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Drunk on holiday spirit

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>culture@sfbg.com


I have to admit it. I love Christmas. I don’t mean the day, or even the presents, though those both have their charm. But I love the whole damn holiday season and everything that comes with it. Little white lights wrapped around trees downtown, fake icicles dangling from apartment windows, plastic nativity scenes in storefronts and Muzak versions of "The Little Drummer Boy" playing in elevators. I like spray snow and real snow and cheap batting that’s meant to look like snow. Ribbons and dangling ornaments, train sets and Santa scenes, really sappy Christmas movies featuring washed-up TV stars. This time of year, I even like the mall.


I’m not sure who to blame this obsession on: My Jewish dad, who considered Christmas a national holiday and therefore only celebrated the season (not the reason)? My Christian agnostic mom, who could never find the right denomination but always found the best Christmas Eve candlelight service, complete with bell choir and carols? Or perhaps it’s something innate in me that made me love the cold weather and warm drinks, the dark nights and bright lights, finding it all comforting and safe and magical. There’s certainly an element of fantasy that’s consistently charmed me: as a kid, my favorite game of Pretend was called Tinsel Fairies – one whose garland outfits and Christmas Tree scenery rendered it purely seasonal. And now, my favorite game of Pretend is called Boyfriend at Christmas – a whimsical daydream that involves mistletoe, a fireplace, and that elusive creature: a man who likes this crap as much as I do.


Whatever the reason, while most people are gearing up for their "Christmas decorations in November?!?" complaints, I’m getting out my calendar to schedule two months of awesome. In fact, I attempted to make a spreadsheet of every holiday fair, festival, and destination I wanted to hit this year, but it turns out there are too many to fit into one calendar year. (Seriously, planners, what’s up with Dec. 5? Does everything have to happen the first weekend of the month?) Instead, I’ve compiled a list of those places, shows, and events that I simply cannot miss.


Marlena’s

Best known as a drag bar, I’ve had my eye on this Hayes Valley watering hole for years, thanks to its Christmas tradition of drowning the place in Santa figurines (more than 800 of them) and twinkling lights. Add an enclosed smoking area, pool table, and amazing jukebox and it’s the perfect stop for a bit of holiday cheer any day of the week.

488 Hayes, SF. (415) 864-6672, www.marlenasbarsf.com


Union Square Ice Rink

Sure, there’s an outdoor ice skating rink at the Embarcadero too, but I prefer this one, situated beneath the giant tree amidst the glittering lights of San Francisco’s downtown. Despite the often annoying music, it’s one of the most beautiful spots to celebrate the holidays in the city. Now if only my pretend boyfriend would come with me and hold my hand&ldots;

Nov. 11-Jan. 18. Sun.-Thurs., 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-11:30 p.m. $4.50-$9.50 for 90 minute sessions. ($4-$5 for skate rentals.) 555 Pine, SF. (415) 781-2688, www.unionsquareicerink.com


Let it Snow!

As much as I love this season, even I get sick of the predictable storylines of the Christmas Carol/Nutcracker/Miracle on 34th Street trinity (and their endless adaptations). This year, I’m looking forward to watching the Un-Scripted Theater Company weave an entirely unique story, based on audience participation, and present it in spontaneous Broadway song-and-dance fashion.

Nov. 19-Dec. 19, except Nov. 21 and 26. 8 p.m., $8-$20. Thurs.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 3 and 8 p.m. SF Playhouse, Stage 2, 533 Sutter, SF. (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com


Black Rock Artumnal Gathering

Considering that Christmas Camp was one of the first theme camps at Burning Man, it seems only fitting to ring in the season with a playa-related event. This gorgeous gala benefiting the Black Rock Arts Foundation – an organization that supports Burning Man-style art outside of Burning Man — features performances by Fou Fou HA! and Lucent Dossier, beats by Freq Nasty, and visuals by Shrine and Andrew Jones.

Nov. 20, dinner at 6 p.m., late entry at 9 p.m. $35-$200. Bently Reserve, 400 Sansome, SF. (415) 626-1248, blackrockarts.org


Dickens Fair

The endless iterations of Dickens’ Christmas tale might get stale (OK, fine. I’ll never tire of Bill Murray in Scrooged), but the festivity of the story’s setting never will. I can’t wait to don my Victorian finest (acquired from La Rosa on Haight Street) and get my Christmas geek on with dance parties, Christmas shops, holiday food and drinks, and hundreds of costumed players roaming winding lanes.

Nov. 27 and Sat.-Sun. through Dec. 20. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. $10-$22. Cow Palace Exhibition Halls, 2600 Geneva Ave, SF. (800) 510-1558, www.dickensfair.com


San Francisco Motorized Cable Car Holiday Lights Tour

So maybe we don’t have horse drawn carriages, but we do have those charming cable cars. Why not channel a West Coast version of Christmas in Central Park by grabbing a blanket and some roasted chestnuts and boarding festively-decorated public transportation for a tour of the city’s lights, including Fisherman’s Wharf, Polk Street Shops, the tree and menorah at Union Square, and stops to appreciate the Golden Gate Bridge?

Nov. 27-Dec. 15, Wed.-Sun., 5 and 7 p.m. Dec. 16-Jan. 3, 5 and 7 p.m. daily. $14-$24. Departs from either Fisherman’s Wharf or Union Square, www.buysanfranciscotours.com/tours/holiday_lights_tour_ccc.html


Women’s Building Celebration of Craftswomen

Who doesn’t love a good holiday crafts fair? Especially one that supports such a good cause. This four-day event features unique hand-made crafts and art pieces by more than 200 female American artists, all supplemented with live music, gourmet food, and a benefit silent auction.

Nov. 28-29, Dec. 5-6, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., $6.50-$12. Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, SF. (650) 615-6838, www.celebrationsofcraftwomen.org


Vandals Christmas Formal

The punk rock veterans host this year’s version of their legendary holiday show, where they’ll play nearly their entire Oi! To the World album, including (if we’re lucky) that heart-warming family classic "Christmas Time for My Penis." Now the only question is where to get a studded corsage.

Dec. 5, 8 p.m. $16 G.A.; $40.95 with dinner. Slim’s, 333 11th St., SF. www.slims-sf.com


Cantare Con Vivo Choral Concert

My mom has a Master’s in music, so it’s probably no surprise that I can’t make it through a holiday season without seeking out some classic carols. This year, I’ll forego Handel’s Messiah for this stunning 100-voice ensemble, accompanied by brass and organ.

Dec. 6, 3 – 5 p.m. $10-$40. First Presbyterian Church, 27th and Broadway, Oakl. (510) 836-0789, www.cantareconvivo.org


The Making of Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol

Author Darrell Van Citters discusses his book about the first-ever animated Christmas special, a ’60s classic that’s all but forgotten to new generations.
Dec. 8, 7:30 p.m.-9:00 p.m., free. Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, SF. (415) CAR-TOON, www.cartoonart.org

Santacon
The only thing more delightful than the sight of hundreds of Santas drinking, dancing, and causing a rukus in public is being one of those Santas. Perhaps the best known and loved creation of the Cacophony Society, this annual bar crawl/flash mob/guerilla art piece has become one of my favorite holiday traditions (at least, the parts I can remember). Plus, as a walking and transportation tour led by volunteers, it’s a fantastic way to see parts of the city I’d rarely visit otherwise.
Dec. 12, times and locations TBA. www.santarchy.com

Dance-Along Nutcracker
This year sees Tchaikovsky’s characters translated through a Western lens with "Blazing Nutcrackers," a Wild West-themed participatory dance event with accompaniment by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band. My plan? To channel Clara, by way of Mae West.
Dec. 12, 2:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. gala, Dec. 13, 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. $16-$50. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.dancealongnutcracker.org

MOCHA Makers’ Studio: Adult Art Night
Call it a throwback to my days doing Sunday School crafts (at any one of several churches), but there’s something appealing about learning to make paper – and then make holiday cards or 3-D shapes and sculptures – while enjoying beer, wine, and each other at this kids’ night for grown-ups.
Dec. 17, 7:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m., $5. Museum of Children’s Art, 538 Ninth St., Oakl. (510) 465-8770, www.mocha.org

Carols in the Caves
For more than 20 years, David Auerbach – better known as The Improvisator – has been sharing the solstice spirit by playing his impressive bevy of instruments in natural caverns and wine cellars. Wondrous, reverent, and – especially during the audience participation part – fun, this is the event I’m perhaps looking forward to most. (But don’t tell the Vandals.)
Weekends Dec.19-Jan. 10. $40-$65. Various wineries. (707) 224-4222, www.carolsinthecaves.com

Have different taste than I do? (Apparently, that’s possible.) Check out our events, music, and stage listings throughout the holiday season. For information on tree lightings at places like city hall, check out www.sanfrancisco.com. And if you’re a fan of Christmas Tree Lanes, visit www.lightsofthevalley.com, a not-for-profit Website compiling information on more than 460 decorated homes in 105 cities, to be updated the day after Thanksgiving.

Merry mayhem

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Though gamers will have plenty to choose from, 2009’s holiday shopping season is defined in part by the titles that won’t make it to store shelves in time. Starcraft II (Blizzard/Activision), Bioshock 2 (2K Games), and Mass Effect 2(Bioware/EA) have all been pushed into 2010, and the list of notable upcoming games reads more like a "best of the rest."

Assassin’s Creed II (Ubisoft)

Xbox360, PS3, PC

The first Assassin’s Creed took place in a Crusade-torn Holy Land, giving players control of a medieval master killer who used subterfuge and his considerable gymnastic talents to surprise and dispatch a number of deserving 12th-century tyrants. The sequel shifts the setting to Renaissance Italy, and would-be assassins will have full run of Venice, Rome, and Florence when they take command of Ezio, a wronged nobleman seeking acrobatic revenge. The series’ core mechanic — unfettered parkour-style urban exploration — will return, along with lovingly recreated environments and an expanded arsenal of weapons. Those who complained about the original’s repetitive structure have been placated, as the game promises a new, diversified mission system, and Ezio’s methods of assassination will be similarly varied, thanks in part to the participation of a young Leonardo da Vinci, who uses his engineering genius to help the historical hitman pwn noobs with scientific alacrity. (Now available)

Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve/EA)

Xbox360, PC

Valve touched off an Internet firestorm when it announced this title. The company has a long history of providing robust post-release support for its games, and fans of the original were outraged that they would have to pony up for a sequel so soon after the first Left 4 Dead hit shelves in November 2008. Though the embers of the debate still smolder, most of the naysayers have been swayed by the obvious attention paid to the forthcoming product, which features new characters, a new game mode, a creepy Southern-fried setting, and a wealth of new additions to the zombie-slaughter toolbox. The "AI Director" — a groundbreaking piece of technology that coordinates the actions of the shambling, brains-starved hordes — has also been completely overhauled. (Now available)

The Saboteur (Pandemic/EA)

Xbox360, PS3, PC

Even if you only have a passing affinity for video games, you’ve probably killed a Nazi or two at some point. World War II is notoriously well-worn territory, a fact that makes Pandemic’s unique approach all the more interesting. You play as Sean Devlin, an Irish ex-pat living in Paris during the German occupation. Initially neutral, Devlin’s loyalties are thrown in with the Free French when some of his friends are murdered, and he embarks on a mission of resistance and, well, sabotage. The game’s most interesting feature is its use of color: at the outset, neighborhoods living under the yoke of the jackboot are depicted in black-and-white, blossoming into full color the more your character’s actions harry the Third Reich. If Red Faction: Guerrilla (Volition/THQ) meets Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar) meets Medal of Honor (Various/EA) is a description of your dream game, consider the jackpot hit. (Dec. 8)

That’s a wrap

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art@sfbg.com

Everyone’s got one — that movie-freak friend or relative who’s able to hold court on everything from His Girl Friday (1940) to Next Friday (2000); dazzle the dinner table with obscure trivia and dead-on quotes; and is possessed of a memory that’s never met an unconquerable round of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." What to do when this human Internet Movie Database pops up on your holiday shopping list? Read on for suggestions to please the cinematic fanatic in your life.

Because eggnog and terror are two great tastes that taste great together, why not treat a film fan to a big-screen unspooling of Black Christmas (1974 original, obviously — a true movie nerd would rather be choked by a candy cane than acknowledge the 2006 remake)? Thrillville’s Will the Thrill and Monica Tiki Goddess present the Bob Clark prank-caller classic at San Francisco’s Four Star (Dec. 3, with live music by Project Pimento) and San Jose’s Camera 3 Cinema (Dec. 10, with Rocket to Rio); visit www.thrillville.net for details.

Speaking of the Four Star, Lee Neighborhood Theatres (which also include the Marina and the Presidio) offer a variety of discount series tickets, gift certificates, and gift passes. You can also pick up an awesome Lee Neighborhood Theatres T-shirt ($8), with a design that reflects the mini-chain’s dedication to Asian cinema (learn more at www.lntsf.com). The Red Vic (www.redvicmoviehouse.com) offers a discount punch card — which sure would come in handy in early 2010, when first-run theaters insist on showing nothing but kid flicks and stale Oscar bait.

But what if your favorite geek isn’t local? If you must select a gift from afar, you might want to enlist a trusted ally to spy on his or her movie collection to make sure you don’t duplicate anything. (Of course, most stores will let you return or exchange items, in case you buy the wrong version of the Special Collector’s Limited Edition Set for Drooling Fiends Only.) It’s always best to tailor your purchase to the person’s particular interests (hint for horror heads: Sony just released Fred Dekker’s director’s cut of 1986’s Night of the Creeps on DVD and Blu-Ray!), but there are definitely some good options if you can’t determine a favored genre, director, or actor to aim for.

If you just won the lottery, Essential Arthouse: 50 Years of Janus Films is available for a mere $650 at www.criterion.com. The set comes with a 240-page book and sparkling transfers of enough essentials to call this "film school in a box." Those on tighter budgets (i.e., anyone who didn’t just win the lottery) can pick up individual DVDs of everything in the set; titles include Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949), Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries (1957), Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954), Fritz Lang’s M (1931), and Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water (1962).

More fodder for fans of the classics: Blu-Ray and DVD versions of Victor Fleming’s 1939 Gone With the Wind (under $50 on www.amazon.com), which come wrapped in velvet boxes with more than eight hours of new extras (including a doc on 1939, a golden year that also saw the release of Fleming’s The Wizard of Oz) and attendant bells and whistles like a reproduction of the program from the film’s original release. For the film noir fan who has everything (hint: Columbia Pictures just released some nifty bundles of restored films, like 1953’s The Big Heat; Sony put out a sweet Sam Fuller set with seven of his films), check out Daylight Noir: Raymond Chandler’s Imagined City (Charta Art Books), a moody book of photographs capturing gumshoe-friendly Los Angeles locations by Catherine "Daughter of Roger" Corman.

Seasons eatings

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A man hath no better thing under the sun than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry. — Ecclesiastes 8:15

Writing about Christmas treats and festive beverages is dangerous territory. Locals are adamant about their favorite spot to score an authentic stollen, the most buttery sugar cookie, or the strongest hot toddy. So while I won’t claim to offer the most exhaustive list, the following spots are sure to whisk you through the madness of the holiday season with some semblance of sanity and satiation.

Eat…

While there’s something about this time of year that inspires me to break out my whisk and apron, I also love what our local bakers and pastry chefs produce. Whether you’re looking for a treat to go with your coffee or want to contribute to the holiday table this year, these folks have got you covered in the seasonal sweets department. Let’s face it — they do it better than most of us can anyway.

MISSION PIE


There’s something to be said about a simple piece of pie, and nobody does seasonal slices better than Mission Pie. For Thanksgiving, it will feature pumpkin, apple, pear/cranberry, walnut (much like pecan but made with a sister nut), and a vegan apple with brandied raisins ($3.50/piece). Mission Pie is adamant about getting its fruits and flowers from local farms, so it only uses what’s in season. Later in the winter, the Mission District destination will feature desserts made with winter fruits, like my favorite: the bright, sharp, citrusy Meyer lemon — perfect with a cup of hot tea.

