city’s housing market is roaring back; Dennis Robal, property manager with Chandler Properties, reports “Noe Valley apartments that were $2,000 a month a year ago are now going for $2,400”. These kinds of increases, driven by new renters from the tech sector, are prompting major increases in investments by financial institutions in new rental housing.

Regarding the condo market, the one group of potential condominium buyers that
have not suffered financially from the economic meltdown are the very people who
caused it, the Wall Street investors, derivatives specialists, hedge fund managers,
etc. who are now making record salaries and bonuses. These are some of the people
8 Washington will be marketing to because they have the cash to spend $2.5-$10
million on a second, third or fourth home in San Francisco.

NONE of this housing analysis appears in the DEIR yet including it in the DEIR is
critical to the ability of public officials to make informed, rational decisions on this
project, particularly claims by the developer that this project will “help meet
projected City housing needs”. The information and analysis described above is
necessary to allow city officials and all readers to determine accurately and
objectively what portion of San Francisco’s unmet affordable and middle income
housing needs, if any, 8 Washington would meet.

Each year, as the City assesses how well it is meeting its RHNA (state) housing goals, the one area that has consistently over produced is high-end market rate housing affordable to people making $250,000 to $1 million+ a year.
How does building second, third and fourth homes for this demographic “help the city meet its housing needs?”

The unmet housing needs in San Francisco are for people making from 30%-50% of median income all the way up to 100-120%, not people making $250,000 to $1,000,000+ a year (200-500% or more of area median income). The DEIR needs to discuss the following questions to be considered complete, adequate and accurate, questions such as:

How does this project relate to the objectives, policies and goals of San Francisco’s recently enacted 2009 Housing Element of the General Plan?

What portion of San Francisco’s affordable and middle-income housing needs will this proposed project actually meet?

How many other projects under construction, approved or in the pipeline (see June 24,
2011 SF Business Times chart) will meet the needs of San Franciscans who can afford market rate housing vs. those that meet the needs of the 61% of SF residents needing below market housing?

What percentage of “residents” of these condos will be using this housing as their primary residence vs. as second, third and fourth vacation homes?

Given that numerous studies show transit use goes down as income goes up,
how likely is it that these new owners will use public transit?

Again, the answer to each of these questions provides critical information that public
officials need to assess for themselves whether the proposed condos will or will
not “help meet the projected City housing needs.”

Everything that’s happened since the 2008 economic/housing meltdown has made our housing problems worse, something the DEIR doesn’t attempt to analyze, arguing instead that a 2007 NOP/Initial Study—competed a year before the housing bubble burst—absolves it of all such responsibility, an argument that is factually absurd.

D. The DEIR fails to acknowledge, measure or analyze the unique environmental impacts generated by owners who can pay $2.5 to $10 million for luxury condos.

Building housing for this demographic has measurable impacts on transit and energy use that were not included in the DEIR. We know from national studies that low-and middle- income residents are far greater consumers of public transit than people with higher incomes. Imagine how much different public transit use will be when this inverse relationship includes people who can afford $2.5-10 million condos that come with 1-for-1 parking (costing almost $100,000 a space to build).

But a far greater environmental impact than driving private cars was not addressed in this DEIR, an impact resulting from lifestyle differences one can anticipate with some members of this highest of high-end demographics: owning and/or using private jets.

It’s reasonable to assume that five of the 165 condo buyers at 8 Washington (just 3% of all buyers) are Wall Street hedge fund managers, derivatives traders or venture capitalists using these condos as second, third or fourth homes. It’s also reasonable to assume that these five buyers will use their condos 1.5 times a month on average and commute to and from SF aboard private business jets, a perfectly rational assumption for Wall Street executives making tens of millions in salary and bonuses each year. Why would they fly private jets rather than take Southwest…because they can. The fact that a handful of people that are this wealthy will buy units at 8 Washington must be factored into any environmental analysis of a project that will explicitly market to this high-end demographic. That analysis must include, among others, the following:

Table 4: The Jet Fuel Burn Rate for Luxury Condominiums
___________________________________________________________________________
Mid to large size business jets used to fly cross country (e.g. Hawker 800XP, Gulfstream G2/G3, Bombardier Global Express) average 400 gallons of jet fuel per hour and take six hours to fly New York to SF and five hours to fly back for an 11 hour round trip :

     · 11 hours X 400 gallons per hour = 4,400 gallons of jet fuel per trip
          a typical family car burns 1,200 gallons of gas per year so one flight from
          NYC to SF equals almost four years of driving a typical family car.
               ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

        · 1.5 trips/mo. = 6,600 gallons/mo. X 12 mo. = 79,200 gallons of jet fuel/year

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Using our example of 5 residents, the numbers over one year and 20 years are:

· 5 X 79,200 gallons/per year = 396,000 GALLONS OF JET FUEL A YEAR or
equivalent to driving a family car 330 years, A THIRD OF A MILENNIUM, per year.

· 396,000 gallons/year X 20 years = 7,920,000 GALLONS of jet fuel in 20 years
equivalent to driving family car 6,600 years, OVER 6 MILLENIUM, in 20 years.

Given these condos cost $2+ million to build and will sell for $2.5 to $8 million or more, it seems quite reasonable to assume a mere 3% of these buyers—just five (5) buyers out of 165 —will be part-time residents wealthy enough to commute to San Francisco by business jet. If this is a reasonable assumption , then the DEIR must include the mathematical calculations above to show the true energy costs of this project. In fact, it would also be reasonable to assume a few other buyers will use private business jets to commute from LA, San Diego, Denver, etc. The only way to prevent this, forbidding buyers to own or use corporate jets, is of course impossible.
This is just one example of how housing prices—and who lives in that housing—greatly changes environmental impacts and why this analysis must be included in the DEIR for 8 Washington. As condo prices reach $2.5-10 million, it’s reasonable to assume a number of buyers will use them as a second, third or fourth homes and that some of those buyers will travel here by jet, not car or public transit. On the other hand, if units at 8 Washington were affordable or market rate rental or affordable-by-design condos (80%-150% AMI), it’s very unlikely any of its residents would own or use business jets. Price does matter with regard to energy consumption and transit use.

Given these facts, the 8 Washington DEIR must analyze such questions as:

How many solar panels do you need to make up for 396,000 gallons of jet fuel per year?

How many low flow toilets make up for 396,000 gallons of jet fuel per year?

How many double pane windows make up for 396,000 gallons of jet fuel per year?

How many on-demand hot water heaters make up for 396,000 gallons of jet fuel per year?

Looking at the longer term impacts of this excessive consumption of energy resources:

How many solar panels compensate for 7,920,000 gallons of jet fuel over 20 years?

How many low flow toilets make up for 7,920,000 gallons of jet fuel over 20 years?

How many double pane windows make up for 7,920,000 gallons of jet fuel over 20 years?

How many on demand water heaters make up for 7,920,000 gallons of jet fuel over 20 years?

Having this information in the DEIR is necessary for the Planning Commissioners or Board of Supervisors to make informed decisions about 8 Washington, especially when the project sponsor keeps touting it as state-of-the-art, sustainable, LEED certified (at Gold or Platinum level), etc. When added to the project sponsor’s insistence on building a 420-car underground (below sea level) garage, one has to question how one can call this a model of sustainable development or let the DEIR include sustainability as a project objective.

Unless the DEIR seriously and objectively addresses questions of how the price of housing and who lives in that housing impacts environmental sustainability, we risk creating a backlash against things like LEED certification and terms like “sustainability”. They could easily become just another example of slick marketing and “greenwashing”. Everyone agrees that building 10,000 s.f. McMansions in the Sierra Foothills on 2-acre lots—even if they’re LEED certified at the highest level—is NOT sustainable development. Why is it any less absurd to use “green” and “sustainable” to describe $2.5-$10 million condos built as second and third homes for extremely wealthy part-time residents, some of whom commute from their primary residence by private jet?

The DEIR must provide public officials with the data and information they need to analyze all the significant impacts that units this expensive have on the environment. With this information, decision makers might choose to require a much smaller garage or no garage at all (insisting on more efficient use of nearby existing garages). They might also choose to support a much smaller project or no project at all, based on the lack of demonstrable need for this housing type and all the other negative impacts described above. But they cannot make any of these decisions in a rational and objective manner without all the facts, many of which are missing from this DEIR.

E. The DEIR confuses project “objectives” with city mandated requirements with regard to Inclusionary Housing, then fails to discuss any of the relevant issues around this city policy.

The project objective (Pg II.14) that talks about the project’s ability “to help meet
projected City housing needs” reads in full:

“To develop a high-quality, sustainable and economically feasible
   high-density, primarily residential, project within the existing
   density designation for the site, in order to help meet projected
   City housing needs and satisfy the City’s inclusionary affordable
         housing requirement;”

Satisfying the city’s inclusionary affordable housing requirement, for this or any market rate housing development, IS NOT an Objective, and stating it as such is misleading. It is, in fact, legally mandated by city ordinance. The developer doesn’t have a choice in the matter and it should be stricken from this Objective. However, this reference to inclusionary housing leads one to ask several questions that are never addressed in the DEIR but should be. An Inclusionary Housing section must be added that answers questions such as:

What are the specific requirements for including permanent below market rate (BMR) units in all market rate projects and how many would be required on-site for this one?

Did the developer ever consider building on-site BMR units and if not, why not?

If the developer did consider and reject on-site BMR units, why?

If the developer has decided to pay the in-lieu affordable housing fee, what would it be and how and where (e.g. within a 1-mile radius of the project) would it be spent?

Given that the in-lieu fee charged developers to buy out of providing BMR units on-site is based on construction costs and sales prices for “average” condos, how will the extraordinarily high construction costs and sales prices for these condos impact the in-lieu fee? If it doesn’t impact the fee, would an appropriate mitigation measure be amending the Inclusionary Housing policy so that it does?

Mentioning the inclusionary requirement as part of an objective stating that the project seeks to “help meet projected City housing needs” is misleading and inaccurate. It tries to infer that the funding for 30 affordable units provided by the developer’s inclusionary requirement is helping to meet this objective when, in fact, relying on inclusionary payments to advance the city’s affordable housing goals will only drive the city further out of compliance with its state mandated RHNA goals. The following example clearly demonstrates the validity of this claim:

TNDC’s proposed affordable family apartment project at Eddy and Taylor Streets is typical of the projects now stalled in the city’s affordable housing pipeline due to the lack of affordable housing funding from traditional sources. But the Eddy and Taylor project is a 150 unit development, not 30 units. For it to go forward, you would need the inclusionary housing funds from FIVE market rate projects like 8 Washington. What would that do to San Francisco’s RHNA goals:

         If: 165 market rate units are needed to fund 30 affordable units,
Then:   825 market units (5X) are needed to fund 150 affordable units (975 total units).