2901 Mission, SF. (415) 282-1500, www.missionpie.com

CITIZEN CAKE


If traditional pie isn’t your bag, pastry chef Elizabeth Faulkner is your gal. Leave it to her to take a seasonal dessert like pie or a simple holiday cookie and turn it upside down. This year, Faulkner is planning her usual butter and lard crust for Thanksgiving pies (mmm, lard) filled with innovative flavors like apple and cheddar or a bourbon chocolate pecan ($25–$28) as well as her infamous pumpkin sage cheesecake ($30). And of course, a holiday at Citizen Cake wouldn’t feel right without the gingerbread Joes and Janes ($4) in festive bikini attire.

399 Grove, SF. (415) 861-2228, www.citizencake.com

ARIZMENDHI BAKERY AND NOE VALLEY BAKERY


The leftovers — and the in-laws — have come and gone. Hallelujah. Now look forward to a wintry season hunkering down with a fruitcake. I know, I know, fruitcake’s got a bad rap. Are you scared of those plastic tubs of pseudo-fruit with sticky green cherries? Me too. But bakers who do traditional fruitcakes don’t touch those. Instead you’ll find a variety of boozy fruits, citrus, warm spices, and nuts. What’s not to like about that? Arizmendhi does one of the most popular fruitcakes in town ($12). It’s smaller than your average loaf and made with dried apricot, papaya, pineapple, currants, and cherries, along with healthy doses of brandy, spices, and citrus. Noe Valley Bakery also makes a much-loved fruitcake, specifically an iced German Christmas stollen ($21). Owner Michael Gasson has updated an old family recipe that includes housemade candied orange peel, toasted almonds, fresh ground nutmeg, and lots of brandy. Much like a fine wine, fruitcakes get better with time (which is one reason they were so popular in pre-refrigeration days), so Gasson starts making these treats early to allow the flavors to ripen and mellow. For all you fruitcake skeptics out there, this is the year — and these are the places.

Arizmendhi Bakery, 1331 Ninth Ave., SF. (415) 566-3117, www.arizmendibakery.com; Noe Valley Bakery: 4073 24th St., SF. (415) 550-1405, www.noevalleybakery.com

MASSE’S PASTRIES


After I’ve won you over with the fruitcake, you must believe me when I sing the praises of Masse’s Pastries for the best bouche in the Bay. The bouche de noel (or yule log), a dessert traditionally served in France during the holidays, consists of a rolled cake in the shape of a log filled with buttercream and topped with ganache. Not only does Masse’s make the loveliest bouche around, it does three of them. The most popular is the traditional mocha with almond roulade and coffee buttercream. Next up is the black forest with Bavarian cream and kirsch (cherry liqueur). The third option is a simple lemon topped with Italian meringue and seasonal fruits. The owners decorate the festive cakes with New Zealand red currants, imported brandied cherries, and the highest quality shaved chocolate. Prices range from $38–$55 depending on flavor and size. Now comes the difficult part: how to decide between the three options. The good news? It offers mini bouches ($4.50), so you can taste before you invest.

1469 Shattuck Ave., Berk. (510) 649-1004, www.massespastries.com

Drink …

There’s no time like the holiday season to splurge a little on cocktails. Push the PBRs to the back of the fridge and treat yourself to a warm, wintry drink or festive liquor concoction. The following spots will ease you into the yuletide spirit in the most delicious way. Who wouldn’t drink to that?

TRAD’R SAM


After lugging around shopping bags, groceries, bikes — you name it — kick back a few hot-spiced buttered rums ($5.50) at Trad’r Sams. The historic tiki bar opened in 1941, and while the drinks aren’t top shelf, they’re strong and consistent, like most things from that era. For this classic cold-weather drink, Sam’s bartenders use a special batter with top-secret ingredients and mix it with a healthy serving of rum and hot water. The bar itself is a little odd, a little kitschy, and more dive than date spot, but proven mastery of this delightfully warming beverage outweighs all that.

6150 Geary, SF. (415) 221-0773

TOSCA CAFE


Another warm holiday beverage that’ll help chase away worries and strife: the house cappuccino ($6) at Tosca. In reality, this drink is nothing like a cappuccino. It’s a brandy and hot chocolate concoction layered into sweet little glasses, which seems to pair perfectly with the dimly-lighted bar, its cozy red vinyl booths, and the jukebox playing Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. The stiff drinks and unpretentious bartenders add to the charm. And lucky you! Tosca serves this signature cocktail year-round.

242 Columbus, SF. (415) 986-9651

ABSINTHE RESTAURANT AND BAR


Bartender Ismael Robles doesn’t just make great drinks — he invents them. Recently he’s been making the Velvet Hive ($10), a variation on the hot toddy that’s served cold. Robles’ version is made with honey vodka, clove and citrus liqueurs, fresh lemon juice, and allspice dram. Even though this drink isn’t heated, there’s nothing like notes of honey, clove, and allspice to warm you right up.

398 Hayes, SF. (415) 551-1590, www.absinthe.com

Luna Park

During the winter months, you can’t walk past Luna Park without noticing the enticing aroma of the warm mulled wine ($7) that’s always simmering in a crockpot this time of year. Made with red wine, sugar, cinnamon, cloves and orange peel, this aromatic delight is available Thanksgiving through New Year’s.

694 Valencia, SF. (415) 553-8584, www.lunaparksf.com

Be Merry

After you’ve had your fair share of hot buttered rum and gingerbread people, we’re betting that being merry won’t be far out of reach. But in case you need a little guidance, here’s our tip: grab a friend or loved one — or 10 — and introduce them to the delights mentioned above. The best way to guarantee good cheer is to spread it.

x plus x equals xx

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x one: 2009 is 1989 all over again. Exhibit 89: The xx intro themselves near Fascination Street, somewhere across the city from the fine times and vanishing points where Memory Tapes currently resides. Truth be told, that year is just one of many pre-millennial ones this sneaky group taps into and renovates. Their minor key, lowercase late night musings shine darkly like Young Marble Giants circa-1979. Their slowly uncoiling guitar lines accompany a less chaste version of the gorgeous languor on Unrest’s 1992 imperial f.f.r.r. (Teen Beat), an album whose male-female vocal duality was an outgrowth of the shoegaze craze of — wait for it — 1989. When they cast their eyes at infinity, the brooding atmosphere and cavernous reverb sound a bit like the wicked games and twin peaks of 1989, as well. The canny use of space and silence, masculine and feminine on The xx (Young Turks) might reach maximum seduction and propulsion on “Islands,” where the low-end throbs like Tricky breaking free from the Wild Bunch and the angular guitar melodies flutter with excitement as Oliver Sims’ sexy cig-rasp snakes in and out of Romy Madley Croft’s soft, lazy lead vocal. Too many British female vocalists go so wan they lose all sense of lust. But not her — not here. (Johnny Ray Huston)

x two: “Basic space, open air … don’t look away when there’s nothing there.” On the intimate Independent stage, what will the emotionally prickly xx share? The quartet’s just lost keyboardist Baria Qureshi due to exhaustion and their much-hyped live show at CMJ this year was called “warmed-over Tracey Thorn” by a cheeky New York Times critic. That would seem paradoxical (no one associates physical exhaustion with Everything But the Girl appearances) if paradox wasn’t the xx’s creative engine, the push-pull of sexual relationships churning lyrically within an obsessively polished, passive-aggressively spare musical backdrop. The xx‘s “Basic Space” might be the best encapsulation of this Ziploc-ed bleeding heart aesthetic. From its inverted horror-movie metaphors — co-singer Oliver Sims climbs into a pool of boiling wax, which provides him with a “shine,” a “second skin,” while Romy Madley Croft states, “I’ll take you in pieces” — to its plucky Smiths-pinching final phrases and tin-Casio organ chords, the track is at the razor’s edge of current indie pop sensibilities. What’s uniquely its own, though, besides the way the tune’s steel-blue flicker runs up your discs, and what the xx brings to the world of rock, is a voluble taciturnity — yearning for personal space while lamenting its necessity, holding yourself together by breaking into pieces, creating a killer dance tune just one whiff away from silence. Sustaining that attitude live will be a neat trick. (Marke B.)

THE XX

With Friendly Fires, Holly Miranda

Nov 23, 9 p.m., sold out

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

Pot in the kettle

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culture@sfbg.com

Save for the teeny-weeny skirts and gunfights, Sandy Moriarty is like Nancy Botwin, the main character of Showtime’s Weeds. To casual observers, these women may look like regular God-fearing folk, but in their circle of marijuana smokers and edibles-eaters, both are local celebrities. Unlike the activities of her television counterpart, everything Moriarty does is legal.

Known now for best-selling lemon bars — sold exclusively through Oakland’s Blue Sky dispensary and made with her psychedelic 10X cannabutter — and as a cooking professor at Oakland’s Oaksterdam University, Moriarty’s culinary escapades with cannabis began as a personal endeavor to test the plant’s potency.

"I’ve always been interested in cooking and I was intrigued by the process of cooking with cannabis," said the Fairfield resident. "I wanted to push the plant to its limits and see what it could render me."

In the process, Moriarty discovered she could help a larger range of cannabis patients who needed stronger medication in their food. These "extreme case" patients, Moriarty said, include those with spinal injuries, cancer, and multiple sclerosis.

"The need for something stronger [than what was available] intrigued me," said the mother of two. "I wanted to help those people."

So for several years Moriarty sporadically experimented with different cooking techniques. Her aha! moment came in the fall of 2004, when she discovered that slowly simmering a mixture of butter, leaf shake, and water for a few hours would evaporate the water and render all the THC-rich trichomes off the leaves. Unlike the cannabutters she had produced before, she could smell a sweet, rich, and buttery aroma that had a nutty taste.

"I let other people try it, and when they started dropping like flies, I knew that was it," Moriarty said. "It was like — wow!"

The discovery helped the 58-year-old catapult her life in a new direction. Though still a property manager by day, Moriarty now tends simmering stockpots of cannabutter in the kitchen of her ranch-style home at least four times a week (usually in the late evening or near dawn). And since January 2008, she’s been sharing how to make her cannabutter, as well as other ways to cook with pot through oils and alcohol-based tinctures at Oaksterdam cannabis college.

Indeed, her cooking class — which is incorporated into a Oaksterdam weekend and semester curriculum that includes lessons on horticulture and politics/legal issues — is one of the most popular courses at the school. "A lot of students come just for the cooking," says Oaksterdam facilitator Trish Demesmin. "And once she gets to talking about her 10x butter, they’re all ears."

But Moriarty hasn’t stopped there. Feeling that she has conquered the realm of baked edibles — her creations, which are known for packing a potent THC punch without the ganja taste or smell, have gained something of a cult following — Moriarty is now focused on creating savory dishes such as pastas, salad dressings, and sandwiches. And thanks to the super-concentrated butter, Moriarty has been able to incorporate the green herb into dishes like fillet of sole Florentine, Thanksgiving turkey — even fried chicken. She plans to feature these dishes, along with recipes for baked goods, drinks, and vegan- and diabetes-friendly food items, in her upcoming cookbook, tentatively titled Cooking with Cannabis.

Moriarty’s brother Al Wilcox says his big sister has come a long way from her days of baking brownies filled with stems and seeds. Wilcox, who medicates every day to help his arthritis, said the greatest advantage of his sister’s food is that its strong potency means patients can eat less while watching their weight. The proud sibling predicts Moriarty could become the next Brownie Mary. "She’s done this all on her own, and she’s been real gung-ho about it," Wilcox said. "She wanted to help people, and now she is."

To attend Moriarty’s cooking class, enroll at Oaksterdam University, 1776 Broadway, Oakl. (510) 251-1544, www.oaksterdamuniversity.com. Weekend seminars and semester-long courses are available. All students must be 18+. Nonmedical cardholders are welcome.

A CANNABIZED THANKSGIVING

Want to take your Thanksgiving dinner to new heights? Try Moriarty’s recipes below.

CANNABUTTER STUFFING


1 cup cannabutter (plus an extra 1/2 cup or less to rub inside and outside of the turkey)

2 cup chopped onions

1 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1 Tbs. fresh sage or 1 tsp. dried sage

1 Tbs. fresh thyme or 1 tsp. dried thyme

3/4 tsp. salt

1/2tsp. pepper

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. clove

1 cup chicken stock

2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350. Mix all the ingredients together, except for the chicken stock and eggs. Blend the mix with the chicken stock and eggs. Rub extra cannabutter on the outside and inside the cavity of the turkey. Stuff the turkey with stuffing mix and bake for 20 minutes per pound. Bake until outside of the turkey is golden brown and stuffing reached 165-degrees.

BLUEBERRY MUFFIN BARS



2 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tbs. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

1 cup milk

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 cup cannater melted

1 tsp. vanilla

1 1/2 cup fresh or thawed frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9×12 baking pan. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt. Blend the eggs, milk, sugar, and cannabutter together. Mix the flour and cannabutter mixtures together, including the blueberries. Bake for 30 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.

Checkout time

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news@sfbg.com

Two consecutive three-day strikes by hotel workers signaled a change in strategy for local labor, which is struggling to hold on to past gains in an increasingly bitter contract dispute during this economic downturn.

Hotel employees affiliated with UNITE HERE! Local 2 walked off the job at the Grand Hyatt on Nov. 6, kicking off a 72-hour work stoppage that labor organizers said was centered on the Hyatt but aimed at more than a dozen luxury hotels staffed by Local 2 workers.

Another strike, in front of the Palace Hotel, started Nov. 10 and ended at midnight Nov. 12. In both actions, hundreds of Local 2 members and other supporters expressed frustration at the hotels, claiming the hotel industry is scaling back employee benefits while reaping impressive profits.

"The hotel industry pulled down $110 billion in profits last year," said Mike Casey, president of Local 2, which represents approximately 12,000 hospitality workers in San Francisco and San Mateo. "Despite the so-called down economy, we feel like we should be able to move forward, at least modestly."

Casey and other Local 2 organizers pointed to the recent windfall of the Hyatt chain’s owners, the Pritzger family, who scooped up $950 million in an initial public offering for the company. "One family is getting all this money, and they’re quibbling over $250,000," said Casey, referring to the amount he says it would take to meet all of the local union’s demands.

Meanwhile, stalled negotiations have left workers without a contract since Aug. 14. Key factors in the dispute involve proposed rule changes for new hires and cuts in health care coverage that striking workers called unacceptable.

"We’re seeing an average increase in health care costs of about 12 percent per year," said Jeff Myers, a banquet waiter at the Westin St. Francis, and a member of Local 2’s 125-person negotiating team. "The hotel is paying for 2 percent of that."

"We expect to be in a long fight," said Carlos Narvaez, a 13-year employee at the Palace Hotel, where he works as a purchasing clerk. "But it’s a fight for justice, not only for us, but for new hires, who would be most affected."

Narvaez explained that under the new contract proposed by the hotels, new hires would be ineligible for pensions, and probationary periods for benefits would be extended from months to years. "If they’re planning to replace us, (new employees) don’t know what’s coming."

The tactic of going after one hotel at a time, rather than a blanket work stoppage, indicated the union’s desire to put pressure on hotel owners while limiting economic hardship to the rest of the city, and the potential for negative blowback. The latest round of negotiations broke down Nov. 12 when Hyatt rejected Local 2’s proposal for a one-year contract with some concessions on pay, rather than the customary five-year deal.

"You can’t have it both ways. If you want a cheap contract, fine, we’ll do it for a limited time. You can’t have a cheap long-term contract," Casey said, noting a one-year contract is partly a bet by Local 2 that the economy will be in better shape next year.

It also happens to line up with contract expiration dates for UNITE HERE! hotel workers in several cities throughout the U.S. and Canada, potentially giving the union greater leverage in contract negotiations next year.

At the Grand Hyatt strike, workers marched several blocks to the Westin St. Francis, where they held an impromptu picket for 20 minutes before returning to the Grand Hyatt. "It’s just a taste of what could happen," Casey said, splitting the group into two disciplined forces that filled the sidewalk while leaving the entrance to the St. Francis clear.

"They’re afraid it’s going to turn into 2004," Casey said of hotel owners, referring to a two-week stalemate in 2004 in which hotels reacted to the strike by locking out employees of several hotels and bringing in workers from other locations in an attempt to break the strike. But Casey said new times call for new tactics.

"If we did it the same way each time, [management] would be ready for us," Casey said. "We have to keep them on their toes" while staying visible and building incremental support for strikes. "If the strikes last long enough, a boycott could build that would be truly widespread. But let’s hope the hotels come to their senses before then."