         If: out of a every 975 new housing units, 825 are market rate & 150 are affordable,
   Then: for each new 975 units built in SF: 85% are market rate, 15% affordable.

But the 2009 Housing Element of San Francisco’s General Plan (based on the state RHNA goals) calls for 39% OF NEW HOUSING TO BE MARKET RATE (NOT 85%). Relying on Inclusionary Housing off-site payments to fund affordable housing clearly runs counter to the housing production goals set forth in the 2009 Housing Element in the General Plan as well as the RHNA goals for San Francisco established by the state of California. Furthermore, as SB375 Sustainable Development funding criteria begins influencing state funding decisions, by driving our RHNA numbers toward 85% market rate, projects like 8 Washington could jeopardize San Francisco’s ability to apply for and receive state and federal infrastructure and transit funding.

The only way to bring San Francisco’s housing production numbers back into line with the goals in the Housing Element (and RHNA numbers) is to create a new local permanent and dedicated source of funding for affordable housing. These relevant facts regarding the impacts of inclusionary housing must be included in the DEIR.

III. THE DEIR IGNORES THE GENTRIFICATION/DISPLACEMENT IMPACTS OF THIS PROJECT THAT WILL RESULT IN THE LOSS OF HUNDREDS OF RENT CONTROLLED UNITS IN THE GOLDEN GATEWAY BY ENCOURAGING THE FURTHER HOTELIZATION OF ITS 1,200 RENTAL APARTMENTS

The other ‘partner’ in this project is Timothy Foo, who bought Golden Gateway from Perini Corp. about 20 years ago. Only 20% of the 8 Washington site is on Port land, while 80% of the site is on land owned by Mr. Foo and currently occupied by Golden Gateway’s community recreation center. However, Mr. Foo’s only mention in the DEIR is in a footnote to the first sentence of the Introduction which states: “On January 3, 2007, an environmental evaluation application (EE application) was filed by San Francisco Waterfront Partners II (the “project sponsor”) on behalf of the Golden Gateway Center*”. That footnote says “*Golden Gateway Center, Authorization Letter from Timothy Foo, December 27, 2006”).

In addition to violating the original Golden Gateway development agreement that required Perini (and future owners) to preserve the recreation center in exchange for deep discounts in land prices charged by Redevelopment, for some time now Mr. Foo has also been converting rent controlled apartments in the Golden Gateway to short term rental use (e.g. on one floor of a high-rise tower, a third of the units are rented this way). These conversions have been documented by the Golden Gateway Tenants Association, the Affordable Housing Alliance and the San Francisco Tenants Union. While such conversions are not unique to the Golden Gateway Center (see attached Bay Citizen article), they are illegal and violate city zoning, rent control and apartment conversion ordinances.

The DEIR must address this issue by posing the following questions to Mr. Foo and incorporating his answers into the DEIR. He must provide this information because as the owner of 80% of the underlying land that comprises the 8 Washington site, he has had and continues to have a direct financial stake in this project. He must be asked the following questions:

How many of Golden Gateway’s 1,200 rental apartments are currently being used as hotel rooms and/or short-term rentals and/or rented to persons other than those using them as primary residences or directly related to the person residing there (e.g. corporations, business organizations, apartment brokers).

Has Mr. Foo consulted with either the Rent Board or the Planning Department as to the legality of his use of apartments in Golden Gateway as hotel rooms or short-term rentals under applicable city zoning codes, the San Francisco Rent Control ordinance or the city’s Apartment Conversion Ordinance?

Upon receiving and analyzing this information from Mr. Foo, the DEIR must then answer the following questions:

Is the ‘hotelization’ of Golden Gateway and other large apartment complexes likely to increase with the approval of 8 Washington, a development that:

a) builds 165 high-end luxury condos ($2.5 – $10 million each)
on Mr. Foo’s property—creating a much more upscale
environment adjacent to his Golden Gateway apartments;

b) provides Mr. Foo with $10-15 million (what he’s likely to
be paid for his 80% of the site) that can be used to upgrade
his rent controlled apartments at Golden Gateway in order to attract even more higher paying hotel users; and

c) if no mention of these conversions is made in the DEIR, after these written comments have been submitted, will send a clear
message to Mr. Foo and others that the City has no intention of
enforcing its own zoning, rent control and apartment conversion
ordinances, thereby encouraging even more conversions.

If conversions like those at Golden Gateway are not stopped soon, the city is at risk of losing thousands of residential apartments in its downtown neighborhoods.

What kind of mitigations would prevent the further hotelization of the Golden Gateway’s 1,200 rent controlled apartments?

With larger apartment complexes such as Golden Gateway, Parkmerced and Fox Plaza, owners get around the current prohibition on renting residential apartments for less than 30 days as hotel rooms (an action that is legally prohibited by the San Francisco Apartment Conversion Ordinance) by leasing them for more than 30 days to third parties (e.g. corporations, apartment brokers). These intermediaries then rent the apartments for anywhere from a day or two to a few weeks to a month or two.

A simple amendment to the Apartment Conversion Ordinance that changes “you cannot rent an apartment for less than 30 days” to “you cannot rent or occupy an apartment for less than 30 days” would prevent Golden Gateway and others from renting apartments for anywhere from a few days to up to four weeks. Preventing 30-60 day rentals would be a more complicated matter.

The DEIR must address how constructing 8 Washington could encourage, help fund and accelerate Mr. Foo’s conversion of the 1,200 units at Golden Gateway from rent controlled apartments to hotel use as well as the impacts this would have on the city’s housing goals as set forth in the San Francisco’s 2009 Housing Element and its RHNA goals. For instance, if we’re converting housing to non-housing (hotel) uses as fast or faster than we are creating new housing units, we will never dig ourselves out of our current housing crisis and that outcome would have catastrophic impacts on the environmental and economic sustainability of San Francisco as a city.

The DEIR must also describe, in detail, the kind of mitigations (see above) that, if enacted, could mitigate the potential impact of losing more that 165 rent controlled apartments at the Golden Gateway, erasing the gain, on paper, of 165 luxury condos.

IV. FREQUENT USE OF THE WORD “PRIVATE” AS A MODIFIER OF THE GOLDEN GATEWAY RECREATION FACILITIES THROUGHOUT THE DEIR IS BOTH MISLEADING AND INNACCURATE IN LIGHT OF THE RECENT PRIVITIZATION AND FEE STRUCTURES IMPOSED ON THE CITY’S “PUBLIC’ RECREATION FACILITIES AND SWIMMING POOLS.

The current fee structure for public recreation facilities in San Francisco results in situations where the cost of attending ‘public’ pools can often exceed fees charged by the “private” Golden Gate Tennis & Swim Center (GGTSC).

The use of the term “private” in this context throughout the DEIR appears to be an attempt to justify the loss of GGTSC facilities for the 3-4 years that it would be shut down if the “preferred project” were approved (see section I.A for actual construction schedule) as well as the permanent loss of five of nine tennis courts, the basketball court and the current, family-friendly ground level swimming pools, Jacuzzi and open space.

In the past, the city’s public recreation facilities, including its swimming pools, were “public” in every sense of the word—open long-hours, open 6-7 days a week and “free” to residents. In recent years, however, the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department has increased resident user fees, reduced hours and increased the privatization of its facilities in response to ongoing budget deficits. Today, both the ‘private’ Golden Gateway facility and ‘public’ pools are open to anyone, anyone who is willing to pay the fees that they charge. Neither is free.

A. The DEIR fails to discuss the privatization of the City’s recreation centers: According to a 7/9/11 SF Chronicle article, the city is now leasing 23 of its 47 recreation centers to outside interests (e.g. nursery schools, private classes) with the city staffing only a dozen (12) of the 47 former “public” recreation centers. Seven (7) of the remaining recreation centers are under renovation and five (5) are vacant, unavailable for any kind of use “because no one has leased them and there is no money for city workers to run them”. Out of a total of 47 city recreation centers, only 12 are staffed by city workers who run programs for residents, many of them for a fee, during reduced days and hours.

The City also runs nine “public” swimming pools in neighborhoods such as North Beach, the Mission, Bayview, Visitacion Valley, etc. These pools used to be open five or six days a week and were free for residents. Today, residents pay $5 for each swim and $7 for adult swim lessons/water exercise. Children under 17 pay $1 per swim and $2 for swim lessons/water exercise ($3 for a swim & a class together).

Active Recreation Facilities: Public vs. Private… is there a difference anymore?

Each time a family of two adults goes to a city pool it costs $10 per visit to swim and up to $14 per visit if they participate in swim lessons or water exercise. If that family went three times a week, it would cost them $120-$168 per month depending upon how many times they took a swim vs. participated in swim lessons/water exercise. That comes to at least $1,440 dollars per year. Additional swim lessons/water exercise classes drive costs of using a “public” pool even higher.

Now imagine a family of two adults living at the Golden Gateway who currently swim every day at the Golden Gate Tennis and Swim Center. At the city’s North Beach (public) pool, it would cost them $200 a month ($10/swim X 20 days) to swim Tuesday through Saturday (the pool is closed Sunday/Monday) and their schedules would have to match specific windows each day when the pool is available for adult lap swimming. Compare that to the two pools at the Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Center—one just for swimming laps; one for kids, families and seniors that are open seven days a week for longer hours.

B. Comparative Costs. Because our hypothetical couple live at the Golden Gateway Apartments they automatically receive a discounted membership of about $170 per month ($85 each) to use the two pools, full gym across the street and have the ability to reserve tennis courts at $20 per use. Since the Golden Gateway was built (1960’s), residents have always received discounted membership at this facility, one of two community benefits Redevelopment required, along with Sidney Walton Square, in exchange for entitlements to build both the Golden Gateway (1,150 rental units) and the adjacent Gateway Commons (condominiums). Redevelopment felt both amenities were needed to meet the open space and active recreation needs of what was to become one of the densest residential communities in San Francisco and discounted the land for the GGTSC and Gateway Commons in exchange for the owner maintaining an active recreation facility at the GGTSC in perpetuity.

Even for those who don’t get the Golden Gateway resident discount, memberships to the Tennis and Swim Center that don’t include automatic access to the tennis courts cost about $220 a month to swim 30 days a month, the same price two adults would pay to swim only 20 days a month at the North Beach pool, a facility with no gym and only one pool and therefore greater restrictions on when they could swim laps. It should also be noted that over 300 “guests” are admitted free to the Golden Gateway recreation facility each month, a total of 3,000 to 4,000 guests each year. We are not familiar with a similar policy for free guests at the North Beach pool (or any other city pools).

Clearly, the recent privatization and escalating fee structures at the city’s “public” recreation centers/swimming pools have erased any real distinctions between public facilities and private facilities as viewed by local families and residents. But one of 8 Washington’s main justifications for closing the Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Center for 3-4 years during construction—and downsizing the replacement facility—
is that it is a “private” club maintained for the selfish interests of the few.

Putting aside the fact that 8 Washington’s condos will cost $2 million each to build and will sell for $2.5 to $5 million each and up (for upper floors), making them unaffordable to 97% of all San Franciscans (talk about catering to “the few”), the issue of who uses the current recreation facilities on this site is an important one that the DEIR must address. The similarities outlined above between today’s Golden Gateway recreation facilities and the City’s current “public” recreation centers/swimming pools contradicts the impression created by the DEIR in its current form with so many derogatory references to GGTSC as a ‘private’ club.

It is imperative that public officials have the information outlined above regarding the current costs of “public” recreation in front of them so they can decide for themselves what distinctions, if any, exist in today’s world between this ‘private’ club and so called “public” alternatives. This information is precisely what an EIR is suppose to provide to officials charged with making these kinds of decisions.

For these reasons, we must insist that you provide—in the Comments and Responses document—a clear, complete explanation of this issue, with a chart (see attached for potential template) that compares the facilities, hours, programs and costs to San Francisco residents of the city’s nine (9) “public” swimming pools with the current Golden Gateway recreation facility fee structure. Without such an analysis critical information will be lacking, information that Planning Commissioners, Park and Recreation Commissioners, Port Commissioners and the Board of Supervisors will clearly need as they assess the validity of the developer’s claims about who is served by the current facilities (and what environmental impacts they have) versus those who’ll be served by the proposed project (and its environmental impacts).

Without this information, it will be difficult for these public bodies to make informed decisions as to whether to grant or not grant the conditional use authorizations, upzonings and dozens of separate approvals and permits needed for this complicated and controversial project to proceed.

V. THE DEIR FAILS TO ADDRESS OR ANALYZE ANY OF THE MAJOR ECONOMIC ISSUES RELATED TO THIS PROJECT, ISSUES THAT HAVE SIGNIFICANT ENVIRONMENTAL AND FINANCIAL IMPACTS ON THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND THE CITY.

Several of the project sponsor’s and the Port’s objectives for this project speak to the “economic” benefits of the project for the developers, the Port and the City. The DEIR and other Port documents talk about the need to develop SWL 351 in order to generate revenue for badly needed Port infrastructure work. But the Port’s financial term sheet for this project is unrealistic, misleading and relies on depriving the city of $32 million in general fund dollars as part of a proposed Infrastructure Financing District.

This section addresses the DEIR’s lack of analysis or scrutiny regarding the ‘alleged’ financial benefits of the project as described in the Port’s Term Sheet for Seawall Lot 351 with San Francisco Waterfront Partners (“Term Sheet”) and how that Term Sheet, if executed, would have very real environmental impacts with regard to transit, open space, recreation, housing and population. An examination of the Term Sheet demonstrates that the stream of income on which the term sheet’s finances rely cannot be achieved. An objective analysis of “payments” described in this Term Sheet leads one to a much more pessimistic set of income projections than those presented in the September 23, 2010 Director’s Recommendation to the Port Commission. That report describes three payment sources as follows:

(1) a land lease with annual payments of $120,000 per year;
(2) future payments triggered by resale of condos created by the Project;
(3) a to-be-established Infrastructure Financing District (IFD) that allows
a portion of growth in property taxes to be reinvested in public facilities;

That third source of funding is particularly troubling since it requires a sizeable appropriation of City General Fund revenues ($32 million) by the Port for its own purposes. We will now examine each of these proposed “payment” schemes to determine how realistic they are as well as the potential environmental and economic consequences they create for San Francisco’s residents and taxpayers:
1. Lease Payments. It is easy to refute the likelihood of the $120,000/year lease payment for parcels to be used as open space with related facilities. The second paragraph of Director’s Recommendation (page 5) states: “If engineering and cost analyses deem additional funding is needed to finance agreed upon public improve- ments, the Port agrees to designate some or all of the $120,000 per year park rent to augment financing of these public improvements.” If the developer produces “engineering and cost analyses” showing “additional funding is needed to finance agreed upon public improvements,” the Port will “designate some or all of the $120,000/year in park rent to finance public improvements,” improvements that the developer is responsible for. Suddenly this $120,000 of alleged “rent” could become no rent. Is that likely to happen? You be the judge:

A Little Recent History

The developer of 8 Washington is San Francisco Waterfront Partners, a partnership between Pacific Waterfront Partners and CALSTRS, the same partnership that developed Piers 1½, 3 and 5 across the street. According to the Port’s rent rolls, San Francisco Waterfront Partners makes rent payments for Piers 1½, 3 and 5 of $41,666.67 per month or $500,000 annually. But 90% of this is wiped out by a rent credit of a $450,000 annual rent credit ($37,500.00 per month). This means that the actual rent for Piers 1½, 3 and 5 paid by San Francisco Waterfront Partners isn’t $500,000/year, but $50,000/year or 1/10 of the original rent. Knowing this, it seems highly likely that the Port will grant a similar rent credit to 8 Washington, a credit that it has already offered in the Term Sheet approved last year.

The DEIR needs to discuss this and ask the following questions to help establish for public officials whether or not 8 Washington has the possibility of generating resources to fix up the Port’s historic infrastructure.

Was the $450,000 rent rebate given Piers 1½, 3 and 5 given for “public improvements” in the same way the 8 Washington Term Sheet proposes to give 8 Washington an up-to-$120,000/year (100%) rebate for “public improvements?

How much of this $120,000/year lease payment to the Port is guaranteed?

Based on recent history with this developer (see above box), it would appear that claiming a $120,000 per year lease payment is, at best, a gross overestimate.

2. Future payments triggered by resale of condos (aka increased transfer tax). The second source of payments (around $25 MILLION over life of the lease) involves the developer recording covenants “committing all owners to transfer payments to the Port of ½ percent of sale value for all sales of the residential condominiums and all re-sales of commercial condominiums” (from Director’s Report, Page 4), in other words, a ‘voluntary’ increase in the transfer tax.

This idea of obligating future owners to a special transfer “fee” was already tried, unsuccessfully, several years ago by then Mayor Gavin Newsom’s office as a way to provide ‘stimulus’ for large condo developers with approved projects who were trying to get financing. In exchange for agreeing to binding future condo owners to ‘voluntarily’ pay a 1% increase in the real estate transfer tax (but not calling it a “tax”), the Mayor’s Office proposed relieving the developers of 1/3 of their affordable housing requirement. That idea failed to get off the ground for both legal and political reasons. Regarding this proposal:

How does the Port plan to argue this increase in the real estate transfer TAX is not really a tax and do so in a way that convinces the Pacific Legal Foundation, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and SF Board of Realtors not to sue?
Mayor Newsom’s failed proposal did trigger an multi-stakeholder discussion of a broader, legally defensible strategy, going to the voters for a permanent, across the board increase in the transfer tax on ALL real estate transactions (above the median home price) generating tens of millions of dollars a year for affordable housing. A portion of this new money would fund traditional affordable housing built by non- profit housing development corporations, but a portion would also be available to for-profit housing developers to buy down their affordable housing obligations. All sides agreed to this compromise and to place it on the November 2010 ballot, because it HAD to go to the voters, just as the ½% transfer tax increase proposed in this Term Sheet would need voter approval.

NOTE: The reason that this proposal was not on the ballot that November, as reported in the New York Times, was because Mayor Newsom refused to support it or ANY tax increase, no matter how much support it had, for fear of giving his Republican opponent in the Lt. Governor’s race an issue to use against him in the 2010 election.

If the best legal and political minds in the city couldn’t figure out a way to “voluntarily” increase the real estate transfer tax without going to the voters then, how does the Port propose to do the same thing for 8 Washington now?

3. New IFD Funding Mechanism. The third weak link in this financing plan is the as yet “to-be-established Infrastructure Financing District (IFD) that will allow a portion of growth in property taxes to be reinvested in public facilities.” Port Director’s Recommendation, page 2. While the concept is an interesting one, it is in its infancy in San Francisco. The Board of Supervisors is in the process of setting up a pilot IFD with seven or eight property owners on Rincon Hill to test this model.

To date, citywide discussions about the use of tax increment financing tools, such as the IFD, have linked their use to funding a larger set of neighborhood infrastructure needs and public benefits previously identified through adopted Area Plans such as Eastern Neighborhoods, Market Octavia and Rincon Hill and not for the specific needs of individual projects or developers (e.g. 8 Washington).

Looking ahead, it isn’t hard to imagine the kind of criteria the Board of Supervisors might adopt to determine what developments could avail themselves of IFDs. Those with significant legal, political and financial challenges, such as 8 Washington, would not score well. Nor would projects that dramatically reduce and eliminate active recreation facilities serving middle-income families and seniors for over 45 years. Finally, projects that undo decades old community benefits agreements, provided as part of a Redevelopment plan (e.g. Golden Gateway’s permanent active recreation center), probably wouldn’t pass muster .

Assuming the city eventually creates IFDs in certain circumstances, how does the Port make the case for THIS project, given the growing political and legal opposition to it, the long standing community resource that it destroys and the fact that the Board of Supervisors won’t give up $32 million for it (see below).

4. Diversion of property taxes from the General Fund to the Port. The majority of the 8 Washington/SWL 351 site is NOT Port property, but under the jurisdiction of the City and County of San Francisco. Exhibit A of the Term Sheet shows the boundary of the 0.64 acre under Port control (SWL 351) and the 2.51 acres portion currently privately owned by Golden Gateway on AB168, 171, 291 (80% of the site). SWL 351 (the Port land) is only 20% of the total development site.

While these blocks were under the jurisdiction of the Redevelopment Agency, the property tax increment was diverted from the City’s General Fund to that Agency. Following termination of the Redevelopment project area several years ago, however, ALL property tax revenue from this land flows to the General Fund. The Port now proposes to divert the property tax increment from the portion of this site NOT UNDER PORT JURISDICTION away from the General Fund and to the Port.

The Port Director’s Term Sheet Recommendation on page 6 proposes “a new Port IFD” covering both SWL 351 and the Golden Gate Tennis and Swim Club (WHICH IS NOW ENTIRELY UNDER THE CITY’S JURISDICTION AND TAXING AUTHORITY). Under the “new Port IFD” all the property tax increment from development on non-Port property would be diverted FROM the General Fund TO the Port. Toward the end of the Term Sheet recommendation the Port Director does state that the Board of Supervisors would have to agree to this arrangement, which prompts several questions that should have been asked and answered in the DEIR:

Who from the city, not the Port, agreed to including these IFD financial terms in the Term Sheet?