The picket lines were festive and noisy, with union members banging drums and shouting catchy call-and-response slogans into no fewer than six bullhorns.

"What time is it?" the bullhorns blared. "It’s checkout time!" the picket line called back. Valets and bellhops at the Grand Hyatt, most wearing foam earplugs and sunglasses, winced as one man beat a large, ornate kettle drum less than five feet from the lobby entrance.

"This is designed to be measured and escautf8g," Casey said of the single-hotel strike approach. Though the two strikes have ended, Casey said boycotts remain in place for both the Grand Hyatt and the Palace Hotel, whose lavish centennial gala last weekend was marred by an additional Local 2 protest outside.

Hotel representatives have been taciturn about the dispute and its impact, issuing short, carefully-worded responses expressing disappointment at Local 2’s actions, and offering sheepish apologies to surprised guests. No hotel representatives were available to speak on record as of press time

Elena Duran, a server at the Palace Hotel, said behind-the-scenes operations have been thrown into disarray by the strikes. "Yesterday there was a fire in the kitchen," Duran said during the Palace strike, "because the new workers don’t know what they’re doing."

Any hotel labor dispute invariably invites comparisons with the 2004 strike. In that conflict, Mayor Gavin Newsom personally intervened, shaking hands with striking workers and declaring that San Francisco would not do business across picket lines. The mayor’s office did not respond to queries about the latest dispute. Local 2 press coordinator Riddhi Mehta said Casey and other union members, as well as their counterparts from the hotels, met with Newsom Nov. 10 for "informational purposes."

City Attorney Dennis Herrera, a likely mayoral candidate, stopped by the picket lines at the Grand Hyatt to offer words of support, telling the cheering strikers: "We are a world-class city. It’s not about the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s not about the views. It’s not about the cable cars. It’s about the work that you do every day."

While Local 2 organizers would welcome Newsom’s renewed support, they aren’t holding their breath. Rumors that Newsom had cut short his vacation to help defuse the situation were greeted with cautious optimism by negotiating team members.

Myers said the hotels were essentially attempting to externalize their employee’s health care costs, which would impose a burden on the city budget. Because of San Francisco’s universal health care program, Myers said, "If hotel workers can’t pay their co-pay, that cost will go to the city. That is abundantly clear to the mayor."

Seizing space

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steve@sfbg.com; molly@sfbg.com

San Francisco’s streets and public spaces are undergoing a drastic transformation — and it’s happening subtly, often below the radar of traditional planning processes. Much of it was triggered by the renegade actions of a few outlaw urbanists, designers, and artists.

But increasingly, their tactics and spirit are being adopted inside City Hall, and the result is starting to look like a real urban design revolution — one that harks back to a movement that was interrupted back in the 1970s.

One of the earliest signs of the new approach emerged in 2005 on the first Park(ing) Day, the brainchild of the hip, young founders of the urban design group Rebar. The idea was simple: turn selected street parking spots around San Francisco into little one-day parks. Just plug some coins in the meter to rent the space, then set up chairs or lay down some sod, and kick it.

It was a simple yet powerful statement about how San Franciscans choose to use public space — and the folks at Rebar expected to get in trouble.

“When we did the first Park(ing) Day in 2005, JB [a.k.a. John Bela] and I were just prepared to be arrested and hauled into court,” Rebar’s Matthew Passmore told us at a recent interview in the group’s new Mission District warehouse space. “But nothing like that happened.”

Instead, City Hall called. 079_realcover.jpg Rebar’s Blaine Merker, Teresa Aguilera, Matthew Passmore, and John Bela at their carfreee space at Showplace Triangle

“We got a call from the director of city greening, who said this is great, I want to meet with you guys and talk about how the city can support this kind of activity,” Passmore said. “Much to our surprise, the city was totally responsive as opposed to shutting us down and imprisoning us.”

Bela said the group discovered that Mayor Gavin Newsom’s administration was looking for just the sort of innovative, cool, environmental ideas that were Rebar’s focus. And that connection merged with other people’s efforts — like sidewalk-to-garden conversions being pioneered by Jane Martin, the urban gardening and bicycling movements, and the unique public art that was making its way back from Burning Man. That created a catalyst for a wide array of city initiatives, from the Sunday Streets road closures to temporary art installations that began popping up around the city to the Pavement to Parks program that creates short-term parks in underutilized roadways.

“It was a single interaction five years ago, and now we have things like Sunday Streets,” Bela told us on Sept. 18’s Park(ing) Day, in which various individuals and groups took over more than 50 parking spots around town. “It’s about reclaiming the streets for people.”

Park(ing) Day itself blew up, becoming a worldwide phenomenon that is now in 151 cities on six continents, and one that the Mayor’s Office is planning to turn into a more permanent plan, with the regular conversion of some parking spots on commercial corridors into outdoor seating areas.

“You had a few guys and a girl who had an idea and now it’s an international event,” Mike Farrah, a longtime Newsom lieutenant who now heads the Office of Neighborhood Services and has been the main contact in City Hall for Rebar and similar groups, told the Guardian.

Locally, the success of events like Park(ing) Day have changed San Francisco’s approach to urban spaces, particularly on land left dormant by the economic downturn. Rebar, the permaculture collective Upcycle, and former MyFarm manager Chris Burley plan to turn the old Hayes Valley freeway property near Octavia, between Oak and Fell streets, into a massive community garden and gathering space. Plans are being hatched for temporary uses on Rincon Hill properties approved for residential towers. “Green pod” seating areas are sprouting along Market Street and there are plans to extend the Sunday Streets road closures next year. And, perhaps most amazingly, most projects are being accomplished with very little funding.

How has San Francisco suddenly shifted into high gear when it comes to creating innovative new public spaces? The key is their common denominator: they’re all temporary. As such, they don’t require detailed studies, cumbersome approval processes, or the extensive outreach and input that can dampen the creative spark.

But San Francisco is starting to prove that dozens of short-term fixes can add up to a true transformation of the urban environment and the citizenry’s sense of possibility.

 

EVOLUTION OF THE PRANK

Rebar began as a group of friends and artists who came together to enter a design contest in 2004. Passmore was a practicing lawyer and Bela was a landscape architecture student at UC Berkeley. They chose the name Rebar for future collaborations, the first of which was Park(ing) Day.

Passmore, who had a background in conceptual art before going to law school, discovered a legal loophole that might allow for anything from a burlesque performance to a temporary swimming pool to be installed in metered parking spaces. Bela recruited Blaine Merker, a fellow landscape architecture student with whom he’d won a design competition, to join the effort.

Park(ing) Day was a hit, getting great press and igniting people’s imaginations. “We realized after we did it, like, oh, people are really getting this,” Merker said. And Rebar was off. In the following years they added a fourth principal, graphic designer Teresa Aguilera, and took on a number of acclaimed projects: planting the Victory Garden in Civic Center Plaza, building the Panhandle Bandshell from old car hoods and other recycled parts, creating COMMONspace events (from “Counterveillance” to the “Nappening”) in privately-owned public spaces, and designing the Bushwaffle (commissioned for the Experimenta-Design biennale in Amsterdam) to help soften paved urban spaces and create a sense of play.

Through it all, the group maintained its prankster spirit. When they were invited to present the Bandshell project at the prestigious Venice Biennale festival, Rebar members showed up costumed as Italian table-tennis players (a joke that mostly baffled other attendees, they said).

They told us every project needed to have a “quotient of ridiculum.” Or as Bela put it, “That’s how we know project has evolved to the right point — when we’re on the floor laughing.”

As Rebar found success, it was still mostly a side project for members who had other full-time jobs. “We were all playing hooky all the time,” said Merker, who, like Bela, joined a landscape architecture firm after he finished school. “It just got worse and worse.”

So now, they’re trying to turn their passion into a profession, recently moving into a cool warehouse office and workspace in the Mission. “We’re shifting our practice a little to have the same sort of spirit but trying to figure out how we can make that an occupation,” Merker said.

It’s also about moving from those short-lived installations to something a little more lasting, even while working within the realm of temporary projects. As Aguilera said, “A lot of the projects we started with were creating moments to maybe think about. But we’re shifting into more permanent ways to interact with the city.”

They may not be sure where they’re headed as an organization, but they have a clear conception of their canvas, as well as the traditions they draw from (including movements like the Situationists and artists such as Gordon Matta-Clark, who worked in urban niche spaces) and the fact that they are part of an emerging international movement to reclaim and redesign urban spaces.

“We’re not the originators of any of this stuff,” Bela said. “It’s like emerging phenomena happening in cities all over the world. We just happened to have plugged into it early on and we continue to push it.”

 

EXPANDING THE POSSIBLE

Rebar is strongly pushing a reclamation of spaces that have been rather thoughtlessly ceded to the automobile over the last few decades. “Street right-of-way is 25 percent of the city’s land area. A quarter of the city is streets,” Bela said. “And those streets were designed at the time when we wanted to privilege the automobile.

“So basically, there’s all this underutilized roadway,” he continued. “It’s asphalt and it’s pavement, and the city wants to reclaim some of those spaces for people. That’s a thread we’ve been exploring in our work for a long time, and now it’s elevated up to a citywide planning objective.”

The short-term nature of the projects comes in part from political necessity: temporary projects are usually exempt from costly, time-consuming environmental impact reports. Demonstration projects also don’t need the extensive public input that permanent changes do in San Francisco. But there’s more to the philosophy.

“It stands on this proposition that temporary or interim use does actually improve the character of the city,” Passmore said. “People used to think that if something is temporary or ephemeral, what good is it? It’s just here today, gone tomorrow. But I think now people are realizing that the city can be improved like this.”

And it goes even deeper than that. When people see parking spaces turned into parks, vacant lots blossoming with art and conversation nooks, or old freeway ramps turned into community gardens, their sense of what’s possible in San Francisco expands.

“What we’re remodeling is people’s mental hardware. It’s like stretching. You have to bend something a little more than it wants to go, and the next time you do that, it’s that much easier,” Merker said.

“There’s also a psychological aspect to that. When people see a crack in the Matrix open up, if you will, it can open up a whole lot more than just that one moment,” he said.

For those who have been working on urbanism issues in San Francisco for a long time, like Livable City director Tom Radulovich, this new energy and the tactic of conditioning people with temporary projects is a welcome development. “There is a huge resistance to change in San Francisco, no matter what the change is, and a lot of that stems from fear,” Radulovich said. But with temporary projects, he said, “you can establish what success looks like from the outset.”

 

BUILDING ALLIANCES

The Rebar folks have been fairly savvy in their approach, making key friends inside City Hall, people who have helped them bridge the gap between their idealism and what’s possible in San Francisco.

“We are a process-driven city, and temporary allows you to create change without fear,” Farrah told us. He said the partnership between the Mayor’s Office and community groups that want to do cool, temporary public art really began in the summer of 2005 with the Temple at Hayes Green by longtime Burning Man temple builder, David Best.

Farrah had connections to the Burning Man community, so he facilitated the placement of the temple along Octavia Boulevard, then one of the city’s newest and least developed public spaces. Next came the placement of another Burning Man sculpture, Flock by Michael Christian, in Civic Center Plaza that fall. Both projects got funding and support from the Black Rock Arts Foundation, a public art outgrowth of Burning Man.

“I saw, after some of the temporary art and special events, how it’s changed people’s ideas about what’s possible,” Farrah said. “There has been a change in the way people view the streets.”

That got Farrah thinking about what else could be done, so he approached BRAF’s then-director Leslie Pritchett and Rebar’s Bela, telling them, “I need you to look at San Francisco like a canvas. Tell me the things you want to do, and I’ll tell you if it’s possible or not. And that’s led to a lot of cool stuff.”

Livable city advocates like Radulovich — progressives who are generally not allied with Newsom and who have battled with him on issues from limiting parking to the Healthy Saturdays effort to create more carfree space in Golden Gate Park — give the Mayor’s Office credit for its greening initiatives.

He credits Greening Director Astrid Haryati and DPW chief Ed Reiskin with facilitating this return to urbanism. “He’s really responsive and he gets it,” Radulovich said of Reiskin. “This is really where a lot of energy is going in the mayor’s office. It seems to have captured their imaginations.”

Another catalyst was last year’s visit by New York City transportation commissioner and public space visionary Janette Sadik-Khan, who met with Reiskin and Newsom on a trip sponsored by Livable City and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. Radulovich said her message, which SF has embraced, is that, “There are low-cost, reversible ways you can reclaim urban space in the near term.”

The Mayor’s Office, SFBC, and Livable City partnered last year to create Sunday Streets, which involved closing streets to cars for part of the day. The events have proven hugely successful after overcoming initial opposition from merchants who now embrace it.

Then there’s the Pavement to Parks program — which involves converting streets into temporary parks for weeks or months at a time — that grew directly from the Sadik-Khan visit. Andres Power, who directs the program for the Planning Department, told us the visit was a catalyst for Pavement to Parks: “She came to the city a year ago and inspired my director, Ed Reiskin.”

“We’re rethinking what the streets are and what they can be,” Power said. “It’s rewarding to see this stuff happen and to be at the forefront of a national effort to imagine what our streets could be.”

 

DE-PAVE THE CONCRETE

Pavement to Parks launched last year, a multiagency effort with virtually no budget, but the mandate to use existing materials the city has on hand to turn underutilized streets into active parks. “It looks at areas where we can reclaim space that’s been given over to cars over the decades,” Power told the Guardian.

At the first site, where 17th Street meets Market and Castro, the city and volunteer groups used planters and chairs to convert a one-block stretch of street that was little-used by cars because of the Muni line at the site.

“We bent over backward to make the space look temporary,” Power said, noting the concern over community backlash that never really materialized, leading to two time extensions for the project. “But we’re now ready to revamp that whole space.”

Another Pavement to Parks site at Guerrero and San Jose streets was created by Jane Martin, whom Newsom appointed to the city’s Commission on the Environment in part because of the innovative work she has done in creating and facilitating sidewalk gardens since 2003.

As a professional architect, Martin was used to dealing with city permits. But her experience in obtaining a “minor sidewalk encroachment permit” to convert part of the wide sidewalk near a building she owned on Shotwell Street into a garden convinced her there was room for improvement.

“At that point, I was really jazzed with the result and response [to her garden] and I wanted to make it so we could see more of it,” she said. So she started a nonprofit group called PlantSF, which stands for Permeable Lands As Neighborhood Treasure. Martin worked with city agencies to create a simpler and cheaper process for citizens to obtain permits and help ripping up sidewalks and planting gardens.

“We want to de-pave as much excess concrete as possible and do it to maximize the capture of rainwater,” she said.

Martin said the models she’s creating allow people to do the projects themselves or in small groups, encouraging the city’s DIY tradition and empowering people to make their neighborhoods more livable. More than 500 people have responded, creating gardens on former sidewalks around the city.

“We’ll get farther faster with that model,” she said. “It’s really about engaging people in their neighborhoods and helping them personalize public spaces.”

San Francisco has always been a process-driven city. “We in San Francisco tend to plan and design things to death, so as a result, everything takes a very long time,” Power said.

But with temporary projects under Pavement to Parks, the city can finally be more nimble and flexible. Three projects have been completed so far, and the goal is to have up to a dozen done by summer.

“We’re working feverishly to get the rest of the projects going,” Power said.

One of those projects involves an impending announcement of what Power called “flexible use of the parking lane” in commercial corridors like Columbus Avenue in North Beach. “We’re taking Park(ing) Day to the next level.”

The idea is to place platforms over one or two parking spots for restaurants to use as curbside seating, miniparks, or bicycle parking. “The Mayor’s Office will be announcing in the next few weeks a list of locations,” Power said. “There have been locations that have come to us asking for this.”

“The idea is to do a few of these as a pilot to determine what works and what doesn’t. The goal is to use their trial implementation to develop a permanent process,” Power said. “We want to think of our street space as more than a place for cars to drive through or park.”

Rebar was responsible for the last of the completed Pavement to Parks projects. Known as Showplace Triangle, it’s located at the corner of 16th and Eighth streets in the Showplace Square neighborhood near Potrero Hill. For Rebar, it was like coming full circle.

“We started doing this stuff about five years ago, finding these niches and loopholes and exploring interim use as a strategy for activating urban space,” Bela said. “And to our surprise, what we perceived as a tactical action is now being embodied by strategic players like the Planning Department.”