Which members of the Board of Supervisors were consulted regarding this planned appropriation of property tax revenue from the city’s general fund?

What would lead the Port to think ANY current or future Board of Supervisors would ‘voluntarily’ turn over $32 million in General Fund dollars to the Port, providing a $32 MILLION CITY SUBSIDY FOR LUXURY CONDOS when the Board is struggling with massive budget deficits, layoffs and cuts to vital city programs?

The DEIR must address whether or not this project is financially viable because if it is not, then the public facilities and infrastructure the project has promised to provide cannot be built. The DEIR must also assess the likelihood of the Board of Supervisors turning over $32 million in General Fund monies as a subsidy to the Port for this and other Port projects and analyze what environmental impacts this loss of $32 million to the city would create over time: what parks wouldn’t be maintained, which parks and recreation centers closed, what transit lines discontinued or run less frequently, etc.; actions that would not have been necessary had the city kept that $32 million. Specifically, the DEIR must answer the following questions:

Can 8 Washington’s public facilities (e. g. Jackson Commons, other open space) ever be built with IFD funding, given that:

a) the IFD is predicated on the Port capturing 100% of the tax increment generated by 8 Washington even though the Port only owns 20% of the site, and

b) according to recent testimony before the Planning Commission by Michael Yarne (OEWD), under state law IFD’s are prohibited on land that “is currently, or was previously part of a redevelopment area”?

Under what circumstances does the Port anticipate that the current (or a future)
Board of Supervisors would voluntarily give up its 80% of this tax increment
($32 million out of $40 projected by the Port) to fund public improvements for
LUXURY CONDOS at 8 Washington or other Port projects?

Has the Port had any discussions with the Board of Supervisors regarding this?

If so, what was the Board’s reaction?

Has the Port or project sponsor had state legislation passed (or introduced) that
provides the necessary waivers from the current state prohibition against
setting up IFD’s in former redevelopment areas?

Again, this is information that public officials must have to make informed, objective
decisions about the impacts of this project.

VI. THE DEIR FAILS TO DISCLOSE THAT 8 WASHINGTON IS THE FOURTH ATTEMPT TO CONVERT THE GOLDEN GATEWAY TENNIS & SWIM CLUB FROM CITY MANDATED ACTIVE RECREATION USE TO CONDOMINIUMS. IT PRESENTS VERY BRIEF AND MISLEADING INFORMATION REGARDING THE HISTORIC RECORD SUPPORTING THE REQUIREMENT TO PRESERVE THE CURRENT ACTIVE RECREATION FACILITIES ON SITE IN PERPETUITY.

The DEIR addresses this issue very briefly in a footnote on page II.3 that states:

2 The original development agreement governing the Golden Gateway Center Lots required the developer to provide non-profit community facilities as part of the overall development with the Golden Gateway Center. In Section 4 (a) of the Agreement for Disposition of Land for Private Development (“Agreement”) between Perini-San Francisco Associates (the “Developer’) and the Redevelopment Agency, dated August 27, 1962, the Developer agreed to maintain “community facilities of a permanent nature… designed primarily for use on a nonprofit basis” (page 25 of the Agreement). Subsequent to the Agreement, the Agency and Golden Gateway Center (the successor to the Developer) entered into a Second Supplement and Amendment to the Agreement (“Second Supplement”) on March 14, 1976. Section 1(d) of the Second Supplement deleted Section 4(a) of the agreement (page 12 of Second Supplement) and thereby removed the requirement to maintain community facilities on the property in exchange for the dedication of Sydney Walton Park for perpetual use as a public park.

This interpretation of those documents contradicts evidence previously by individuals with intimate, first hand knowledge of those Golden Gateway redevelopment agreements. Those comments are attached as:

Exhibit A: A May 9, 1984 letter from then Mayor Dianne Feinstein that begins:“As a supervisor and as mayor, I have a long history with the redevelopment plan and agree with those who maintain that this site has always been considered set aside for recreation and open space.”

Exhibit B: An August 8, 1990 letter from Robert Rumsey to then redevelopment director Ed Helfeld that states:

“I happened to be Deputy Director of Redevelopment in the late 1950’s and early
    1960’s when the Golden Gateway redevelopment plan was adopted by the city and
    when Perini Corp. was subsequently selected as the developer of the Golden Gateway
    over eight other competitors… I feel it is important to place on the record the view of
    the staff and commissioners of the agency at the time of selection: The provision of that
    open space and recreational space was a significant factor in the selection of the
    Perini proposal. And clearly, the space was presumed to be kept that way in
    perpetuity” (underlining Mr. Rumsey’s).

Exhibit C: A January 24, 2003 letter from Senator Dianne Feinstein reiterating that:

   “I have a long history with the redevelopment area at Washington and Drumm Streets
    and concur with those who believe this space was intended for recreation and open
    space. Please oppose further development of the Golden Gateway Tennis & Swim Club.”

These letters came in reaction to THREE previous unsuccessful attempts to develop the Golden Gateway Recreation Center as condominiums. Those attempts included:

1. Perini Corp. (early 80’s). The original developer of the Golden Gateway project proposed replacing the Golden Gate Tennis & Swim Club (GGT&SC) with a 9-story condominium project, in violation of its original approvals for the larger project that called for the GGTSC to serve as one of two major community benefits (along with Sidney Walton Sq.) in perpetuity. NOTE: This took place after the Second Supplement and Amendment to the Agreement referenced in Footnote 2 (above) was executed. Clearly, then Mayor Feinstein, had a very different interpretation of the Second Supplement than that of the author of Footnote 2 when she says in her letter that “I agree with those who maintain that this site has always been considered set aside for recreation and open space.”

2. Perini Corp. (early 90’s). Again the owners of the Golden Gateway proposed replacing the project’s active recreation center with a condo project. This time, a letter from former Redevelopment Director Robert Rumsey date 8/8/90 provides extensive evidence that the interpretation of events contained in Footnote 2 is neither complete nor accurate. His detailed first hand description of that transaction which took place in the 1970’s is quite instructive. In addition to his comment that:

     “I feel it is important to place on the record the view of the staff and commissioners
      of the agency at the time of selection: The provision of that open space and
      recreational space was a significant factor in the selection of the Perini proposal.
      And clearly, the space was presumed to be kept that way in perpetuity”

his letter states that “if it is now proposed that there is a loophole permitting that space to be invaded by condominiums, I would consider that to be most unfortunate for the city” and describes the land use negotiations that allowed Perini to substitute 155 low-rise condos for the four remaining high-rise rental towers that were suppose to be built as Phase III of the redevelopment plan. According to Rumsey, the agency finally, “albeit reluctantly” agreed to let Perini make this change “because some seven years had elapsed since completion of Phase II and there was otherwise no prospect for building on those long-barren blocks”.

Rumsey then states that the Agency’s October 28, 1975 minutes show the debate over what the Agency should charge Perini for the land that made up Phase III (now Gateway Commons condominiums) focused on “whether it should be $8.45 a square foot, the price established 15 years earlier, or a more realistic 1975 price of $15-$20 a square foot”. He then states:

      “My new successor, Arthur F. Evans, said he might agree with the higher number if
      the land was offered without restrictions, such as requirements of open space. And
      he added: Amenities such as Sidney Walton Square and the Golden Gateway tennis
      courts were on land that was not income producing, and since no one could build
      highrise buildings on this area, its value could be considered zero.”

As a result of this discussion, according to Rumsey, “Evans and the commission agreed to hold the land sales price to the original $8.45 a square foot, as the agency continued to view the open and recreation space to be in perpetuity.”

Based on Rumsey’s letter and substantial community opposition, this second attempt to replace the GGT&SC was defeated.

3. John Hamilton, developer (2003-04). In the mid-90’s Perini sold Golden Gateway to Timothy Foo and a group of investors. In 2003, developer John Hamilton proposed another condo tower on the site. Senator Feinstein’s January 24, 2003 letter was responding to that proposal. After reiterating her conclusion that “this space was intended for recreation and open space”, she goes on to say, “increasing the height of the Club would drastically change the picturesque panorama of the Bay and would create shadow effects on the newly constructed Embarcadero. Further, development of more residential units would increase traffic noise and pollution, and disregard the original understanding between City officials and area residents that open space and recreational amenities should be preserved.”

4. Current 8 Washington Street/SWL 351 proposal is the 4th Attempt (2006-present) to develop condos on this site and demolish the Golden Gateway’s active recreation center, a facility that’s successfully fulfilled its intended purpose for almost 50 years.

In his written comments on 8 Washington’s DEIR dated August 11, 2010, Mr. Edward Helfeld, Director of the Redevelopment during the second attempt to demolish the Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Club speaks to the original purpose of the facility, how it has successfully served San Francisco’s recreation needs for over four decades and how relatively inexpensive it is compared to other tennis facilities in the city. He also writes that “As Executive Director (1987-1994) I was in total support of retaining Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Club”.

Any public official or member of the general public reading the current DEIR would have no knowledge of these three previous attempts to build on this site, their outcome and the role former city officials have played in confirming that the Golden Gateway active recreation center was meant to be preserved as an active recreation center in perpetuity. The Comments and Responses to the 8 Washington Street/SWL 351 DEIR must include this historic information in order to be considered accurate, complete and objective.

VII. ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ON THE 8 WASHINGTON DEIR

A. The DEIR’s Introduction presents confusing and conflicting information regarding how, when and by whom environmental review for this project was initiated. The first two paragraphs of the DEIR’s Introduction (pg. Intro.1) raise some troubling questions about how environmental review for 8 Washington was carried out that need to be addressed more completely and forthrightly. The timeline for environmental review is described as follows (quoting from the DEIR):

1. “On January 3, 2007, an environmental evaluation application (EE application) was filed by San Francisco Waterfront Partners II (the “project sponsor”) on behalf of the Golden Gateway Center for a project at 8 Washington Street and the adjacent Seawall Lot 351, which is owned by the Port….(the Port is not a co-sponsor of the proposed project, but has authorized San Francisco Waterfront Partners II to submit an EE application that includes Seawall Lot 351).”

2. “On August 15, 2008, the Port issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the development of Seawall Lot 351. Two parties submitted timely proposals: SF Waterfront Partners II and a development group led by Dhaval Panchal (which later withdrew its proposal).”

3. “On November 10, 2008, the Port reissued the RFP for this project.”