 

REUSE, RECYCLE, REINVENT

The Rebar crew was like kids in a candy store picking through the DPW yard.

“These projects are all built with material the city owns already, so we had the opportunity to go down to the DPW yard and inventory all of these materials they had, and figure out ways to configure them to make a successful street plaza,” Bela said.

So they turned old ceramic sewer pipes into tall street barriers topped by planter boxes, and built lower gardens bordered by old granite curbs.

“We are trying to be as creative as possible with the use of materials the city already has on hand,” Power said. In addition to the DPW yard that Rebar tapped for Showplace Triangle, Power said the Public Utilities Commission, Port of SF, and the Recreation and Parks Department all have yards around the city that are filled with materials.

“They each have stockpiles of unused stuff that has accumulated over the years,” he said.

For her Pavement to Parks project on Guerrero, Martin used fallen trees that originally had been planted in Golden Gate Park — pines, cypress, eucalyptus — but were headed for the mulcher. Not only were they great for creating a sense of place, they offered a nod to the city’s natural history.

But perhaps the coolest material that had been sitting around for decades was the massive black granite blocks that Rebar incorporated into Showplace Triangle. “One of the most interesting materials that we used in Showplace Triangle was the big granite blocks from Market Street that were taken off because merchants didn’t like people encamping there. They were too successful as spaces, so they got torn out,” Merker said.

Bela said they couldn’t believe their eyes: “We saw these stacks of five-by-five by one-foot deep black granite. Just extraordinary. If we were to do a public project today, we could never afford that stuff. There’s no way. But the taxpayers bought that stuff back in the ’70s and now it’s just sitting there in the DPW yard. It’s a crime that it’s not being used, so it was great to get it back out on the street.”

Radulovich said the return of the black granite boxes to the streets represents the city coming full circle. He remembers talking to DPW manager Mohammad Nuru as he was removing the last of them from Market Street in the 1970s, citing concerns about people loitering on them.

“To see them put up again in JB’s project was symbolic of where the city went and where it’s coming back from,” Radulovich said. “It’s almost like the livability revolution got interrupted and we lost two decades and now it’s picking up again.”

Back in the 1970s, Radulovich said the city was actively creating new public spaces such as Duboce Triangle. It was also creating seating along Market Street and generally valuing the creation of gathering places. But in the antitax era that followed, public sector maintenance of the spaces lagged and they were discovered by the ever-growing ranks of the homeless that were turned loose from institutions.

“The fear factor took over,” Radulovich said. “We did a lot to destroy public spaces in the ’80s and ’90s.”

But by creating temporary public spaces, people are starting to realize what’s been lost and to value it again. “These baby steps are helping us relearn what makes a good public space,” Radulovich said.

For much of the younger generation, building public squares is a new thing. As Aguilera noted, “We don’t have a lot of public plazas anymore or places for people to gather. When Obama was elected, where did everyone go in the city? Into the streets. So we’re trying to give that back to the city.”

 

CARS TO GARDENS

Perhaps the most high-profile laboratory for these ideas is the Hayes Valley Farm, a temporary project planned for the 2.5 acres of freeway left behind after the Loma Prieta earthquake. The publicly-owned land between Oak and Fell streets is slated for housing projects that have been stalled by the slow economy.

“The site’s been vacant for 10 years. They came up with a beautiful master plan. And the moment they’re ready to move on the master plan, there’s an economic collapse, so nothing is happening,” Bela said.

In the meantime, the Mayor’s Office and Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association pushed for temporary use of the neglected site. They approached the urban farming collectives MyFarm and Upcycle. Later, Rebar was brought in to design and coordinate the project.

Now the group known as the Hayes Valley Farm Team has an ambitious plan for the area: part urban garden, part social gathering spot, and part educational space. There will be an orchard of fruit trees, a portable greenhouse, demonstrations on urban farming, and a regular farmers market.

“The different topography of ramps allows for different growing conditions. These ramps are prime exposure to the south,” Merker said. “They create these areas that can produce some really great growing conditions, so it’s kind of funny that this freeway is responsible for that. The ramps actually create different microclimates.”

Most remarkably, the whole project is temporary, designed to be moved in three years. “We’re interested in developing infrastructure and tools and machinery and implements that are sort of coded for the scale of the city: a lot of pedal-powered things, a lot of mobile infrastructure, and smaller things that are designed to be useful in a plot that is only 2.5 acres,” Bela said. “Then when we need to move on, we’ll be able to do that. It’s about being strategic with some of the investments so we can take some of the tools we develop here and move it to the next vacant lot down the street.”

The project has lofty goals, ranging from creating a social plaza in Hayes Valley to educating the public about productive landscaping. “We’re getting away from ideas of turning parks into food production — it can be both,” said David Cody of Upcycle. “We want to just crack the awareness that cities can be multi-use and agriculture doesn’t mean farm.”

This is perhaps the most ambitious temporary project the Mayor’s Office has taken on. “Rebar pushed the envelope on what is possible. I told them it would be a tough one,” Farrah said of the project. But he loves the concept: “You can argue that putting gardens in temporary spaces changes attitudes.”

Symbolically, this land seems the perfect place for such an experiment. “This really is a special spot. If you look at a map of the city, Hayes Valley is in the very center, and this is right in the heart of Hayes Valley,” Aguilera said. “And right now, in the heart of a neighborhood in the heart of the city, there’s this vacant, fallow reminder of what used to be there. We’re looking to turn it into a new beating heart that brings together lots of different parts of the community.”

 

ACTIVATING DORMANT SPACES

Activating dormant spaces in the city isn’t easy, particularly for properties with pending projects. In Hayes Valley, for example, the Rebar crew was required to develop a detailed takedown plan.

“A lot of development is hesitant to get involved with these interim uses because at the end, they’re worried that it’s going to be framed as the evil, money-hungry developer coming in to kick out artists or farmers,” Passmore said. “But the reality is, they are very generously opening up their space is the first place.”

With last year’s crash of the rental estate and credit markets, development in San Francisco stalled, leaving potentially productive land all over the city. “As the city has gone through an economic downturn, like now, the city has a lot of vacant lots with developer entitlements on them, but nothing is being built right now. Those are spaces the public has an interest in,” Merker said, citing Rincon Hill as a key example.

Michael Yarne, who facilitates development projects for the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development, has been working on how developers might be encouraged to adopt temporary uses of their vacant lots.

“How can we credit them to do a greening project on a vacant lot?” Yarne asks, a problem that is exacerbated by the complication that neither the developers nor local government have money to fund the interim improvements.

He looked at the possibility of using developer impact fees on short-term projects, but there are legal problems with that approach. The courts have placed strict limits on how impact fees are charged and used, requiring detailed studies proving that the fees offset a project’s real cost and damage.

“But there is other value we can give as a city without spending a dollar — and that is certainty,” said Yarne, a former developer. He said developers value certainty more than anything else.

Right now, developers have to return to the Planning Commission every year or so to renew project entitlements, something that costs time and money and potentially places the project at risk. But he said the city might be able to enter into developer agreements with a project proponent, waiving the renewal requirement for a certain number of years in exchange for facilitating short-term projects.

“Everyone wins. We get a short-term use, and the developer gets certainty that they won’t lose their rights,” Yarne said, noting that he’s now developing a pilot project on Rincon Hill. “If that works, that could be a template we could use over and over.”

Radulovich is happy to see the new energy Rebar and other groups are infusing into a quest to remake city streets and lots, and with the use of temporary projects to expand the realm of the possible in people’s minds: “Let’s get people reimagining what the streets could be.”

www.rebargroup.org

Holiday Guide 2009

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Does this time of year leave you mumbling “Bah, humbug!” (or maybe “Holidays schmolidays!”)? We understand. The commercialism of this season can feel crippling, especially in an economy as dismal as this one. But here’s hoping our guide to affordable gifts, uplifting food and spirits, and festive destinations helps put some of the cheer back into a season that has potential for so much of it. And if that still doesn’t work? Buy a batch of barleywine. A few bottles in, you won’t even remember what month this is. (Molly Freedenberg, Holiday Guide Editor)


Drunk on holiday spirit
Events, performances, and places to get you in the mood


Gifts on a shoestring
Cheap and DIY ideas for personal gifts


Season’s eatings
Treats and tipples to tickle your holiday fancy


Presents of mind
Gifts that give back


Holiday hops
Seasonal brews to chase away those cold weather blues


Good work
Ways to give your time


Merry mayhem
Gifts for gamers


That’s a wrap
Gifts for movie geeks


‘Tis the season to be Jewy

Appetite: Food for Thought helps Mission grads, Frescobaldi gets Luce

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Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.

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Digging into some Food for Thought

11/11-11/23 of the Mission’s best restaurants participate in "Food for Thought" to help Mission grads get to college
Do nothing but eat out at one of your favorite Mission restaurants this Wednesday night and you’ll be helping some of the neediest Mission high school grads get to college. With 23 of the ‘hood’s best restaurants participating, a portion of all dinner sales (restaurants have committed anywhere from 25-100% of that night’s sales) go to Food for Thought. In it for the long haul, Food for Thought offers, among other things, tutoring centers for elementary school kids, academic support groups in junior high, and college prep programs for high school students, working with them through each phase of schooling. There’s even raffle prizes at each restaurant, like a trip for two to Mexico. You don’t have to be told twice to eat out at Range, Mission Beach Cafe, Little Star Pizza, or Bar Bambino, do you?
11/11 regular hours at 23 Mission restaurants
List of participating restaurants: www.missiongraduates.org/foodforthought

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A Luce interior

11/11 – Luce celebrates its Michelin Star with the Frescobaldi family
It’s an honor for a chef to receive a Michelin star, especially a French chef like our own Dominique Crenn at Luce in the Intercontinental Hotel (she’s also on this season of The Next Iron Chef). Luce celebrates in a big way by cooking a 6-course Tuscan feast, Inspirations of Tuscany, with Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi’s wine estates’ executive chef, Donatella Zampoli. Frescobaldi, the legendary Italian family who even traded their wines with Michelangelo back in the day, will, naturally, be pairing their wines with dinner. Not only is this a rare, special night, but $10 of every 6-course dinner benefits CUESA, so the focus remains local as it is international. Courses include Thomas Family Farms potato gnocchi with bone marrow and lobster paired with a glass of 2006 Attems Cicinis, or sweetbread and beef tongue with potato espuma (foam to you), slow cooked egg and pancetta jus partnered with a 2005 Nipozzano Riserva Chianti Classico. Can’t make it out Wednesday? The party rolls on all month until November 21, with a 4-course Michelin Star prix-fixe menu available any night for $60 per person.
$75; $30 for wine pairings
11/11 – make a reservation during regular hours, 5-11pm
888 Howard Street
415-616-6566

www.lucewinerestaurant.com

Listen to the community

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news@sfbg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Crossing the line

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sarah@sfbg.com

Estella (a fake name she used to protect her identity) is a single mother of five who came to the United States from Latin America when her oldest daughter was a baby, hoping for a better future for her family.

But thanks to a shift in San Francisco’s sanctuary policy that Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered last year, Estella’s daughter — we’ll call her Maria, now 15 — was seized by federal immigration authorities this fall, ripped from her family and community, and shipped to a detention center in Miami.

Her crime: she got in a fight with her younger, U.S.-born sister.

The experience shattered Estella’s dreams and terrified her family, whom immigration experts describe as "mixed status" because Estella also has U.S.-born children.

It also convinced Estella to speak out publicly to try to convince Newsom that legislation that ensures due process for kids like her daughter is the right thing to do.

Last month, a veto-proof majority of the Board of Supervisors voted to support amendments to Newsom’s current policy in an effort to make sure juveniles get their day in court before being hastily and needlessly referred to federal immigration authorities.

But the next day, Newsom vetoed the legislation introduced by Sup. David Campos, claiming it violates federal law. And now Newsom is refusing to debate the issue with Campos or meet with the community whose kids are at risk of being deported because someone in local law enforcement suspects them of being here without paperwork and accuses them of committing a serious crime.

Under Newsom’s policy, which he ordered without public review in June 2008, city officials are required to refer juveniles whom they suspect of being undocumented felons to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when they book them at Juvenile Hall.

Last month Newsom defended his policy, saying that the city’s sanctuary ordinance, as originally conceived and adopted, was designed to protect law-abiding city residents.

"It was never meant to serve as a shield for people accused of committing serious crimes in our city," Newsom wrote in his veto letter.

His comments followed close on the heels of a San Francisco Chronicle editorial claiming the majority of these juveniles detained are subsequently found guilty of serious crimes.

But this is not true: the Juvenile Probation Department’s 2008 statistics show that 68 percent of the young people arrested in San Francisco that year were found to be innocent.

And as Estella’s story shows, under Newsom’s policy juveniles who have not committed serious crimes are at risk of being reported and detained for possible deportation.

This means a teenager — a 15-year-old girl in this case — could get dropped off in a country she last saw when she was a baby, with no family to meet and take care of her. These kids are at risk of being preyed upon by criminal gangs or "coyotes," often-unscrupulous human traffickers known to abuse and abandon young people during the perilous border crossing.

Most kids in Maria’s situation would want to return to their U.S. home — to their parents, families, friends — the only community they know. But since the federal government has made border crossings increasingly perilous, getting back to the U.S. often requires several thousand dollars in smuggler fees — leaving teens open to harsh exploitation.

In other words, deportation — in Maria’s case, for the crime of a fight with her sister — could be a sentence to years of forced labor, life in a violent gang … or death.

BAD DAY AT SCHOOL


It’s not clear how Maria got into the altercation at school with her sister; fights between siblings and friends in high school are hardly a rare or even terribly remarkable experience. But in this case, Estella told us, a school official reported her daughters’ fight to a social worker, who brought a police officer to Estella’s house for questioning.

As a result, Estella’s daughter was taken to Juvenile Hall. A year ago, she would have had access to a lawyer, who would have helped sort things out. If the fight had been serious or violent, she might have been placed on supervised probation.

But thanks to Newsom’s new policy, probation officers referred her to ICE and its agents swooped in, seized her, and shipped her to Miami.

Ultimately, a juvenile judge in San Francisco recommended Estella’s daughter be put on probation — but by that time, Maria was already in Florida, in a detention center run by a private company under contract to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).

Detainees have no right to a public defender or free legal services. It’s often hard for their families to find out exactly where they are, so detainees wait in detention for immigration officials to decide what to do next.

Maria was fortunate that ORR recommended temporary reunification. Immigrant advocates say that Estella’s daughter is now back in the Bay Area with her family, but is still under deportation proceedings.

They note that one way parents can get their kids back from ICE is by giving up information — including the names, fingerprints, and addresses of other family members — to federal immigration authorities. But parents are not always willing to do that, especially if it could lead to other family members, including children, being deported.

As of press time, a super-majority on the Board of Supervisors is planning to override Newsom’s veto of Campos’ legislation at its Nov. 10 meeting. But the mayor has said he intends to ignore the Campos legislation — a posture that is not only legally questionable, but leaves immigrant parents facing the ongoing nightmare that their teens could get deported to a country they never knew for a crime they didn’t commit.

Immigrant advocates cite the case of a 14-year-old boy who is under ICE removal proceedings after he brought a BB-gun to school, and a Mexican youth who was deported, even though the District Attorney’s Office dismissed the robbery charges against him.

Patti Lee, managing attorney for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office Juvenile Unit, described how the feds recently snatched a kid outside juvenile court, even though the District Attorney’s Office had dismissed his case.

"The kid was coming into court with his mother and the ICE agent had a photo of him, and grabbed him outside the building," Lee said. "His mom was hysterical and it was traumatic for our staff."

These are not isolated cases. ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice told us that 150 juveniles from San Francisco have been referred to ICE, and 114 have been taken into federal custody and transferred to detention facilities since Newsom ordered his policy change in 2008.

Immigration advocates say some of the kids have been sent to Yolo County, while others have been shipped to Oregon, Washington, Indiana, and Florida, making visits from family members, who may themselves be undocumented, extremely difficult.

Eric Quezada, an immigrant advocate and the executive director of Dolores Street Community Services, told us that while kids may try crossing the border to rejoin their families and friends, "lacking the serious dollars to come back, many are deported into extreme poverty or to be part of a gang."

Lee notes that federal immigration authorities have a duty to reunite children with their families. "But if the family is undocumented, its members are afraid to step forward, afraid to step into the Youth Guidance Center," Lee said. "So there are some children sent back to their alleged country of origin, without a family and resources. Because we can’t track them, that may be a death sentence."

DEATH MARCH


As a volunteer with No Mas Muertes (No More Deaths), a humanitarian camp in Arizona, SF Pride member Molly Goldberg has seen firsthand what being deported and trying to cross the border means to immigrants in terms of loss of dignity and life.

Arizona has been an immigrant rights testing ground for years. Shortly after its creation as an agency, the Department of Homeland Security provided millions of dollars to build a wall blocking the easiest terrain, forcing border crossers into the most rugged and dangerous areas, Goldberg said.

"They are bottle-necking it so folks cross in the most difficult, deadly area," she said.

Since the wall went up, the numbers crossing have gone down — but numbers dying have gone up. Goldberg said 184 people have died so far this year. But the numbers of dead could be much higher. "Because of the vultures and other scavengers, bodies are gone pretty quickly," she said.

This year, Service Employee International Union Local 1021 organizer Robert Haaland accompanied Goldberg to the border. Haaland says what he saw convinced him of the need for Campos’ amendment.

"I kept thinking about the Campos legislation in terms of seeing the impact of people crossing the border after being deported," Haaland said. He described a makeshift memorial to a 14-year-old El Salvadoran girl named Josseline whom smugglers left behind after she got sick from eating a bad can of tuna, according to her younger brother. He managed to cross the border, but Josseline died after wandering alone and without water in the border’s dry and inhospitable no man’s land for a week.

Others get left behind and die because they are wearing the wrong shoes and end up with badly blistered feet or are too weak to continue the grueling trek. Haaland recalled seeing water bottles that volunteers had left on the coyote trails but had subsequently been slashed, presumably by nativist vigilantes.

"The Border Patrol is using the desert as a weapon and harassing people who go to the border to give humanitarian aid," Haaland said.

That’s where some of the kids Newsom has sent for deportation will wind up.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?


Although Newsom has made it clear he intends to keep referring kids to ICE, their whereabouts and fate under his policy remains somewhat of a mystery.

Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesperson for ORR, which is responsible for detained juveniles deemed "unaccompanied" (a category they could be placed in if they refuse to divulge the whereabouts of undocumented family members in the U.S.) said he can’t divulge their precise whereabouts because of juvenile confidentiality rules.

Wolfe told the Guardian that kids could be placed in juvenile halls or shelter-like facilities run by private contractors, depending on their crimes. He said ORR is required to report to Congress annually about the program, but the report for FY 2008-09 won’t be available for a few months.

In the meantime, Wolfe e-mailed the Guardian a copy of ORR’s 2007-08 report, which includes a map featuring colored circles to represent the numbers of apprehended kids based on Department of Homeland Security referrals.

The map shows that in 2007-08, less than 100 juveniles were apprehended in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington; 100-250 were apprehended in San Diego; 1,000-1,600 in Phoenix; and 1,600-2,600 at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Presumably, next year’s map will include a colored circle around San Francisco, representing an apprehension rate similar to San Diego. But it probably won’t reveal which facilities these kids were sent to or whether they were ultimately deported, even though these kids were apprehended on the basis of referrals made by local city officials.

Nor will it show what the local community knows full well: that many deported kids cross back over the border to rejoin their families. Only now, because they have been deported, they are forced to go underground and are at risk if being recruited by gangs.

The federal government’s Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) program was transferred from ORR to the Department of Homeland Security in 2003. "The program is designed to provide for the care and placement of unaccompanied alien minors apprehended in the U.S. by Homeland Security agents, border patrol officers, or other law enforcement agencies and are taken into care pending resolution of their claims for relief under U.S. immigration law or released to adult family members or responsible adult guardians," reads the U.S. Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance. "Resolution of their claims may result in release, granting of an immigration status (such as special immigrant juvenile or asylum), voluntary departure, or removal."

According to a 2008 ORR report, "a great number of UAC have been subjected to severe trauma, including sexual abuse and sexual assault in their home countries or on their journey to the U.S.: gang violence, domestic violence, traumatic loss of a parent, and physical abuse and neglect. In addition, UAC experience the increased probability of ongoing trauma as a result of their uncertain legal status and return to difficult life circumstances."

The report also notes that "UAC have indicated that, among other reasons, they leave their home countries for the U.S. to rejoin family, escape abusive family relationships in their home country, or find work to support their families in their home country."

ORR has approximately 7,200 UAC a year in its facilities, which are operated by organizations such as the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. There are more than 41 ORR-funded care provider facilities in 10 different states.

Last year’s ORR report noted that average length of stay in federal detention facilities is 55 days before children are released to family members and other sponsors, move into the adult system, or are returned to their home countries.

"As these programs increase and ICE increasingly places people in them, there’s a financial incentive to keep detaining people." Francisco Ugarte, an immigration lawyer with San Francisco Immigrant Legal and Education Network, told us.

But Abigail Trillin, staff attorney for Legal Services for Children, says ORR is doing a better job of handling juveniles than ICE did. "ORR has the right and obligation to try and place these kids in the least restrictive option," Trillin said. "But being reunified with your family does not in any way change the fact that you are under federal removal proceedings. So you still have a very significant risk of being deported alone to your country of origin."

Having a documented parent helps a juvenile make the case for staying in the U.S. permanently, as does having grounds for asylum. Having siblings who are U.S. citizens or having been here since you were a small child does not significantly help someone’s case.

But ending up in lockup can makes things worse. "If a child is in an ORR secure detention facility, they are less likely to fight their deportation case — a fight that could take up to two years — than if they were reunified with their family," Trillin said. "We have not yet seen a juvenile move from a secure facility to a foster home, but we have in the case of kids who are in ORR shelters for more than three months and have a legal case for staying."

Still, she said it’s possible a child could be flown to an airport in their country of origin without much subsequent support in most Latin American countries. "If they are Mexican, they are flown to the airport in Tijuana, and if there are no relatives, they are turned over to a child welfare agency in Mexico," Trillin said. "I don’t believe that level of cooperation exists elsewhere, though there might be some temporary shelters for them to wait in while their relatives are coming."

All countries of origin will have some involvement, Trillin noted, to the extent that they are contacted because all these kids need travel documentation. But that support is minimal. As she said, "Our country feels that it’s done its duty once the consulates are contacted."

LETTER OF THE LAW


In his Oct. 28 veto letter, Newsom claimed that the supervisors had changed the sanctuary ordinance by "restricting the ability of local law enforcement officers to report juveniles who are in custody after being booked for the alleged commission of a felony and are suspected of vioutf8g the civil provisions of our sanctuary ordinance."

But in a Nov. 2 response to Newsom’s veto, Campos countered that his amendment won’t shield anyone guilty of such crimes and he invited Newsom to publicly debate the issue. "The board and the people of San Francisco deserve to understand more fully why you intend to ignore this policy and the time-honored democratic processes followed in enacting it," Campos wrote. "At stake is the protection of innocent immigrant children that have been unjustly separated from their families."

He also accused Newsom of spreading misinformation about what federal law requires. "City officials have no affirmative legal duty under federal law to expend limited local resources and funding on immigration enforcement," Campos wrote, citing a July 1, 2008 public memo from the City Attorney’s Office and legal experts from Yale Law School, Stanford Law School, and UC Davis Law School who "have all agreed that there is no federal duty to inquire or report."

Noting that the City Attorney’s Office has made it clear that his proposed amendment is "a legally tenable measure," Campos concluded that "the point at which a referral of a minor is made to ICE is ultimately not a legal decision but a policy decision.

"Our criminal justice system rests on the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty; that is why providing youth an opportunity to contest a charge in court is a matter of basic due process," Campos continued. "The current policy is creating a climate of fear in immigrant communities, which means that immigrants who have been victims or witnesses to crimes are afraid to come forward."

The City Attorney’s Office has declined to comment on whether the mayor has the authority to ignore properly approved legislation. "We are not going to comment on legislation that’s still in the legislative process," City Attorney spokesperson Matt Dorsey told us.

But Campos believes the mayor lacks any such authority. "Can the mayor ignore legislation because he believes it’s illegal? Does he have the authority to have the final say? I don’t think so," said Campos, who is an attorney.

Trillin sees Newsom’s refusal to debate the issue with Campos as further confirmation that the Mayor’s Office doesn’t have a substantive argument that its sanctuary policy is a good one. "They can’t defend their position. They can’t win on substance," said Trillin, whose organization frequently provides legal guidance and support for immigrant youth.

She noted that the controversy that prompted Newsom’s policy change started with family reunification efforts. City officials were trying to reunite undocumented teenagers who were caught selling crack in downtown San Francisco with their families in Honduras when ICE officials intercepted them at George Bush Intercontinental/Houston Airport in December 2007 and May 2008.

These interceptions led U.S. Attorney Joe Russoniello, who opposed San Francisco’s sanctuary ordinance when it was introduced in the 1980s, to claim that flying youth back to their families without first referring them to ICE was tantamount to harboring criminals.

After the apprehended city officials claimed they were acting in accordance with San Francisco’s sanctuary ordinance, Russoniello convened a federal grand jury to investigate the city’s juvenile probation department. That investigation still hangs over JPD, even as Sen. Barbara Boxer mulls recommending candidates to replace Russoniello.

Meanwhile, right-wing activists have been blaming the city’s sanctuary policy for the tragic 2008 shootings of three members of the Bologna family, after they discovered that 23-year-old Edwin Ramos, the alleged killer and an MS-13 gang member, was apprehended by San Francisco’s juvenile justice system as a teen, but was never referred to the feds.

Facing this firestorm, Newsom caved to public pressure and followed the advice of Kevin Ryan, his Republican criminal justice director and the only prosecutor fired for cause during the 2006 U.S. attorneys firing scandal, by ordering that the city treat juvenile immigrants as adults, referring them to ICE at the moment of arrest on felony charges.

CHILDREN ON ICE


The same day supervisors approved Campos’ amendment, outgoing LAPD Chief William Bratton urged his department to keep its focus on fighting crime, not illegal immigration, plunging headfirst into the controversy over the federal 287(g) program.

Created in 1996 and expanded in the wake of 9/11 purportedly to counter terrorism and violent crime, the 287(g) program allows the federal government to enter into agreements giving local police the authority to enforce federal immigration laws. This has led many immigrants to mistrust and refuse to cooperate with local cops.

"My officers can’t prevent or solve crimes if victims or witnesses are unwilling to talk to us because of the fear of being deported," Bratton wrote in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece.

"I think what Chief Bratton is saying is different from what we are hearing in San Francisco" Campos said. "Mayor Gavin Newsom seems to be implying that San Francisco’s juvenile probation officers have no choice. But really, there is no law requiring them to refer kids to ICE. So it seems that what the mayor is doing is creating a de facto 287(g) program that gives local officers the power of federal agents."

That’s why Campos said it’s important for Newsom to participate in a public discussion of his intentions. "We need to ask the mayor if what he is saying is that JPD is an arm of ICE. If that’s the case, we need to know."

President Obama promised during the campaign that immigration reform would be part of his legislative agenda, but the White House hasn’t acted much on the issue. Yet immigration attorney Francisco Ugarte is hopeful that the tide is turning locally, as witnessed by the outpouring of support for Campos’ legislation. "Thirty-three percent of San Francisco residents are foreign-born," Ugarte observed. "That’s a really high number, a significant part of the constituency."

Russoniello told the Guardian that immigrants are not entitled to the same level of due process as citizens, implying that the U.S. has a two-tier criminal justice system. "There are citizens, and then there are people," Russoniello said.

Ugarte finds such arguments laughable. "The federal government has to make the argument that the Fourth Amendment does not apply to undocumenteds," Ugarte said. "These are hare-brained ideas that stem from hate and fear. The wonderful part of our country is that we have respect in the laws for all."

Ugarte believes that blaming the tragic Bologna murders on the city’s immigrant youth policy is like arguing that putting people on parole leads to crime. "Yes, there are going to be bad apples," Ugarte said. "But that doesn’t mean we can solve our problems by sending people to another country. L.A. thought it could get rid of gangs by deporting people to El Salvador. But guess what? They only grew the problem."

Patti Lee of the Public Defender’s Office doesn’t believe that the sanctuary policy will change unless the Board exerts financial pressure on Juvenile Probation. "I do not believe the policy will change because JPD is under orders from the mayor," Lee explained. "But JPD is supposed to comply with the legislation. So the Board of Supervisors, through its Public Safety Committee, could question JPD’s chief about his current process and why he isn’t complying with it. The board does have control over JPD’s budget, so it can put the squeeze on them."

"When police arrest and detain an undocumented child and bring them into detention charged with a felony, the minute they come in front gate, JPD has been directed to contact ICE," Lee said. "So we are not even aware until a day or two later, when we receive a police report or when we get a house list the next day, if someone is ICEed or not."

If the kids are unaccompanied and there are no family members in town, they typically go to juvenile lock-up for 30 days and then are released to ICE and get deported," Lee said.

"They are being ICEed even if they are adjudicated," Lee added, noting how her department got one youth’s charges reduced to misdemeanors but JPD reported the youth to ICE anyway, based on the current policy that any undocumented person booked on a felony should be reported at the moment of booking. "So they were ICEed without due process," Lee said. "And these are children."

Sugar Pie DeSanto

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arts@sfbg.com

It’s a sunny afternoon, but the lights are low and moody at Duke’s R&B in Oakland. Sugar Pie DeSanto sits at a table with her manager, James C. Moore of Jasman Records. Her 74th birthday is four days in the rear-view mirror. A fresher, harsher anniversary has her deep in thought. “Gotta be gung-ho,” she says. “If you aren’t, then you’re a deadbeat — and I hate a deadbeat.”

Legends of the “Old Fillmore” float around San Francisco like boozy ghosts, shaming the city’s golf shirt rewrite of itself. It’s as if all that was hip, clean, and gut-bucket funky about San Francisco has been expunged — consigned to work in the garage, where oily coveralls hide the gabardine suits, and a hat-in-hand shuffle has replaced the high-step. Fortunately for us, some forces from the golden age of San Francisco hip are too tough and resilient to back down, back up, or backstep. We have Sugar Pie DeSanto to remind us how marvelous we were — and can be.

Born Umpeylia Marsema Balinton, the “Queen of the West Coast Blues” was raised in the Fillmore District, where she was part of a girl gang called the Lucky 20s, along with her cousin, Etta James. After she won a talent contest in L.A., R&B frontman Johnny Otis signed her to a recording contract in 1954. Because of her doll-like stature, he labeled her “Little Miss Sugar Pie.”

Though a little under five feet and all of 90 pounds, the woman soon to score hits as Sugar Pie DeSanto was one of the “cussing-est” performers backstage, and a mean hoofer to boot. Her backflips at the Apollo and scissor-kicks on the stages of London are the stuff of myth. Recordings from her stint as a songwriter and performer for the famous Chess Records in Chicago still scorch today. The evidence is all over this year’s wig-flopping, witchy Go Go Power: The Complete Chess Singles 1961-1966 (Kent), a slip-in mule kick to the ass of contemporary R&B.

Sugar Pie DeSanto ain’t slowing down. In fact, she’s throwing down — with a quartet of albums in the last decade and a notoriously wild live show. When she sings “Hello San Francisco,” it’s possible to feel the spirit — and the potential — of the city where she grew up. Almost exactly three years to the day that a fire claimed her belongings, her written story, and most painfully, her husband Jesse Davis, she’s at Duke’s Place, decked out in beautiful blue, holding a piano-key purse, and deep in thought. “Thank you Jesus,” she says wryly, upon being called over to take some photos. A few seconds later, she smiles, and lights up the whole damn joint. www.jasmanrecords.com

The battle for District 6

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tredmond@sfbg.com

The race to replace Chris Daly — the always progressive, sometimes hotheaded supervisor who has dominated District 6 politics for almost a decade — is becoming one of the most important battles of 2010, with the balance of power on the board potentially in play.