4. “On February 24, 2009, the Port Commission authorized Port staff to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with SF Waterfront Partners II, finding that the proposal submitted by SF Waterfront Partners II meets the requirements of the RFP and meets the Port’s objectives for Seawall Lot 351.”

It appears from this timeline that the ‘project sponsor’, SF Waterfront Partners, was selected to carry out the 8 Washington project on January 3, 2007 when they were “authorized” (by the Port) to submit an Environmental Evaluation (EE) application officially beginning environmental review. However, there’s no explanation in the DEIR as to why, 18 months later (August 2008), the Port decided to issue an official RFP to select a developer for Seawall Lot 351.

This makes no sense given that Seawall Lot 351 was included in the January 3rd EE application submitted by SF Waterfront Partners (if not as designated developer, then in what capacity?). Then three months later (November 2008), we’re told the Port reissued the RFP with no explanation as to why. Finally, on Feb. 24, 2009, twenty five months after SF Waterfront Partners filed the EE application and began the environmental review process, the Port Commission authorizes staff to enter into an exclusive negotiating agreement with SF Waterfront Partners (SFWP) to develop SWL 351. This raises troubling questions that need to be addressed in the DEIR to give public officials (and the general public) a clearer sense of the appropriateness, completeness and legality of the current environmental review process.

The DEIR must explain:

1. Is this how environmental review is normally sequenced? Is it routine for a developer that has not yet been selected by the Port to undertake a specific project, let alone negotiated an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement (ENA) with the Port for said project, to submit an EE application to Planning for this project that they haven’t yet been selected to develop and then for the Port, eighteen months later, to issue the first RFP to select a developer for the project and have a developer other than the one who submitted the EE respond to the RFP—then drop out (with no explanation why in the DEIR), then have the RFP reissued six months later and then finally,
25 months after the current developer of 8 Washington submitted the EE, the Port finally selects said developer (SFWP) as the official developer of 8 Washington and begins negotiating an ENA? Is this NORMAL procedure?

2. How could the Port authorize SFWP’s EE application without a written agreement designating SFWP as the approved developer of SWL351? Is this standard procedure in these matters?

3. If this EE process was, in fact, legal prior to August 2008, why did the Port reverse course on August 15, 2008 and issue an RFP for SWL 351 (a site already included in the EE application filed 18 months earlier)? Doesn’t the initial applicant in the EE process have to be either the property owner or his designated developer and be able to demonstrate site control? How would that have been possible back in January 3, 2007 for SWL 351?

4. What role did SFWP play in drafting the RFP (and Port’s objectives for SWL351)?

5. What reasons did the second respondent to RFP give for “withdrawing his proposal?”

6. Why was the RFP reissued on November 10, 2008?

7. When on January 3, 2007, the Planning Department accepted an environmental evaluation application (EE) “filed by San Francisco Waterfront Partners II (the “project sponsor”) on behalf of Golden Gateway Center for a project at 8 Washington Street and the adjacent Seawall Lot 351”, was Planning aware that San Francisco Waterfront Partners had not been and could not be legally designated as “project sponsor” for SWL 351 at that time?

8. Why didn’t the fact that SFWP had no legal basis to claim that it was the “project sponsor” for SWL 351 invalidate the EE application? The DEIR states that the Port “authorized San Francisco Waterfront Partners II to submit an EE application that includes Seawall Lot 351” but wouldn’t that imply SFWP would eventually be selected as the developer and discourage other developers from submitting responses to the Port’s August 15, 2008 RFP given that SFWP had been working with Planning staff on the environmental evaluation for 18 months already?

9. Is what happened in January 2007 legal? If not, when did the Planning Department become aware of this problem and what did it do about it?

10. Having now publicly described this chronology in the DEIR, what legal impact does this have today on the environmental and project review process?

11. Would any other developer be allowed to begin the environmental review process on a project for which they had neither been designated developer nor had site control?

These questions MUST be answered in the DEIR given the bizarre and confusing chronology that now appears in it regarding how environmental review was initiated for this project.

B. In other Port documents related to 8 Washington, San Francisco Waterfront Partners II is described as a partnership between Pacific Waterfront Partners (PWP) and California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). However, the involvement of CalSTRS in this project appears nowhere in the DEIR. Given that CalSTRS has already spent over $23 million dollars in predevelopment funds for 8 Washington, the DEIR must contain some mention of CalSTRS as a member of this partnership and the fact that the same partnership (PWP and CalSTRS) developed Piers 1½, 3 and 5 across The Embarcadero from this site.

Finally, the first sentence of the Introduction to the DEIR refers to the fact that “on January 3, 2007 an environmental evaluation application (EE) was filed by SF Waterfront Partners on behalf of the Golden Gateway Center for a project at 8 Washington”. That footnote references “Golden Gateway Center, Authorization Letter from Timothy Foo dated Dec. 27, 2006.”

For this DEIR to be complete and accurate it must address several key questions including:

1. Who is developing this project? Pacific Waterfront Partners? CalSTRS? Golden Gateway Center (Timothy Foo)? What are their relationships to each other and the proposed project?

2. What precisely is the relationship between these three entities and the Port?

3. What was the understanding between SFWP, Timothy Foo and the Port when SFWP submitted its EE application on behalf of Golden Gateway Center? All three are mentioned in the relevant discussion in the DEIR.

C. The DEIR is inadequate and incomplete due to its failure to include A Community Vision for San Francisco’s Northeast Waterfront. The DEIR is inadequate and biased in discussing the Planning Department’s Northeast Embarcadero Study (NES), while failing to include an equally detailed discussion of the background and recommendations of the study prepared by Asian Neighborhood Design entitled A Community Vision for San Francisco’s Northeast Waterfront, dated February 2011, which was presented to the Planning Commission on July 7, 2011.

The second sentence in the third paragraph of the Introduction states that the purpose of the Northeast Embarcadero Study (NES) was “to foster consensus on the future of Seawall Lot 351 and at other seawall lot properties on the northern waterfront” and leaves the reader with the impression that it succeeded in this goal by stating how many public workshops were held (five) and “on July 8, 2010, the San Francisco Planning Commission adopted a resolution that it ‘recognizes the design principles and recommendations of the Study’ and urges the Port of San Francisco to consider the recommendations of the NES when considering proposals for new development in this area”.

To be accurate and truthful, the DEIR should mention the level of anger and frustration expressed by the majority of the public that attended these five workshops who felt the Port, who was paying for the NES, was dictating its conclusions in order to facilitate the approval of the
8 Washington. For example, when 30-40 people at a workshop opposed the notion advanced by Planning staff that The Embarcadero needed a “hard edge” and that “higher heights” were appropriate for the 8 Washington site and only 6-8 people expressed support for these ideas, the notes from that meeting would later say that opinion was divided on these matters. To its credit, the Planning Department states clearly in the final draft of the NES that they failed in their goal of achieving consensus on the future of SWL 351.

The DEIR needs to include this information to provide a more accurate representation of the outcome of the NES process.

People were so upset by what they perceived as a transparent attempt to ‘justify’ 8 Washington, that they began their own community-based planning process to address the larger issues of reconnecting Chinatown, North Beach, Russian Hill and Telegraph Hill to the Waterfront; healing the wounds left by the ramps to the Embarcadero Freeway by making Broadway, Washington and Clay Streets more pedestrian, bicycle and transit friendly; and fostering consensus on the future of Seawall Lot 351 and at other seawall lot properties on the northern waterfront.

Four major community organizations representing thousands of local residents, small businesses and property owners became the primary sponsors/organizers of this “Community Vision for the Northeast Waterfront” and hired Asian Neighborhood Design to assist them in developing it. These organizations included: Friends of Golden Gateway; Golden Gateway Tenants Association; Telegraph Hill Dwellers and Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association. Stakeholders from Chinatown, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Fisherman’s Wharf and other neighborhoods also participated.

On July 7, 2010, when the Planning Department staff presented the NES to the Planning Commission, AND and the four sponsors of the “Community Vision for the Northeast Waterfront” were invited to present a summary of their planning work to date.

The DEIR fails to make any mention of the alternative plan created by these four community groups with AND’s help. It needs to describe this study, how it differs from Planning’s NES and include it in the final EIR so public officials can evaluate the merits of both studies for themselves.

The DEIR must describe the reasons why this alternative community planning process was undertaken and include a detailed discussion how the proposed project would or would not conform to each of the recommendations contained in A Community Vision for San Francisco’s Northeast Waterfront?

I am attaching a copy of the AND Study: A Community Vision for San Francisco’s Northeast Waterfront to these comments and ask that it be included in the EIR so that readers and public officials can gauge for themselves if it was more successful in “fostering consensus on the future of Seawall Lot 351 and at other seawall lot properties on the northern waterfront” than the Planning Department’s Northeast Embarcadero Study (NES).

D. The DEIR tries, unsuccessfully, to minimize the loss of iconic views of Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill from in front of the Ferry Building with its argument about ‘episodic’ views and a new claim that “trees” already obscure the views of Coit Tower from in front of the Ferry Building, views enjoyed by millions of tourists, residents and office workers each year. As demonstrated in Figure IV.B-3: View B (page IV.B.7), the height and mass of the proposed project would completely obstruct views of Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill currently seen from the Embarcadero Promenade at the northern end of the Ferry Building. This significant adverse effect on the visual quality and scenic vistas enjoyed by the public puts the project in direct conflict with a number of city and Port planning policies. The DEIR’s conclusion that this would not create a substantial adverse effect on a scenic vista because “Coit Tower and Telegraph Hill would continue to be visible from numerous vantage pointes in the vicinity of the Project site and the City” is a biased and subjective judgment that is not based on fact. This ‘episodic’ argument could be used to claim that NO building ever blocks an important view because if you walk far enough past the offending structure, you might get the view back.
The comment about trees blocking the view of Coit Tower from in front of the Ferry Building must be stricken from the document. I just came from standing at the main entrance of the Ferry Building and I could clearly see Coit Tower and most of Telegraph Hill. While several trees in front of the F-line stop across the street did impede the view around the edges, these trees could easily be pruned to eliminate the problem.

E. The DEIR’s Traffic and Transit Data is Seriously Out of Date.

The traffic data relied upon by the DEIR in reaching its conclusions is incredibly stale, having been based on surveys done in 2006-2007 and with 2000 census data (page IV.D.5 of the DEIR). These studies must be updated. For example, the assumptions made in the DEIR that the existing conditions at the Embarcadero/Broadway and Embarcadero/Washington intersections are “satisfactory” (at LOS D) defy logic. Anyone familiar with the real time conditions at these intersections knows that this assessment could not be based on a factual analysis of current conditions at peak periods which, by the way, often occur on weekends (not studied in DEIR).