Through whatever accident of politics and geography, San Francisco’s even-numbered districts — five of which will be up for election next fall — haven’t tended to fall in the progressive column. Districts 2 (Marina-Pacific Heights) and 4 (Outer Sunset) are home to the city’s more conservative supervisors, Michela Alioto-Pier and Carmen Chu. District 8 (the Castro) has elected the moderate-centrist Bevan Dufty, and District 10 is represented by Sophie Maxwell, who sometimes sides with the progressives but isn’t considered a solid left vote.

District 6 is different. The South of Market area is among the most liberal-voting parts of San Francisco, and since 2000, Daly has made his mark as a stalwart of the board’s left flank. And while progressive are hoping for victories in districts 8 and 10 — and will be pouring considerable effort and organizing energy into those areas — Daly’s district (like District 5, the Haight/Western Addition; and District 9, Mission/Bernal Heights) ought to be almost a gimme.

But the prospect of three progressive candidates fighting each other for votes — along with the high-profile entry of Human Rights Commission director Theresa Sparks, who is more moderate politically — has a lot of observers scratching their heads.

Is it possible that the progressives, who have only minor disagreements on the major issues, will beat each other up and split the votes enough that one of the city’s more liberal districts could shift from the progressive to the moderate column?

A FORMIDABLE CANDIDATE


A few months ago, District 6 was Debra Walker’s to lose. The Building Inspection Commission member, who has lived in the district for 25 years, has a long history on anti-gentrification issues and strong support in the LGBT community.

Jim Meko, who also has more than a quarter century in the district and chaired the Western SOMA planning task force, was also a progressive candidate but lacked Walker’s name recognition and all-star list of endorsements.

Then rumors began to fly that school board member Jane Kim — who moved into the district a few months ago — was interested in running. Kim has been a leading progressive voice on the school board and has proven she can win a citywide race. She told me she’s thinking seriously about running, but hasn’t decided yet.

Having Kim in the race might not have been a huge issue — in District 9 last year, three strong progressives competed and it was clear that one would be the ultimate winner. But over the past two weeks, Theresa Sparks has emerged as a likely contender — and if she runs, which seems more than likely at this point, she will be a serious candidate.

Sparks picked up the kind of press most potential candidates would die for: a front-page story in SF Weekly and a long, flattering profile in San Francisco magazine, which called her "San Francisco’s most electrifying candidate since Harvey Milk." Sparks does have a compelling personal tale: a transgender woman who began her transition in middle age, survived appalling levels of discrimination, became a civil rights activist and now is seeking to be the first trans person elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

She has experience in business and politics, served on the Police Commission, and was named a Woman of the Year by the California State Assembly (thanks to her friend Sen. Mark Leno, who would likely support her if she runs).

"Anyone who knows Theresa knows that she is smart, a formidable candidate, can fundraise, and will run a strong race," Robert Haaland, a trans man and labor activist who supports Walker, wrote on a Web posting recently.

She’s also, by most accounts (including her own) a good bit more moderate than Walker, Meko, and Kim.

LAW AND ORDER


Sparks doesn’t define herself with the progressive camp: "I think it’s hard to label myself," she said. "I try to look at each issue independently." Her first major issue, she told me, would be public safety — and there she differs markedly from the progressive candidates. "I was adamantly against cuts to the police department," she said. "I didn’t think this was a good time to reduce our police force."

She said she supported Sup. David Campos’ legislation — which directs local law enforcement agents not to turn immigrant youth over to federal immigration authorities until they’re found guilty by a court — "in concept." But she told me she thinks the bill should have been tougher on "habitual offenders." She also said she supports Police Chief George Gascón’s crackdown on Tenderloin drug sales.

And she starts off with what some call a conflict of interest: Mayor Gavin Newsom just appointed her to the $160,000-a-year post as head of the HRC, and she doesn’t intend to step down or take a leave while she runs. She told me she doesn’t see any problem — she devoted more than 20 hours a week to Police Commission work while holding down another full-time job. "I don’t know why it would be an issue," she said, noting that Emily Murase ran for the school board while working as the director of the city’s Commission on the Status of Women.

But some see it differently. "It would be as if the school superintendent hired someone to a senior job just as that person decided to run for school board," Haaland said.

Sparks’ election would be a landmark victory for trans people. For a community that has been isolated, dismissed, and ignored, her candidacy (like Haaland’s 2004 run in District 5) will inspire and motivate thousands of people. And it’s a tough one for the left — opposing a candidate whose election would mean so much to so many members of one of the city’s most marginalized communities could be painful. "A lot of folks will say that the progressives will never support a transgender candidate," Haaland noted.

But in terms of the city’s geopolitics, it’s also true that electing Sparks would probably move District 6 out of the solidly progressive column.

"If we lose D6, it’s huge," Walker noted. "This is where most of the new development is happening, where law-and-order issues are playing out, where we can hope to save part of the city for a diverse population."

More than that, if progressives lose District 6 and don’t win District 8, it will be almost impossible to override mayoral vetoes and control the legislative agenda. And that’s huge. On issue like tenants rights, preventing evictions, controlling market-rate housing development, advancing a transit-first policy — and raising new revenue instead of cutting programs — the moderates on the board have been overwhelmingly on the wrong side.

Kim, for her part, doesn’t want to talk about the politics of the 2010 elections — except to say that she’s thinking about the race and will probably decide sometime in the next two months. But she agreed with my analysis of how any left candidate should view this election: if she’s going to enter, she needs to present a case that, on the issues that matter, she’d be a better supervisor than either of the two long-term district residents with strong progressive credentials already in the race.

"I don’t have an answer to that now," Kim told me. "And when I make my decision, I will."

The pension fund evictions

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news@sfbg.com

In the wake of some big money-losing real estate deals, the California Public Employee’s Retirement System, the largest public pension fund in the nation, is reviewing its investment policies. But it’s too late to help working-class people displaced by two major CalPERS investments.

In 2006, at the height of the real estate bubble, CalPERS put $600 million into real estate deals in New York City and East Palo Alto that, critics say, have led to rent hikes, displacements, and harassment of moderate-income tenants.

The pension fund invested $100 million in Page Mill Properties II, which used the money, along with a sizable bank loan from Wachovia, in a 2006 building-purchase frenzy. The outfit wound up with more than 100 buildings in East Palo Alto — some 1,800 housing units. Another $500 million went to Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, cash that was used in the $5.4 billion deal to snag the Manhattan apartment complexes Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

Those investments are currently teetering on financial ruin. The San Jose Mercury News reported Sept. 9 that Page Mill Properties missed a $50 million dollar balloon payment on its $243 million loan. Now the properties owned by Page Mill are in receivership, placing the landlord’s future and CalPERS’ investment in peril. (Our calls to Page Mill haven’t been returned.)

A Sept. 9 New York Times article quoted real estate analysts predicting that Tishman Speyer and BlackRock would exhaust their funds by December and face loan defaults. A recent New York state court ruling may hold the companies responsible for an estimated $200 million in improper rent overcharges.

Rent overcharges — in violation of rent-control laws — is one piece of what some have labeled "predatory equity" schemes. A May 9, 2008 Times article described the idea: buy rental housing with a lot of middle-income tenants, remove those tenants from rent-controlled units, and re-rent the places to richer people at higher rent. The outcome was supposed to be a quick, profitable return on high-risk investments.

TROUBLE IN EAST PALO ALTO


The Page Mill properties in East Palo Alto border the more affluent neighborhoods of Palo Alto and Menlo Park on the west side of Highway 101. The neighborhood is home to service workers and public employees, many of them people of color. "It’s choice real estate, no question about it. I don’t think Page Mill’s plan was to serve the low-income tenants," Andy Blue of the advocacy group Tenants Together told us.

But local officials haven’t been thrilled with the results. "We are under siege by Page Mill Properties," East Palo Alto Mayor Ruben Abrica told the Mercury News last month. The city is locked in several court battles with the real estate outfit, including two over the city’s rent stabilization ordinance.

A resolution passed by the City Council last year stated that Page Mill had imposed rent increases beyond the 3 percent allowed by the ordinance, and urged CalPERS to intervene.

In an document e-mailed to CalPERS and obtained by Tenants Together, Page Mill claims its rent increases averaged 9 percent. But a class-action suit filed by several Page Mill tenants reported increases of more than 30 percent. A 2008 injunction filed by the city against Page Mill cited increases ranging from 5 percent to 40 percent.

According to the Fair Rent Coalition’s Web site, nearly half the people affected were cost-burdened as defined by government standards — meaning that more than 30 percent of their income already went to rent. The result of the rent increases, according to the city’s resolution, was the displacement of low-income tenants from their homes.

In fact, vacancy rates in East Palo Alto spiked after Page Mill came on the scene. According to numbers crunched by the Fair Rent Coalition and based on 2007 census data, the vacancy rate reached 24 percent in 2008. Before Page Mill started buying up property, vacancy rates were as low as 2 percent. Further, there were 182 evictions between 2007 and 2009 according to the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office.

RAW DEAL IN MANHATTAN


The Tishman Speyer deal has gotten a lot of press on the East Coast — much of it highly critical. The two massive housing complexes were built for middle-income renters and were one of the few moderate-income communities remaining in Manhattan.

David Jones, president of the Community Service Society of New York, wrote in a Sept. 17 Huffington Post piece that it was the intention of Tishman Speyer to shove aside moderate income to make room for more affluent renters who can afford the higher rents. He called it a "classic example of ‘predator equity.’"

Dina Levy, who works with the New York advocacy group Urban Homesteading, agrees with that assessment. She told us in a phone interview that it was obvious what plans the real estate firms had in mind for the properties.

She said that CalPERS, as a public agency, should have been more careful about getting involved in this sort of investment. She told us that other bankers she talked to thought the deal was toxic and stayed away. "Why would CalPERS put money into a deal that’s predicated on displacing families?" Levy asked.

The Wall Street Journal reported Oct. 23 that CalPERS is extensively reviewing its relationship with Apollo Global Management, which handled a majority of its real estate equity. The fund also issued a new policy on its dealings with placement agents.

But so far, there has been no public investigation of the East Palo Alto and New York investments. Tenancy advocacy groups and East Palo Alto have asked CalPERS to take an active role in the management of Page Mill’s property.

"It doesn’t appear that the human impact of their investments were considered at all as part of this," Tenants Together executive director Dean Preston told us.

Preston’s group is trying to get CalPERS to adopt predator-free investment guidelines — a policy that already has been instituted by New York’s pension fund.

CALPERS DUCKS


In a February letter to Tenants Together, CalPERS called itself a "limited partner in the partnership" and expressed concern over the situation in East Palo Alto, stating that it is reviewing the allegations.

But tenant advocates say the giant fund has been missing in action. "There hasn’t been anything that they’ve told us they’ve been doing or that we’ve seen them do," Preston said.

That hands-off approach appears to violate CalPERS’ stated policies. Two months before allocating funds to Page Mill, CalPERS coauthored and signed the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI). No. 2 of the six principals states: "We will be active owners and incorporate ESG [environmental, social, and corporate governance] issues into our ownership policies and practices."

CalPERS has been eyeing real estate windfalls since 2002. According to memos and letters given to us by the Fair Rent Coalition, agency staffers that year were discussing an "opportunistic real estate fund." The result of those discussions: discretionary authority given to the senior investment officer for investments up to $100 million, with anything beyond that requiring approval from the chief investment officer.

Paradoxically, the compensation package that rates the senior investment officer’s performance has no provision for the social responsibilities. This coming year’s compensation package now includes a "Best Practices" measure on ethics and risk management. But there’s still no provision for social responsibility.

The California Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement, and Social Security monitors the pension fund, but CalPERS has autonomous authority over its investments. Chief consultant Karon Green told us that the committee is "going to watch to see what the board does and gauge our response based on that."

CalPERS has yet to respond to our inquiries, and hasn’t responded to our public records request for documents pertaining to what Page Mill and its CEO David Taran proposed for the East Palo Alto properties.

Similar requests were made by Tenants Together and the Fair Rent Coalition. CalPERS responded that those documents were confidential, although some e-mails were handed over to the advocacy groups the day before they were to meet with the CalPERS board in December 2008.

Although it calls itself a "limited partner," the e-mails illustrate a closer relationship between CalPERS and Page Mill. In an e-mail to CalPERS, Taran asked for a copy of the public records request made by a San Jose journalist so "we can review them and get back to you regarding what should not be produced and is confidential."

Preston points to the larger policy issue. "If there were a few bad real estate managers who were investing in this, then they should lose their jobs," he said. "But the idea that they just sweep under the rug their $100 million loss in East Palo Alto and their $500 million loss in New York, and whatever other schemes they’re involved in, is just unacceptable."

Christopher Lund, a Page Mill tenant and communications director for the Fair Rent Coalition, agrees. "They’ve gotten burned on some of these high-risk investments over the past year or two. But institutional memory is short and in 10 years when the real estate market is booming, if there’s no transparency and no oversight, this is going to happen somewhere else."

Pot pioneers

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

Two serious bids to legalize marijuana in California are moving forward simultaneously. And while decisions won’t be made for months, both efforts have generated interest from around the world.

"We’re on the cover of Newsweek right now. We were on the cover of Fortune magazine a few weeks ago," said Salwa Ibrahim, a spokesperson for Oaksterdam University, based in downtown Oakland. "We’ve gotten attention from every continent on the planet — well, except Antarctica, I suppose."

Founded in 2007, Oaksterdam — a.k.a. "Cannabis College" — is a training school for the medical marijuana industry. It’s grown steadily since its inception, and expects to double its student body next year. OU is the driver behind a ballot initiative currently in circulation that would give counties the option to tax and regulate marijuana, permitting individuals to cultivate up to 25 square feet for personal consumption. Like alcohol, it would only be accessible to people 21 and older.

So far the campaign has collected 40 percent of the signatures needed to put the question to voters on the November 2010 ballot, and proponent Richard Lee, cofounder of OU, is confident that they’ll hit the threshold by Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, Quintin Mecke, spokesperson for Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, has been fielding phone calls from journalists from around the world. Ammiano made headlines in February when he introduced Assembly Bill 390, legislation to legalize and tax marijuana statewide, reguutf8g it the same way as alcohol.

Ammiano’s proposal was presented at an informational hearing in Sacramento on Oct. 28, and could be formally considered by early January 2010.

"We’re really not pushing anything that’s not already socially accepted," Mecke said. According to a Field Poll released in April, 56 percent of Californians support legalization, a record high. Although consumption of marijuana peaked in the 1970s, polls at the time showed that public support for legalization never rose higher than around 25 percent.

Both Ammiano and Lee closely monitored public opinion before spearheading their efforts, and recognized a shift in the wind as public sentiment warmed and the Obama administration proved far more tolerant of state medical marijuana laws than its predecessor.

Proponents say the bitter economic climate is one reason the idea of legalization is getting more play than ever. Already the state’s largest cash crop, legalized marijuana carries a revenue potential of as much as $1.4 billion annually, a boon for California’s flagging economy, according to the Board of Equalization.

In Oakland, OU and its affiliated medical marijuana dispensaries seem to be flouting the economic trends of the day as a business that is gaining momentum rather than cutting corners. Lee says his ultimate goal is to place Oakland on the map as a West Coast version of Amsterdam.

Four dispensaries operating in downtown Oakland have already sparked a boost in tourism, creating an international buzz that draws visitors from afar. "One of Oakland’s big problems is something they call ‘leakage’ on the retail," Lee said. "And that is that Oakland residents don’t shop in Oakland. With cannabis … we have 60 percent from outside. We have ‘floodage’ instead of ‘leakage.’"

With the state facing an unprecedented budget shortfall, the revenue potential "happens to be the icing on the cake," Mecke said. He said Ammiano’s primary reason for introducing the legislation is that "the prohibition model has failed." Studies have found the drug to be safer than alcohol (there are no documented deaths associated with an overdose of marijuana consumption, and it’s been proven to have medicinal value), Mecke points out. Meanwhile, marijuana-related arrests are on the rise, and precious public dollars allocated for law enforcement are badly needed to combat other kinds of criminal activity, he says.

"Several tens of millions of dollars" could be saved annually in correctional costs by reducing the number of marijuana-related offenders serving jail sentences, according to a report by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office that was presented at the informational hearing. The LAO also found that legalizing marijuana could result in a "major reduction" in state and local law enforcement costs.

Lee’s personal story is interlinked with the law-enforcement argument for legalization. In 1991, while living in Texas, he became the victim of a carjacking. "It took the police 45 minutes to respond," he said. "That’s what really made me mad. I blamed the lack of police protection on the fact that the police were wasting their time looking for people like me and my friends instead of the real sociopaths and predators out there."
Yet if testimony at the informational hearing was any indication, most of the law-enforcement community doesn’t hold the same viewpoint.

"I have seen nothing good come of this," John Standish, president of the California Peace Officers’ Association, said. Standish told Ammiano he believes the potential tax revenues would be far outweighed by costs associated with marijuana-related medical treatments, dangers linked with drugged driving, and worker absences.

Others associated with law enforcement expressed concern that the legalization would make it easier for minors to obtain marijuana. Sara Simpson, speaking on behalf of the California Office of the Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, emphasized the rise of armed Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) conducting growing operations on California public lands. "We believe regulation of marijuana will have little effect on illegal DTOs," she noted.

Jim Gray, a retired judge who testified at the hearing, took the opposite view. "The only way you put these Mexican drug cartels out of business is to undercut the price, and AB390 is a really good place to start," he said. "Today our marijuana laws are putting our children in harm’s way. It is easier for young people to get marijuana than it is to get alcohol."

The wild card for any move toward legalization, meanwhile, is federal law. The drug remains illegal under federal statutes, so the success of any tax-and-regulate experiment would depend on whether the feds were willing to tolerate legalized recreational use of the controlled substance, as it has for medical purposes. "California could be out of the gate early if in fact there is a change in federal law," Ammiano pointed out at the hearing. At the same time, if legalization is approved and federal law remains unchanged, the state policy could be thrown into question in the future under a change in administration.

"Change doesn’t happen unless states take a stand on something," Mecke said. "Given the success with medical marijuana, we don’t think it’s a stretch to continue the push for recreational use. We think it’s reflective of public sentiment and public interest. It’s good public policy as well."

Lee, for his part, simply believes that laws prohibiting marijuana are unjust and should be repealed. "I’m really kind of conservative," he said as he sat just yards away from OU’s horticulture room, where two students were busy trimming the pungent herb. "Basically I like the police, and the laws, and people who respect them and obey them. But when you make laws that are totally ridiculous and hypocritical and unfair … we have to get rid of those laws."

Appetite: Tanks to Tractors, Gingerbread Wishes — food with a purpose

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Every week, Virginia Miller of personalized itinerary service and monthly food, drink, and travel newsletter, www.theperfectspotsf.com, shares foodie news, events, and deals. View the last installment here.

appvets1109.jpg
Members of the Farmer-Veteran Coalition will speak at Toby’s Feed Farm

11/8 – Tanks to Tractors free farmers and veterans event
For a Sunday countryside excursion with purpose, Tanks to Tractors is a special event at Toby’s Feed Barn in Pt. Reyes Station, honoring veterans who have returned home to work on America’s farms. Veterans have incredible stories to share about what led them to this meaningful work post-service – work all the more needed as US farmers are retiring in droves. The wonderful Marin Organic with the Farmer Veteran Coalition put on this event with story telling from Amy Fairweather (Swords to Plowshares, Iraq Veteran Project Director), Nadia McCaffrey (Gold Star mother and founder, Patrick McCaffrey Foundation), Wendy Johnson (educator, author, co-founder of Green Gulch Garden), Michael O’Gorman (project director of Farmer Veteran Coalition), and others. On top of that, there’s free light snacks and drink. A unique way to honor Veterans Day…
Sun/8; 5-7pm, free
Toby’s Feed Barn
11250 Highway One, Pt. Reyes Station
www.farmvetco.org
www.marinorganic.org

appcookies1109.jpg
Decorate the dickens out of your cookies at One Market

11/7 – Make-A-Wish Gingerbread Wishes event at One Market
Venerable Make-A-Wish Foundation throws a cookie decorating party at One Market, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish. With striking Bay views before you, bring kids (both young and old) to the luncheon, with finger sandwiches and drinks served by One Market, where everyone works with their own cookie decorating kit designed by pastry chef, Patti Dellamonica-Bauler, including three Gingerbread Wishes cookies and embellishment goods like icing, sprinkles and candies. Decorating cookies was never sweeter.
Sat/7, 11am-1pm, $20
1 Market
415-777-5577

www.makewish.org

6 pop-up lunches

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Blame the economy’s downturn. Or blame the Tamale Lady’s success. Whatever the reason, suddenly mobile food carts seem to be all the rage — and those that serve the midday (rather than midnight) crowd all the more so. But while the idea of the Crème Brulee Man and Magic Curry Cart has gone from experimental to expected, another nontraditional lunch option has bubbled to the surface: pop-ups and dining windows. These more stationary — yet equally delightful — options have been sneaking onto industrial loading docks or into neighborhood supermarkets, seducing customers with their unconventional locales and keeping their loyalty with indisputably good food.

KITCHENETTE SF


Douglas Monsalud and his crew started serving "spontaneous, organic, covert nourishment" out of a loading dock less than nine months ago, and the Dogpatch lunch scene hasn’t been the same since. The weekday eatery features a thoughtful, rotating menu of inspired delights, always including a few sandwiches, a salad, a dessert (recent choices include bacon snickerdoodles and a nectarine/raspberry galette), and a housemade beverage (like honeydew/lime fresca or organic lemonade). Not only is everything delicious, most items are made from locally-grown ingredients. My favorite? Marin Sun Farms’ pork schnitzel sandwich with braised cabbage and pink lady apples, a butterscotch cookie, and organic strawberry soda with local seltzer.

Weekdays, 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.; 958 Illinois, SF. www.kitchenettesf.com

LITTLE SKILLET


Leave it to the Bay Area to host a joint that pairs fried chicken and waffles with farm-fresh, organic ingredients. This offshoot of Farmer Brown draws the in-the-know lunch crowd down to SoMa for crispy fried poultry, creamy grits and cheddar, angel biscuits and gravy, and red velvet cupcakes. For you old-school beverage aficionados, they stock Dublin Doctor Pepper (the original Doctor Pepper from Texas, made with real cane sugar), Fitz’s cream sodas, and Faygo grape soda. After ordering from the little blue shuttered window, wait across the street on the funky concrete loading dock until you hear your name. Then, perched on milk crates with other soul-food seekers, you’ll get your Southern charm with SF values.

Mon.–Sat., 9 a.m.–3:30 p.m.; 360 Ritch, SF. (415) 777-2777, www.littleskilletsf.com

NAKED LUNCH


Ian Begg and Ryan Maxey (formerly of Café Majestic) opened the door to Naked Lunch in mid-August. The sweet little annex to Enrico’s features a menu that changes almost daily, although the signature foie gras sandwich will probably remain a fixture (controversy or not). At $15, it’s outside my tax bracket, but the dried chorizo sandwich with bacon, d’anjou pear, pickled onion, and baby greens was pure perfection — the salt from the bacon balanced with the sweetness of the pear. Ian and Ryan have plans to open a gastropub. For now, I’m just happy they’re rockin’ the sandwich combinations each week.

Mon.–Fri., 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m.; 504 Broadway, SF. (415) 577-4951,www.nakedlunchsf.com

AMERICAN BOX


American Box, brought to us by the folks at Fish and Farm (inside Hotel Mark Twain), offers more than simple sandwiches and beverages. From the now infamous Juicy Lucy’s cheeseburger box, served with local organic potato salad and secret sauce, to the Niman Ranch taco box with sweet and spicy slaw, chef Chad Newton’s Tenderloin pop-up cuisine is attracting curious foodies along with the neighborhood business crowd. Take your box to go or meander across the hotel lobby and enjoy a quiet spell in the dining room. There’s nothing like a very grown-up lunch box to put a smile on your face — even if Mom didn’t pack it for you.

Weekdays, 10:30 a.m.– 1:30 p.m.; 339 Taylor, SF. (415) 474-3474, www.americanboxlunch.com

SAIGON SANDWICH


No one seems to mind squeezing into this hole-in-the-wall Tenderloin spot for an authentic $3 banh mi sandwich. It must be because of the sweet roasted pork on a chewy roll, served with pickled daikon, carrots, jalapenos, and cilantro. The two efficient women who run the counter aren’t messing around, though, so don’t hem and haw before you order — and don’t even think about making any special requests or alterations. Instead, quietly grab a pork bun or coconut dessert to accompany your sandwich and move along to make room for the next guy in line.

Mon.–Sat., 6 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sun., 7 a.m. – 5 p.m.; 560 Larkin, SF. (415) 474-5698

YATS NEW ORLEANS ORIGINAL POBOYS


You tell me where in SF you can get an authentic po’boy with red beans and rice in the back of a dive bar, and I’ll buy you a beer. Really. Otherwise I’ll bet money the only place is at Jack’s Club, a neighborhood bar that’s already fab thanks to a pool table, a CD jukebox, and vintage pinball machines. But head to the back and you’ll find a little window that pumps out real Southern goodness to the San Francisco masses. The Debris sandwich (pulled roast with gravy) is my favorite, although the rustic gumbo with smoked sausage, seafood, and chicken is a close second.

Mon.–Tues, 11 a.m. –4 p.m.; Wed.–Fri., 11 a.m.– 8 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; 2545 24th St. (Inside Jack’s Club), SF. (415) 282-8906, www.whereyats.com

Endorsements

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CITY ATTORNEY
Dennis Herrera

TREASURER
Jose Cisneros

PROP A: YES

PROP B: YES

PROP C: NO

PROP D: NO

PROP E: YES

View our entire endorsement arguments here

Poor turnout

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news@sfbg.com

The Guinness World Record for the largest mobilization of human beings was recently broken when 173 million people demanded that their governments eradicate extreme poverty around the world. But U.S. media barely noted the call and San Francisco’s event had low attendance, suggesting an uphill struggle for the cause in the world’s richest nation.

Millions gathered at more than 3,000 Stand Up, Take Action events in 120 countries Oct. 16-18 in an attempt to put pressure on governments to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, but less than 30 people gathered on the steps of San Francisco City Hall to support the movement.

Sup. John Avalos was one of the speakers at the event, organized by a coalition of local activist groups and student volunteers. Admitting that he was "expecting it to be a little bigger," Avalos said the event was just the start of what needed to be a much larger movement by the American people.

"There is a strange phenomenon occurring at the moment. It’s as if people are a little bit asleep about the need to be active," Avalos told the Guardian. "Because we have an administration they view as being more supportive of human rights and economic and social justice, people are being lulled into thinking things will just get better."

Standing just a short walk away from the birth place of the United Nations, Avalos bought attention in his speech to the rich history San Francisco has in mobilizing social change. "We do the best to live up to it, but we have a long way to go. Around the world this is the time to uproot poverty — we try to provide a safety net, but it could be stronger."

The Stand Up, Take Action, End Poverty Now! campaign is in its fourth year and is organized by the UN Millennium Campaign in an attempt to raise awareness of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a series of benchmarks designed to eradicate global poverty.

At the United Nations Millennium Development Summit in 2000, 189 world leaders promised to "end poverty by 2015." The eight goals include eliminating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) has authored or coauthored every major piece of legislation dealing with global HIV/AIDS issues since she was elected to Congress. She told the Guardian that MDGs must be placed in context with poverty in America. "Sometimes people argue that we must look after our own first, but my position is that if you look at the eight Millennium goals, they all apply to our own country too," Lee said. "Look at the plight of people who are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS in our country — especially in African American and Latino communities.

"With the economic downturn, poverty rates in America are soaring, putting more people into circumstances the MDGs focus on outside of America," she continued. "I think it really is important to make those connections."

Lee compared the foreclosure crisis and lack of regulation in the financial markets over the last eight to 10 years to the "wild West" and calls America’s 47 million uninsured a "moral disgrace."

"It is about priorities and political will, and this will be determined by the voices of people saying it must be done," she said. "People have to push for these changes and remember that it didn’t just stop with the election. We have to raise awareness while at the same time working on changing policy. Otherwise we can get stuck debating issues and not doing the work that has to be done to change these very deplorable conditions."

Sup. David Campos was the only other supervisor to speak at the Civic Center event. He said he is committed to the fight against global poverty and wants to see the government represent the values San Francisco was founded on.

"We need to shed light and bring attention to one of the largest issues facing the world today — severe poverty," Campos said. "I really believe that as a city, as a state, and as a country, we not only need to make sure we push the U.S. to follow the lead of other countries, but actually become a leader in making these Millennium goals a reality."

After the event, Campos told the Guardian: "It doesn’t surprise me that more people didn’t show up to the event. But part of the task is to spread the word. San Francisco has been a leader in a number of these issues in the past, and I think we should play a key role in this one."

Campos said that one solution might be to put forward a resolution before the Board of Supervisors to support MDGs and have the city take a formal position on it.

"It is definitely something we are talking about to demonstrate San Francisco’s commitment to the issue," he said. "A lot of people don’t know about the goals, or the fact that the U.S. hasn’t really made them a priority. We need to spread the word and let people know this kind of a movement is only going to be a success if people take it upon themselves to play a leadership role."

Brian Webster, a volunteer who organized the SF event, drew attention to the large number of supporters for the MDGs in California. More than 250,000 people have signed up for the One Campaign, a global NGO that partnered with the U.N. Millennium Campaign in the events.

"For campaigners, it is now a matter of trying to join together and identify vast strategies to communicate what needs to be done," Webster said. "We will continue to educate communities, politicians, and civic leaders in what can be done this month, in the next six months, and ultimately, in the next six years."

While the Bush administration rarely mentioned MDGs while in office, many activists believe President Barack Obama’s public recognition of the goals at a recent U.N. summit demonstrates a change in American policy.

"In other countries, there has been more education and awareness about the goals. But here in America, it is almost like we are starting eight years late," said Anita Sharma, the North American director for the U.N. Millennium Campaign. "President Obama has said that the MDGs are American goals and has even talked about his plans for achieving them."

Also, despite the low numbers at the San Francisco event, Sharma says more than 190,000 people from North America participated in last weekend’s campaign, an increase of more than 70,000 from last year’s attempt.

"It’s not like Americans don’t care about global poverty — in fact we give more in charitable contributions than any other country in the world," she said. "It just takes quite a lot to get Americans into the streets and mobilized. There needs to be more education out there, that’s all."

Ananya Roy, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning and education director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies, says she doesn’t think MDGs can be achieved worldwide by 2015. Even so, she stressed the important role they played in the framework of development.

Speaking at UC Berkeley’s Stand Up and Take Action Event, she said: "The goals are important because they are seen as a new global social contract that makes issues of poverty and inequality quite urgent. They also come with measurements and targets, which is meant to create accountability."

Roy placed particular emphasis on the eighth goal: building a global partnership for development. She noted that that increased awareness can change the ways the U.S. and European governments operate in terms of aid and trade.

"This multilateral contract requires more than simply the action and leadership of the U.S. and Western Europe," she said. "We need to think about poverty and inequality that is immediately around us, understand how we are involved in the production of depravity, and then we must act in solidarity.

"We need to be thinking about poverty as it exits here in the U.S. and not just as an abstract problem that belongs to someplace else," she added. "It is also our problem."

According to a 2009 U.N. report, progress toward achieving the MDGs has been slow in some cases and certain achievements have been reversed by the economic downturn. The report estimates that there will be 55 million to 90 million more people living in extreme poverty than anticipated before the crisis.

For Chandler Smith, media coordinator for the One Campaign — which campaigns for better development policies and more effective aid and trade reform — the Guinness certification marks progress toward achieving the MDGs. "That this year is breaking another world record speaks to the power of people to organize around the world, shows that we are a global community, and that there is a sustainability in the movement," he said.

"As for the North American aspect, we are always trying to educate people more about these issues. Our results show that a lot of our work has been done — but that we also have more work to do."

Sanctuary showdown

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sarah@sfbg.com

City Hall echoed with delighted whoops of Si se puede! last week, as a veto-proof majority of the Board of Supervisors voted to give juvenile immigrants their day in court before referring them to federal immigration authorities.

But the battle over the civil rights of immigrant kids is far from over, as Mayor Gavin Newsom, Police Chief George Gascón and U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello all insist that they will ignore or defy the city ordinance.

That puts the city in a strange legal position: the supervisors have passed a law that the mayor won’t implement — so it’s not clear what will happen next.