Also out of date is the transit information relied upon by the DEIR in reaching its conclusion that the project would not result in significant transportation impacts to transit systems (Impact TR-2), having been based upon data on capacity and utilization of individual MUNI lines from 2007 (page IV.D.9 of the DEIR). This data should also be updated. For example, whoever was responsible for the assumption in the DEIR that the F-Line is not at capacity during peak periods has never ridden the F-line at peak periods. The America’s Cup will only make this worse.

F. The DIER belittles Pedestrian Safety Issues. The DEIR states that: “Conflicts between pedestrians and vehicles could occur at the project garage driveway, which could cause the potential inbound vehicles to queue onto Washington Street. Outbound vehicles would queue inside the garage and would not affect street traffic. Conflicts between outbound vehicles and pedestrians could still occur, but their effect on pedestrians would be reduced because pedestrians on the sidewalk have the right-of-way.” (page IV.D.25). I’m sure the fact that pedestrians have the right-of-way is of great comfort to families of children and seniors who’ve been struck and killed by cars. This statement is insulting and MUST be stricken from the DEIR. It’s also not true.

In the very next paragraph the DEIR makes the following statement about these potential vehicular and pedestrian conflicts at the garage driveway:

“The number of vehicles and pedestrians per minute are relatively small (about one vehicle and three pedestrians every 30 seconds on average) and it is therefore not anticipated that the proposed project would cause any major conflict or interfere with pedestrian movements in the area.” (page IV.D.25)

These numbers translate to 2 cars and 6 pedestrians every minute or 120 cars and 360 pedestrians an hour (or approximately 1,440 cars and 4,320 pedestrians coming into potential conflict in any given 7 am to 7 pm period). The DEIR’s conclusion that such conflict between vehicles and pedestrian movement would be “less than significant” makes no logical sense and is simply not supported by the facts presented in the DEIR.

G. The DEIR must include a new fence around the Golden Gateway Tennis and Swim Club in its NO PROJECT Alternative. Finally, the comments often heard about the “ugly green fence” around the GGTSC reminds us that the DEIR must let the reader know that it is the owner of the property, Mr. Timothy Foo, who is responsible for the ugly “green fence”. First, he has put the GGTSC operator on a month-to-month lease making it difficult for them to make a substantial investment in a nicer fence. Second, Mr. Foo himself stands to gain financially if 8 Washington is approved, so he has no incentive to fix the fence since its unsightliness is being used as an argument for demolishing the current facility. This simplest way to correct this bias would be to:

Include a rendering of the site with a new, attractive fence in the NO PROJECT alternative .

For the reasons stated in this letter, I believe this DEIR is seriously incomplete and inadequate to address the potentially significant impacts of this project. I urge you to revise the document and re-circulate it in draft form.

Sincerely,

Brad Paul

Muslim and proud (and hilarious)

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

September 1, 2011

THEATER Onstage, a woman and her father battle over modern sensibilities versus religious tradition. The father leads with a left jab and the mantra “in the Koran, in the Koran, in the Koran,” which the daughter counters with a roundhouse punch and “third-wave feminism.” Both characters are being played by Zahra Noorbakhsh, a feisty, spirited, thoroughly modern woman — and a Muslim, an important part of her identity she’s not about to let anyone forget. But believing in God doesn’t mean your interpretation of “God’s law” is going to be the same as your parents’, and her notion that her long-distance, white, atheist boyfriend Duncan ought to move in with her, purely for reasons of economy of course, is not a prospect her devout Iranian parents can whole-heartedly embrace.

“It’s against the Koran, man,” her father states definitively. “What you want me to do?”

What he will do is the greatest draw of the show, provocatively entitled All Atheists Are Muslim, which made its New York International Fringe Festival debut to a sold-out house on August 12, weeks away from the tenth anniversary of 9/11 — a date most New Yorkers are all too aware of. Not that Iran has anything to do with that particular date (even George W. wouldn’t go that far), but the intricacies of Islam are nonetheless of enduring topical interest.

“Growing up Muslim-Iranian, I had to constantly, vehemently defend my faith, my culture, and my family everyday,” Noorbakhsh reminisces. Even today, people she is close with freely equate “Muslim” with “terrorist” in polite conversation — even people who have seen her show and know her personally.

Deciding to apply to the New York International Fringe Festival seemed like a logical way to bring her comedic message of tolerance and inter-cultural exchange to New York, especially after having accompanied her director W. Kamau Bell to the 2009 Fringe to run tech for his show The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in about an Hour. After several months of meeting deadlines for program blurbs, participant fees, and tech specs, Noorbakhsh and her “Authorized Company Representative” (also her atheist boyfriend) have been tirelessly navigating the Fringe from the clusters of black-box theaters that dot the brownstone landscape of the East Village.

Working the post-show crowds of her own and others’ shows, Noorbakhsh exudes big sisterly camaraderie and casual confidence rather than rehearsed marketing speak, and a good percentage of her audiences has been made up of fellow performers — a true sign of Fringe success. Of course the run hasn’t been without its surprises. One front-row audience member abruptly refused to be “converted” (“It says right on the postcard that the first three rows will be converted to Islam,” Noorbakhsh points out with amused exasperation). Along those lines, the emphasis placed on handing out postcards as marketing strategy was a surprise; “in San Francisco, it’s a faux pas,” she says of the practice in the local comedy club scene. Above all, her major sense of frustration has come from trying to attract fellow Persians to the show, a difficulty she has not experienced in California.

“In San Francisco I’m an active member of the Persian community,” she explains. “I’m vocal and participate in many organizations. [In New York], nobody knows me outside of this very bold, divisive, and controversial title.”

That many Iranian-Americans she knows identify as atheist rather than Muslim, distancing themselves as much as possible from Iran’s Islamic regime, is certainly part of the obstacle. It seems it’s not just misguided Caucasian theatre-goers who are guilty of confusing “Muslim” with “terrorist”

“This fear of the word Muslim has to stop,” Noorbakhsh opines. “We’ve got to point out how much people flinch at just the word and how horrifyingly racist and damaging that demonization is.”

At Noorbakhsh’s last show of her New York run, a record 20 people are turned away at the door (including, alas, the long-awaited Persians), and the packed house roars appreciatively at her lovingly-skewered portrayal of her foul-mouthed father (“What the shit hell is this, man?”) and her winsome mother, who offers to buy her a Persian rug if she’ll just get married already. Leading the audience through the terms of the compromise they all agree to in order to preserve the peace, Noorbakhsh makes it possible for the audience to fall in love with her tradition-bound family despite their initial resistance to Noorbakhsh’s American-born sensibilities.

And how do her parents feel about Noorbakhsh’s audiences? “They usually sell my tickets,” laughs Noorbakhsh. “They love it.”

ALL ATHEISTS ARE MUSLIM

Through Oct. 1, $20

Opens Thurs/1, 8 p.m.

Runs Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.

Stage Werx Theatre

533 Sutter, SF

(415) 517-3581

www.brownpapertickets.com

A wave

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 31, 2011

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO And so, interest in user-friendly dance music has come to the point where it can support a full-fledged, all-ages, traveling arena festival tour, a kind of mid-period Lollapalooza for ravers of all stripes called Identity, which features a pretty thrilling grab bag of 35 acts in 20 cities, and rolls into Shoreline Amphitheatre on Sat/3. Well, why the hell not? It’s good to go big once in a while.

(Unlike Lollapalooza, however, Identity carries nary a hint of grassroots activism or cosmic enlightenment — although there are “glow products” for sale in the Vendor Village. Also, for something called “Identity” there’s an awfully pale-faced sausage-fest lineup. Both of these things, however, may just be an accurate reflection of contemporary electronic dance music mega-party affairs in general.)

Alongside marquee names like DJ Shadow, Crystal Method, Pete Tong, and Hercules and Love Affair and intriguing, less-familiar-Stateside acts Rusko, Nero, and Steve Lawler — not to mention heroes of hype Steve Aoki and Skrillex — is someone very familiar to San Franciscan clubgoers. Headlining Identity is Kaskade, a.k.a. Ryan Raddon, who made his early career in the city at OM Records before leaping to Billboard Dance Chart fame and becoming SF’s entry into that overwhelming, slightly horrifying, always fascinating pop-tech monster ball that includes Deadmau5, Tiësto, and David Guetta.

“It wasn’t really my ambition to get so big that here I am headlining this massive tour, which can be exhausting,” Kaskade told me over the phone as he prepared to jet off between Identity dates to play the UK’s famed Creamfields Fest. (As someone whose appearance at a block party sparked a full-on riot in LA last month, Kaskade’s down-to-earth, surfer-dude demeanor is a bit disarming.)

“My passion is really more about producing than DJing, although doing I.D. has been awesome and exposed me to new sounds and different audiences. It’s a great party. And it does feel more and more that the pop sound is coming around to what I’ve been doing. A wave of electronic music seems to be taking over right now. I don’t specifically compose for pop singers like Guetta, but I can see how my sound fits in with what’s happening, and that’s why it’s reaching more people.”

That sound is a thoroughly accessible, silky smooth, slightly melancholic series of usually vocal-based anthems that always seems to be shimmering on a Mediterranean beach somewhere (expensive sunglasses come to mind) even as it inexorably builds to its climaxes and breakdowns. New release “Eyes,” with singer Mindy Gledhill is emblematic, the aching breeziness pioneered by local OM and Naked Music labels in the early 2000s pumped up on the big-money, stadium-sized steroids of Kaskade’s current home, Ultra Records, based in New York City.

Headlining Identity has buoyed Kaskade’s mainstream standing, but hopping aboard has had other advantages as well. “One of the best things about the Identity tour is that I get to work on my own stage show, to turn the music into a whole experience. Most of the time as a DJ, I just come into predetermined venues like Ruby Skye and at least have a good light rig. But now I can really expand my musical ideas conceptually, with video projections and amphitheater effects. Opening up to that kind of thing, along with hearing what the other Identity acts like Datsik and Le Castle Vania are doing — I don’t get to go to other peoples’ shows very much because I’m always playing somewhere — that’s changed some of my ideas drastically.”

Is coming back to San Francisco a kind of triumphant homecoming? “I don’t think of it that way. I really don’t think I ever left San Francisco, or that anyone can ever really leave San Francisco. Obviously the Bay Area means a lot to me in terms of my development, but I think a lot about moving back there. The people are genuinely into the music — and they’re used to a high level of quality.”

Identity Festival Sat/3, 1 p.m., $60. Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View. www.idfestival.com.

BAD SHOES ANNIVERSARY

The local electro label pumps out a good share of thoughtful bangers, this free party at recently expanded swankity club Sloane Squared is a perfect chance to plug in to the crews’ mindbending doings. With Baan, Ear Jerker, MPHD, Dane O, and Teleport.