But here’s what is clear — and alarming: under Newsom’s policy, which the sanctuary legislation by Sup. David Campos would overturn, large numbers of immigrant kids are facing possible deportation. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Virginia Kice told the Guardian that 150 juveniles from San Francisco have been referred to ICE since June 11, 2008 when Newsom began requiring that the city’s probation officials refer youth to ICE on arrest.Of those, 114 have come into federal custody (and may be facing deportation). Campos, who came to this country from Guatemala as an undocumented teen, said his legislation is a "balanced response" to the shift in sanctuary policy

Under Newsom’s policy, city probation officials are required to refer juveniles booked on a felony and appear undocumented to ICE at the time of arrest.

But under Campos’ amendment, ICE referral would not occur unless a juvenile justice court finds the youth guilty as charged.

Mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard short-circuited the immigrant community’s hopes for due process by announcing that Newsom simply plans to ignore Campos’ legislation.

"The Campos bill isn’t worth the paper it’s written on — it’s unenforceable and he knows that," Ballard told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Campos says that’s nonsense. "The whole point of having a sanctuary ordinance is that we choose not to be in the business of federal immigration enforcement," Campos said. "We are not an arm of ICE."

In a phone interview, Russoniello told the Guardian that Newsom’s policy accords juveniles due process at the federal level, and that federal immigration authorities are not interested in going after people who are obeying laws or are simply out of status.

"Our focus is guns, gangs, and drugs," Russoniello said. "But people who are detained should have no expectation that they will not be deported."

In other words, kids who are arrested on felony charges — who may not be guilty — could be deported anyway.

"Juvenile Probation Department alerts ICE when an individual comes in that they believe may be a deportable juvenile alien," Kice said. "We dispatch an officer to interview the juvenile, elicit biographical information, and do background checks to see if they have a legal basis for being in the country."

So where are the kids Newsom has turned over in the past year? Hard to say. Kice said the federal Human and Health Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement is responsible for ensuring that kids receive appropriate care and protection. "We no longer deal with the custody issues related to juvenile cases," Kice added.

Russoniello said he doesn’t know the whereabouts of the 114 juveniles placed in federal custody since Newsom’s policy took effect in June 2008, but dismissed such concerns as "pretextual."

"Before June 2008, the city’s pretext for sending [Honduran teenagers] back home was to reunite them with their family. Now the complaints are they are being ripped away from their families," he said. "The Campos legislation is mute, it’s irrelevant, and it’s contrary to federal law, and I think the mayor and the chief of police both agree."

Chief Gascón, concerned about the lack of due process and kangaroo courts at the federal level that he experienced as police chief in Mesa, Ariz,, recently told the Guardian he hoped to see Campos and Newsom find a compromise.

Gascón, who was appointed by the mayor, now says he believes Newsom’s hands are tied because of federal laws. "I don’t think the mayor has a choice," Gascón told the Chronicle.

But Sheriff Mike Hennessey, whom ICE pressured to amend his department’s policy toward immigrant detainees last year, thinks the Campos amendment is reasonable. "I don’t think we want to be reporting people who aren’t worthy of prosecution," Hennessey said. "Federal law says that if a probation officer violated the Campos’ amendment, they could not be penalized, under federal law," Hennessey explained. "That’s different from saying they are mandated to report juveniles to the federal authorities."

Juvenile Probation Department Chief William Siffermann told the Guardian that his agency "will continue to discharge its duties and responsibilities in a manner that conforms with all laws and await the outcome of the San Francisco legislative process."

"At the conclusion of that, we will confer with the city attorney and outside legal counsel around any impacts this would have on existing protocols."

Chop from the top

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rebeccab@sfbg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beer here!

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molly@sfbg.com

It all started with Stella.

I’d made my weekly (OK, sometimes twice or thrice-weekly) stop at Amnesia and ordered a pint of the Belgian lager not-so-affectionately known among beer snobs as "British Budweiser." Why Stella? It’s light, easy to drink a lot of, and feels classier than PBR. So when I’m not on a $2-a-beer budget, Stella Artois is often what I order.

This time, however, the mustachioed bartender Matthew Harman didn’t simply poor me a glass. It was earlier than usual. He had some time. And he knew me well enough to guess I might be open to the speech he was about to give.

"Do you really want a Stella?" he asked. "Because there are better beers that aren’t shipped halfway across the world and owned by InBev." I consented to let him give me tastes of alternatives and eventually settled on a slightly more hoppy but equally drinkable lager from Sudwerk brewery in Davis.

I enjoyed the beer. But better yet, I enjoyed the wake-up call. Though I’ve become accustomed to buying groceries, clothing, gifts, coffee, and even liquor from local, independent manufacturers and retailers, when it comes to beer, I’ve been lazy. I don’t think before I drink.

What’s worse? I live in the land of craft brews. Though there are now 1,500 craft breweries nationwide, the movement started in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington — with flagship brands like Anchor, Pyramid, and Anderson Valley within driving distance (or, in the case of Anchor, a stone’s throw) from my office. And as the industry has grown and changed, there are ever more options for a range of palates — and purses. In short: there’s little excuse for thoughtless imbibing.

So why drink local? First, there’s the environmental reason: it requires a lot of energy to ship all those heavy bottles and kegs full of liquid across the country and around the world. Then there’s wanting to support the local economy: money spent on Bay Area businesses stays in the Bay Area. There’s the more intangible concept of local pride. "We support our lousy local sports teams," says Lars Larson, master brewer at Berkeley’s Trumer Brauerei. "Why not support our local brewing excellence?" And perhaps most important is taste: beer, like produce and dairy products, is best when fresh.

But the world of beer-making is complex. When it comes to assessing a brewery’s greenness, for example, the question often becomes: how green? If you grow your own hops but send them to Wisconsin for brewing, is that still environmentally sound? Or if a brewery is based in Seattle but makes beer in Berkeley, does it still support the local economy? The answers vary and can be subjective. But the good news is that whatever the reason for wanting to choose brews more thoughtfully, there’s a nearby option — or 12 — to satisfy it.

If you still just love the taste of Stella, or want an import that has no local substitute (like Guinness), or appreciate that the Budweiser you’re sipping was probably made in a brewery 60 miles away, well, more power to you. Even Harman won’t argue (though he’ll happily give tastings of alternatives to anyone who stops by the Valencia Street bar Sundays at 6 p.m.). The real point is to use the same criteria for choosing beer — values, politics, and palate — you do for food and wine. Here’s hoping our guide to some of the Bay Area’s famed and favorite breweries will help you make that decision.

ANCHOR BREWING COMPANY


This landmark brewery has existed in one form or another since 1896, making it the granddaddy of Bay Area brewing. Its current identity comes to us with thanks to Fritz Maytag, who bought 51 percent of the operation in 1965 and is still the driving force behind the company best known for its unique Anchor Steam beer. We love Anchor’s handcrafted brews, commitment to the community, and willingness to experiment with new ideas, including distilling gin and whiskey.

1705 Mariposa, SF. (415) 863-8350, www.anchorbrewing.com

ANDERSON VALLEY BREWING COMPANY


This pillar of the Bay Area craft brew scene has been building its reputation on balanced, drinkable options like Boont Amber since 1987. Other favorites include the nearly hopless Summer Solstice, the oh-so-hoppy Hop Ottin’ IPA, and the Brother David line of abbey-style ales (named for Toronado owner David Keene). But we’re particularly excited about the 2009 Estate Fresh Hop beer, produced with hops grown on brewery grounds (where, by the way, all water is taken from wells on the property and all beer is made in a facility that’s 40 percent solar-powered).

17700 Hwy 253, Boonville. (707) 895-2337, www.avbc.com

MOONLIGHT BREWING


Beer drinkers looking for a truly local, truly independent brewery need look no further than this Sonoma County one-man operation. Well-respected brewer Brian Hunt established the tiny business in 1992 and still delivers his keg-only offerings like Death and Taxes black beer, Reality Czeck pils, and Homegrown Fresh Hop Ale himself. Hunt also has been growing a share of his hops onsite since 2003.

Santa Rosa. (707) 528-2537, www.moonlightbrewing.com

PYRAMID BREWING COMPANY


One of the first craft breweries to appear on the public’s radar, this Seattle-based company also has been operating out of its Berkeley brewery and alehouse since 1997. Until recently, Pyramid operated as a publicly-owned company; now it is part of the Independent Brewers Union. Under this arrangement, the brewery is owned by East Coast brewers Mad Hat but conducts its business as an autonomous unit. The company also has revamped its image, renaming classics like Pyramid Hefeweizen (now Haywire Hefeweizen) and Pyramid Apricot Ale (now Audacious Apricot Ale) and introducing a host of new offerings — some only available at Pyramid brewpubs. But with locations in Sacramento, Walnut Creek, and Berkeley, that means plenty of access to exclusives like the nitrogenated Draught Pale Ale or the session beer Crystal Wheat Ale.

901 Gilman, Berk. (510) 527-9090, www.pyramidbrew.com

RUSSIAN RIVER


Now based in Santa Rosa, the brewery most famous for its Pliny the Elder Double IPA used to be owned by Korbel Champagne Cellars. Vinnie Cilurzo and his partner bought the business in 2003, but have continued to combine aspects of both industries, including a line of beers that are aged in used wine barrels from local wineries. Look for tasting nights of this special line, nicknamed the "’Tion" beers, at pubs like Toronado.

725 Fourth St., Santa Rosa; (707) 545-BEER, www.russianriverbrewing.com

SIERRA NEVADA


The big news surrounding the Chico-based brewery that introduced much of America to Pale Ale is its upcoming Estate Harvest Ale, inspired by the winemaking of its Napa and Sonoma neighbors and made with hops and barley grown onsite. Also exciting? Two collaborations with Maryland-based brewery Dogfish Head — Limb and Life, released on draft this month, and Life and Limb, due out in 24-oz bottles and limited draft in November.

1075 E. 20th St., Chico. (530) 893-3520, www.sierranevada.com

SPEAKEASY ALES & LAGERS


Many beer drinkers gravitate to Speakeasy because of the distinctive, noir-feeling of its packaging and stay for the big, satisfying taste of classics like Big Daddy I.P.A. and Prohibition Ale. Though the Bayview-based brewery’s offerings are available on tap and in the bottle all over the Bay Area, we suggest visiting a Firkin’ Friday happy hour open house at the brewery from 4 to 9 p.m. every week.

1195 Evans Ave, SF. (415) 64-BEER-1, www.goodbeer.com

TRUMER BRAUEREI


This Berkeley brewery encompasses what’s advantageous about imported and local beers. The only non-Austrian outlet for this 400-year-old recipe gets many of its ingredients from its sister company in Salzburg. But bottles, packaging, and, of course, the beer, all are made in the East Bay. What makes Trumer special is a process called "endosperm mashing," which means brewers separate the barley husks from the starchy endosperm during milling, then reintroduce them at the end of the process to highlight the warm, toasty flavor of the malt. Trumer also uses a process called krausening, a slow, secondary fermentation that helps build natural carbonation. (One reason for its signature glassware is to show off the tiny Champagne-like bubbles.)

1404 Fourth St., Berk. (510) 526-1160

21ST AMENDMENT


This Prohibition-themed South Park brewery has been getting lots of attention lately for its canned craft beers — Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer and Brew Free! Or Die IPA — and for good reason. Though cans are the best way to keep beer fresh (since sunlight can’t penetrate metal), convenient for carrying, allowed at locales where glass isn’t, and (let’s face it) good for shotgunning, the delivery method has long been associated with cheap, watery beer. But this stigma seems to be slowly eroding, thanks in no small part to forward-thinking breweries like 21st Amendment.

563 Second St., SF. (415) 369-0900, www.21st-amendment.com

We realize that this list is only a tiny glimpse at the myriad breweries, alehouses, brewpubs, and better beer bars in and around the Bay Area. Indeed, Northwest Brewing News lists more than 100 such places between Bakersfield and Blue Lake — and we’re willing to bet there are many more. Check our Web site for information and extended interviews about breweries like Bear Republic, Shmaltz, Thirsty Bear, Triple Rock, and Magnolia, plus recommendations from beer experts at Toronado, City Beer, and Healthy Spirits.

Still think we’re missing someone? Let us know.

———

Light beer’s plight

I like to drink beers. Plural. I’m the guy the ad men were thinking of in that classic jingle, the one that goes "Shaefer is the one beer to have when you’re having more than one." One summer a few years back, my friends and I polished off 1,000 cans of beer over a four-day weekend on Lake Shasta; there were only about 10 of us drinking. Do the math on that one, and you get a sense of my taste for the blessed amber fluid.

But that was then, and this is now. And today I have two kids who wake up at 6 a.m. and keep me on the go day and night; I’m not as young as I used to be; and I can’t handle the intoxication the way I once did.

But I still drink beers, plural, every day, and I’m not about to give it up. What I’ve done is switched to light beer. Correction: "Light" is a bad word. Among serious drinkers, it’s called "session beer."

It’s a choice more and more people are making in this country — beer with lower alcohol content is one of the fastest growing parts of the industry. But it presents a problem: how do you drink local (and high quality beer) when most of the craft breweries and brewpubs focus almost entirely on the heavy and the strong?

Quick definition here: light beer is generally promoted and advertised as having fewer calories than regular brew. But I could care less about beer making me fat (I can always give up food). What I’m talking about is what’s known in the business as ABV; that’s alcohol by volume. Typical American beer — say, Budweiser — runs about 5 percent. Typical craft brew — say, Anchor Liberty Ale — is about 6 percent. The more serious stuff is even stronger — Lagunitas Maximum India Pale Ale, for example, clocks in at 7 percent.

Typical light beer — say, Bud Light, at 4.2 percent ABV — has almost 20 percent less alcohol than Bud, 30 percent less than Liberty Ale, and only about half as much as some of the more extreme brews.

And for those of us who would rather have four light beers than two Imperial Red Ales (and really — in America, is that even a choice?), the craft brew pickings are fairly slim. Especially in Northern California.

"You are living in the land of the IPA," Bill Manley, communications coordinator for Sierra Nevada brewery, which makes no lighter beers, told me.

It’s not as if we’re without choices. Anchor makes a Small Beer (with the leftovers from it’s brutally strong Barleywine Ale) that comes in at about 3.5 percent ABV, but you almost never see it in stores. The 21st Amendment brewpub makes an excellent Great American Bitter that meets the session-beer standard of less than 4.5 percent. Magnolia makes an English Mild, and there’s Stone Levitation Ale (4.4 percent). But again: check out most liquor stores and none of those are on the shelf.

Across the country, that’s starting to change. Lew Bryson, a beer writer and blogger in Pennsylvania, has started the Session Beer Project (sessionbeerproject.blogspot.com) to share information about full-flavored, high-quality brews that don’t knock you silly after a bottle or two. "There are more people like us than most craft brewers would credit," Bryson told me.

The term "session beer" comes from England. By some accounts, it dates back to World War II when pubs were only open for short "sessions" so the workers could get back to the munitions plants in a relatively functional state. By Bryson’s definition, a session beer has an ABV below 4.5 percent and doesn’t overwhelm the party.

There are distinct advantages to lower-alcohol beers. "I was at a session brew festival two years ago and went through six pints in about two hours," he said. "I keep a Breathalyzer in my car, and when it was time to go home, I blew .02" — well within the legal limit in every state in America.

A brewpub near Bryson’s house on the outskirts of Philly sells a Belgian ale called Mirage with an ABV of just 2.9 percent. "I can have a couple of pints with lunch and it doesn’t blow my entire afternoon," he said.

Yet the reluctance remains. "A lot of brewers, they hear low-alcohol and they think light beer — and that’s the enemy," Bryson said.

Mike Riley, marketing director at Anderson Valley Brewing that makes no beer with less than 5 percent ABV, added: "It’s one of those stigmas that’s gone on for a long time."

In fact, I could only find one craft brewer in the country that actually makes a "light" beer: Minhas Brewery in Monroe, Wis., which makes Huber Light and Minhas Light. "People were asking for it," Gary Olsen, the brewery manager told me. "Our first reaction was, why make something that doesn’t taste like anything? But we found out you can make a very good lighter beer."

Yes, indeed. And when Anchor starts making (and marketing) Liberty Ale Light, I promise — I’ll give up Bud Light forever. (Tim Redmond)