Wed/31, 10 p.m., free. Sloane Squared, 1525 Mission, SF. www.badshoesrecords.com

MATTHIAS TANZMANN

Cleverly fiendish, heavily electric house and techno, expertly mixed by this famous German, celebrated for his close association with Ibiza club Circoloco.

Fri/2, 10 p.m., $5 advance. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

ZUZUKA PODEROSA

Brazil-via-Brooklyn baile funk warrior queen gets provocative and splashes some neon rap over bass-heavy electronic tracks at one of my favorite monthly parties for downright friendliness and forward-thinking global jams, Braza!

Fri/2, 10 p.m., $10. SOM, 2529 16th St., SF. www.som-bar.com

D. DIGGLER AND KOLLEKTIV TURMSTRASSE

Repping Frankfurt and Hamburg respectively, these two acts are heroes of headspace-commandeering minimal techno — with duo Kollektiv considered by many to be among the best live acts in the world. Their sometimes haunting tracks will give the monthly Kontrol party an intense vibe.

Sat/3, 10 p.m.-6 a.m., $20. EndUp, 401 Sixth St., SF. www.kontrolsf.com

OPTIMO

Glaswegian geniuses of the extended 12-inch, this duo can make any retro track sound delightfully contemporary: classic rock, ska, dub, ’80s pop, it’s all fair game. Local “punch-drunk disco nihilists” Mi Ami, a band that’s garnered its own international fame, leads the charge.

Sat/3, 9 p.m.-4 a.m., $10 advance. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

ADRIAN SHERWOOD

One of the almighty princes of dub ruled the ’80s with treatments of Depeche Mode, Coldcut, the Woodentops, and Sinead O’Connor, released the first Black Uhuru records, cofounded the storied On-U Sound System, and is now helping celebrate excellent weekly Dub Mission’s 15th (!) anniversary. This is one of those “wows.”

Sun/4, 9 p.m., $15 advance. Elbo Room, 647 Valencia, SF. www.dubmission.com

TOM MIDDLETON

British Jedi master of smart tech-house in the 1990s has gone through a number of stylistic changes and clever monikers, but has never been afraid to let his classical and jazz training shine through his tracks. He’s headlining the grand Stompy + Sunset Labour of Love party.

Sun/4, 2 p.m., $20. Cafe Cocomo, 650 Indiana, SF. www.pacficsound.net

Editor’s Notes

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 30, 2011

tredmond@sfbg.com

I have friends — progressives, activists, good people — who support Ed Lee for mayor. They tell me that Lee is accessible, that he listens to labor and grassroots community groups, that he’s going to be good on a lot of issues and that, compared to the mayors we’ve had in the past 30 years or so, he won’t be all that bad.

I respect that. I understand. But I try to remind them, and anyone else who’s listening, that the years when Willie Brown ran this town were really, really bad.

At the height of the Brown era, during the dot-com boom, hundreds of evictions were filed every single month. Thousands and thousands of low-income and working-class tenants were displaced, tossed out of San Francisco forever. Blue-collar jobs were destroyed as high-tech offices took over industrial space. Every single developer who waved money at the mayor got a permit, no matter how ridiculous, dangerous or crazy the project was.

In 1999, Paulina Borsook wrote a famous piece for Salon called “How the Internet ruined San Francisco.” But the Internet was just technology; what damaged this city so badly was a mayor who didn’t care what happened to the most vulnerable populations. At one point, Brown even said that poor people shouldn’t live in this city. We called his policies “the economic cleansing of San Francisco.”

He controlled local politics — brutally. If you didn’t kiss the mayor’s ring, you were crushed. He announced one day that the supervisors (then elected citywide) were nothing but “mistresses who have to be serviced” — and since most of them were utterly subservient to Brown, they didn’t even complain. Only one person on the board — Tom Ammiano — regularly defied the mayor; occasionally, Leland Yee and Sue Bierman joined him. But that was it.

The corruption was rampant. People who paid to play got in the door; nobody else came close. You did a favor for Brown and you got a commission appointment or a high-paid job, even if you weren’t remotely qualified.

The ones who suffered most were the poorest residents, particularly tenants, particularly on the east side of town. Brown didn’t seem to care that his appointments, deals and policies were causing terrible pain on the ground; it was as if politics was just a fun game, as if he were some sort of royal potentate, partying in the executive suites and ignoring what was happening on the streets.

There are people who believe that Ed Lee can be independent of Brown, and I hope they’re right. But Lee and Brown are close, and Brown helped put him in office — and the thought of even a small part of that rotten era of sleaze coming back makes me very, very nervous.

SF sued for approving AT&T’s sidewalk boxes without an EIR

Sasha Cuttler

August 24, 2011

SF sued for approving AT&T’s sidewalk boxes without an EIR

A coalition of San Francisco citizens groups today sued the city over the 5-6 vote last month by the Board of Supervisors to allow AT&T to install 726 utility boxes on sidewalks throughout the city without studying the impact and alternatives with an environmental impact report.

The groups include San Francisco Beautiful (filing its first lawsuit against the city in its 64-year history), San Francisco Tomorrow, Dogpatch Neighborhood Association, Potrero Boosters, and the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association. Their appeal of AT&T’s permit was rejected by Sups. Sean Elsbernd, Mark Farrell, Malia Cohen, Carmen Chu, David Campos, and Scott Wiener, allowing the project to move forward.

“The city has refused to do what should be a routine environmental review,” Milo Hanke, a past president of San Francisco Beautiful, told us. He said the public should have been allowed to consider alternatives to the “unwanted and unwarranted degradation of the public sidewalks by a greedy corporation.”

While the project will allow AT&T to upgrade its Internet service and other capabilities, many in the technology community told us back in May that there are better options for improving the high-tech infrastructure in the city without the unsightly boxes that will block sidewalks and be magnets for graffiti.

But those groups, and the groups that filed this lawsuit, say they felt ignored by City Hall and AT&T. “We were shut out of the process,” Hanke said. Now, the plaintiffs will go to court to seek an injunction to stop the project as they wait for a ruling on the merits of the case.

Party Radar: Honey Dijon, Jamie Jones, Marcelo Burlon, Osunlade, Prince Language, more

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 24, 2011

Party Radar: Honey Dijon, Jamie Jones, Marcelo Burlon, Osunlade, Prince Language, more

This week’s Super Ego clubs column was all about our Fall Arts Preview issue, although I did squeeze in quite a few events happening this weekend (including my birthday party this Saturday at Go Bang! haaaaay. You should come dance.) Here are some more nifty thangs, shortly summed, on the Party radar for this weekend’s de-edification for sure.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 25

>>Jamie Jones — the Hot Natured star is pretty massive on the hotness scale himself, full of sexy tech-soul spark. This’ll be steamy and a bit deep. 10pm, $10, at Vessel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WJxCHEAHjQ

>>Manuel de la Mare — this’ll be a bit balls-out in the peaky territory: the Hotfingers and 303Lovers label owner brings some great tech track selection instincts and a lot of drama. Accessible and fun. 10pm, $15, at Mezzanine. (Facebook)

>>Relax Relate Release — hey, I finally have some competition in the nightlife writing category, and he’s also a wicked DJ! Derrick Love, aka Derek Opperman, will bring some discofied lovin’ to this classic house and funky dance monthly, brought to you by Vin Sol, Charles McCloud, and Richie Panic. 10pm, $5, at 222 Hyde. (Facebook)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 26

>>Prince Language — NYC re-editor and bouncy house purveyor is back in the bay for some more fun lovin’ at SOM’s face party. 10pm, $10, at SOM.

Fabric London Promo Mix Summer 2010 by Prince Language

>>Marques Wyatt with Osunlade — I’m such a huge fan of these two gods of deep house and spiritual tribality. They’ll be holding down Friday’s Afro-soul quotient. Bonus: amazing local DJ Said opens. 9:30pm-4am, $15-$20, at Mighty. (Facebook)

Pyrography by Osunlade

>>Quentin Harris – NYC house pioneer (and totally bodied, meow) grew up in Detroit and takes you on a journey of both those cities’ seminal sounds. He comes into Oakland for a hot-hot blowout for the children. You will get down to this one. 9pm-3am, $15, at Bench and Bar (Facebook)

SATURDAY, AUGUST 27

>>Honey Dijon — Oooh, it’s gonna get kiki. The monthly Mighty Real parties at Mighty with David Harness are wonderful family-feeling affairs that bring in some true house guest talent. After Lil Louis and Jellybean Benitez comes the lovely, sassy Miss Honey Dijon to turn the tables and the floor inside out with her deep Chicago-via-NYC brand of smack-smack-smack. 10pm-4am, $10-$15 at Mighty. (Facebook)

>>Dark Room — yes, Virginia, there is a monthly gay goth club that rocks. Thsi one is it! And this month it’s honoring drag queen Anna Conda’ appointment to the Entertainment Commission. 10pm, $5, at Hotspot, 1414 Market, SF. (Facebook)

>>Addison Groove — it’s footwork time! UK bass representative from Bristol throws down some complex, irresistible, juke-like, ghostly ghettotech tunes for the always awesome Icee Hot monthly party. 10pm-3am, $10, at Public Works (Facebook)

3024-012 ADDISON GROOVE EP by 3024world

SUNDAY, AUGUST 28

Marcelo Burlon — um, Sunday weekly queer-oriented but straight-friendly party Honey has been on fire of late, this week bringing in Milan’s editor/fashion plate-turned-DJ Marcel Burlon of the Pink is Punk parties for some wide-ranging tunes that have a classic disco feel but retain a technological edge. 8pm-2am, $3, at Holy Cow. (Facebook)

Latest tracks by Marcelo Burlon

PSIgasm explores the science of the climax

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 19, 2011

PSIgasm explores the science of the climax

Kinsey was an obvious pioneer of sexy science and the sexual revolution was sparked in the decades after his first studies contributed hard facts about human sexuality, but at this point his findings needs refreshing.

But instead of intensified sexual investigations, our country is regressing and the frigidness of conservative politics tied up with the pharmaceutical industry have pushed sex nerds away from researching healthy bodies to focus their attention on limp studies — deficiencies, dysfunction, and anything else that can be prescribed.

The PSIgasm Project, a Bay Area sex-positive research project, wants to jump back into the fun stuff and track down just what exactly the the big “o” does to the human body.

It may look like a super powerful dildo, but the PSIgasm is actually a fancy scienticfic device that records changes in body temperature, heat capacity, heart rate, blood volume, moisture, and movement; all signs pointing to orgasm. The smart instrument of pleasure was concieved in 2010 by Ned Mayhem, a PhD candidate in experimental physics at UC Berkeley and his lover Maggie Mayhem, an HIV prevention specialist, both of whom are sex positive activists, queer porn performers. The aim of their project is simple: to get people off and simaltaeously monitor the physiological responses correlated with arousal and orgasm. You can almost hear this city full of tech geeks pleading, “more, more!”

“The idea that the reactions to sex can be quantified blows their minds,” says Mr. Mayhem of excited audeinces and test subjects who have been introduced to the project. “Sex is usually talked about in a kind of ‘woo-woo’ way, but what’s going on in your body are real physical processes. When you’re turned on, it’s not just your mental state, or magic divorced from your body. It’s actual chemicals, flowing.”

The scientific shaft, version II

Mr. Mayhem is currently bulking up version three of the PSIgasm, which involves a lot of technical tweaking and electronics upgrading to make sure it’s reliable enough for vigerous, all-night, hot and heavy testing. The plan is to record data from people with all different anatomies, gender identities, ages and cultures, engaged in sex for various reasons and in different places, like dungens, bedrooms, and backseats. If there were ever a research study that would gain ethusiastic volunteers in this city, PSIgasm would be it.

The Mayhems want their findings to not only inform people about the wonders of their own bodies, but dispute society’s widespread misconceptions of “normal” sex by showing conclusive data that people orgasm from differnt types of action, both soft and rough, wild and quiet. The mobility of the PSIgasm will also keep the data honest by allowing individuals using the smart dildo to play privately however they please, without white lab coats standing over their shoulder.

Eventaully Mr. Mayhem plans to make all of the PSIgasm’s designs public so people can build their own equipement and anonomously share their data.

For the time being, he’s working the projects presentation for Arse Elektronika, which may or may not include a live demonstration. Now that sounds like exciting science!

Green buds

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

August 16, 2011

steve@sfbg.com

CANNABIS Most marijuana sold in Bay Area dispensaries is grown indoors, where the ability to precisely control conditions creates the kind of buds — strong, dense, crystal-covered, fragrant, beautiful — that consumers have come to expect. But that perfection comes at a high price, both financially and environmentally.

So some local leaders in the medical marijuana movement have begun to nudge the industry to return to its roots, to the days before prohibition and the helicopter raids of the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting chased the pot growers indoors. They say it’s time for California to start growing more of its cannabis outdoors again, in the soil and sunlight, just like the rest of the state’s crops.

Growers have long known how inefficient it is to grow indoors. All they need to do is look at their huge monthly energy bills. Between the powerful grow lights, constantly running air conditioners, elaborate ventilation systems, pumps and water purifiers, and heaters used for drying and curing, this is an energy-intensive endeavor.

But a widely circulated study released in April — “Energy Up in Smoke: The Carbon Footprint of Indoor Cannabis Production” by Evan Mills, a researcher with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory — revealed just what a huge cumulative toll the practice was taking on California and the planet.

It found that indoor pot production accounts for about 8 percent of California household energy use, costing about $3 billion annually and producing about 4 millions tons of greenhouse gases each year, the equivalent of 1 million automobiles. Producing one joint was the equivalent of driving 15 miles in a 44 mpg car.

“The emergent industry of indoor Cannabis production results in prodigious energy use, costs, and greenhouse-gas pollution. Large-scale industrialized and highly energy-intensive indoor cultivation of cannabis is driven by criminalization, pursuit of security, and the desire for greater process control and yields,” Mills wrote in the report’s summary.

Yet while opponents of marijuana seized on the report to condemn the industry, proponents say there’s a very simple solution to the problem: grow it outdoors. And with the artisanship and quality in the fields and greenhouses now rivaling that of indoor buds, the biggest barriers to moving most marijuana production outdoors are federal laws and the biases of pot consumers.

“There’s a misconception out there that indoor is better marijuana than outdoor, but we don’t think that’s true,” Erich Pearson, who runs the San Francisco Patient and Resource Center (SPARC) dispensary and sits on the city’s Medical Cannabis Task Force. “Marijuana is a plant that came from the earth and that’s where we should grow it, just like our food.”

INDOOR VS. OUTDOOR

There are definitely some benefits to growing indoors, beyond just the ability to hide it from the prying eyes of law enforcement. The grow cycles are shorter, allowing for multiple harvests around the year. The generally small operations and precise control over growing conditions also tend to produce the best-looking buds, which command the highest prices and win the top prizes in competitions.

Kevin Reed, who runs Green Cross — a venerable medical marijuana delivery service that works closely with an established group of growers — told us there are several reasons why indoor buds have dominated the marketplace.

“The most important factor is local laws and regulations and the enforcement of those various laws. A second factor is space and climate — obviously outdoor cultivation will flourish is some places better than other. And, a final factor is sustainability of the market; indoor cultivators can produce crops on a year-round basis, providing some stability in the market over the long-term, especially in the event of crop failure or other unforeseen and unexpected disasters,” Reed told us.

Yet he also said, “If cultivated correctly and with care, there should be no difference between the same strain grown in- or outdoors.” And he said that from an environmental standpoint, outdoor is clearly superior: “So far as environmental factors are concerned, there is little doubt in my mind that outdoor cultivation is kinder to Mother Earth.”

Wilson Linker, with Steep Hill Laboratories, Northern California’s largest tester of medical marijuana, said that outdoor plants generally have more vegetative growth because of the longer light cycles, meaning that “indoor tests generally higher in cannabanoids, with THC [marijuana’s main psychoactive compound] in particular.”

But he and other marijuana experts also say that the quality of the buds ultimately depends on a wide variety of factors, from the strain used to the expertise of the cultivators to the time and care taken by the trimmers.

“I’ve seen outdoor that can compete with the best indoor strains,” said David Goldman, who runs San Francisco’s Americans for Safe Access (ASA) chapter, sits on the city’s Medical Marijuana Task Force, and is active in rating the various dispensaries and pot strains in terms of quality, using magnifying glasses to investigate the trichomes and other characteristics. “I would match the best outdoor I know up with anybody’s indoor, any day.”

Even when indoor buds look better, Pearson said, that doesn’t means they are better. Looks can be deceiving, he said, noting how local consumers now accept that those perfect-looking, genetically modified apples and tomatoes in the store aren’t as tasty or good for you as their ugly, organic counterparts.

“It’s not all about appearance,” he said, noting that marijuana grown in the sunshine is more robust and complex than its indoor cousins.

“We’re starting to find [outdoor] strains that were scoring just as high as indoor,” says Rick Pfrommer, the purchasing manager for Oakland’s Harborside Health Center.

And that’s especially true when the cannabis is grown in greenhouses, where it gets natural sunlight but growing conditions can be controlled better than in the fields.

“Greenhouses can attain a level of cosmetic attractiveness that is right up there with indoor,” Pfrommer said.

“There are a lot of products coming out of greenhouses that even trained eyes can’t tell the difference with [compared to indoors],” Linker said. “Greenhouses are the future.”

Or at least they might be the future if there is a change in the federal laws, which still view any marijuana cultivation as a crime — which is why indoor grows flourished in the first place.

LINGERING PROHIBITION

Rising demand for medical marijuana has created some regulatory pushback, even in pot-friendly San Francisco, where the Department of Public Health announced earlier this year that it wanted to create a registry of growers that work with the dispensaries in order to weed out the illegal growing operations.

“In the last few years, there’s been a proliferation of both illegal and legal cultivators,” Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, San Francisco’s environmental health director, told us earlier this summer. “We’re asking for this information to try to steer them back toward legal cultivation.”

Reed, Goldman, and other industry representatives strongly condemned the move, mostly on the grounds that creating lists of growers could subject them to federal prosecution, so the idea was shelved for now. But Bhatia said the problem remains, and in San Francisco, it’s a problem created largely by the demand for cannabis grown indoors.

But allowing for a more widespread conversion to sustainably grown marijuana will require a relaxation of the federal enforcement to allow for more land cultivation and the development of high-tech greenhouses.

“A lot of that rests in the hands of law enforcement,” Pearson said.

But it isn’t just the cops. Consumers are also supporting indoor grows.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Pfrommer said there are many factors that influence whether customers choose indoor or outdoor, or what he calls the “bag appeal” that causes customers to zero in on one strain among the 40 or so that can be offered at one time.

Generally, indoor grows are smaller operations, allowing greater care in the tending and processing of the buds, whereas outdoor grows usually produce large crops harvested all at once, “so frequently people won’t manicure it as well,” Pfrommer said.

Smell is another big factor, Pfrommer said, and that’s one area where he thinks outdoor actually has an advantage. “Outdoor generally has a more pungent smell,” he said. “Cannabis is very sensitive to the environment, so it can pick up elements from the soil, the wind, and the surroundings. It picks up different qualities.”

For that reason, he also said, “I personally find outdoor to taste better when it’s grown well,” comparing it to the subtle qualities that various appellations can give to fine wines.

The final factor is price, and that’s one area where outdoor has a distinct advantage. SPARC is currently selling quarter-ounces of greenhouse-grown Big Buddha Cheese with a THC content of more than 17 percent for just $70. And when the buds from open outdoor fields arrive this fall, they’ll be as low as $50.

“This,” Pearson said, holding up a beautiful bud of greenhouse-grown Green Dragon, “was grown at a fraction of the cost of indoor and it’s outstanding.”

“That’s why indoor sells for so much more,” Goldman said, ” because it costs so much more to grow.”

So if outdoor cannabis is cheaper, better for the environment, less risky for the industry, and just as good, why are the indoor stains still so much more popular?

“You’re looking a 20-plus years of indoor being the standard,” Pfrommer said, noting that the hardest part of creating a more substantial changeover in people’s buying habits is their expectations.

He said Harborside started offering more outdoor strains three years ago, “but the market wasn’t responding as strongly.” In other words, people still preferred indoor.

Yet things are changing, prompted partly by the Mills study. “That was what kicked off this latest round,” Pfrommer said. “There is a small but growing awareness among the regular marijuana consumers about the costs of growing indoors…The consciousness is starting to shift, but it’ll be slow, probably over the next two seasons.”

Harvests usually take place during the full moons in September and October, after which they are cured and processed for about four weeks, finally coming to market around Thanksgiving.

“It’s mostly an education process,” Pfrommer said. “We’re going to have a vigorous push around harvest time this year.”

“We’re trying to transition completely to outdoor because the environmental toll is less, the cost is less, the yield is higher, and our testing is showing that the quality is just as good,” said Nick Smilgys, who has done both marketing and purchasing at SPARC. “It just makes more sense to grow it outdoors.”

1...323334...48 Page 33 of 48