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Round one

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sarah@sfbg.com

The Board of Supervisors’ narrowly thwarted attempt to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s 2009-10 budget was the first in a wave of anticipated showdowns between Mayor Gavin Newsom and the progressives this summer as budget season gets underway.

The mayor appeared to win this particular showdown when the board voted 6-5 not to reject the MTA deal May 27, although the skirmish helped progressives voice their concerns over Newsom’s budget priorities. It also gave board President David Chiu the opportunity to conduct a masterful interrogation of MTA executive director Nat Ford that set the stage for Sup. John Avalos to try to place a charter amendment on the November ballot that would make MTA more accountable and accessible.

That said, the final MTA deal — which closes a $129 million deficit on the backs of Muni riders (through service cuts and fare hikes) rather than motorists (MTA governs all parking revenue) by a ratio of about 4-1 — seems to be inconsistent with San Francisco’s official "transit-first" policy.

Chiu was the first to suggest rejecting the deal when it became clear that the Mayor’s Office has been using the MTA as a backdoor ATM, authorizing $66 million in work orders for things like salaries for Newsom’s environmental aides and compensating the police department for vaguely defined security services.

The practice made a mockery of Prop. A., which voters approved in 2007 to increase funding to Muni by $26 million annually. But since then, work orders from unrelated city departments, including the police and Newsom’s 311 call center, had increased by $32 million.

"If people have to pay more for less, they will stop taking Muni," Chiu said at the May 6 Budget Committee hearing on the MTA budget.

Sup. David Campos also took issue with the work orders and service cuts. "Whatever money riders of Muni pay into the system should be used for public transportation," Campos said.

In the end, Chiu got the agency to trim $10 million from its budget, restore $8.6 million in proposed Muni service cuts, and delay the increases that seniors, youth, and the disabled will pay for fast passes. In exchange the board voted 6-5 May 12 to drop its MTA’s budget challenge, allowing fares to increase to $2 and for services to be reduced. Sups. Campos, Avalos, Ross Mirkarimi, Chris Daly, and Eric Mar dissented.

"We needed to work this out so we can move forward on the myriad issues before us," Chiu said.

But led by Avalos, who chairs the board’s powerful Budget and Finance Committee, the progressives revived the issue the next day. "Given our grave economic crisis, we owe it to seniors, youth, and other low-income Muni riders to come up with a better budget, one that ensures Muni accessibility and accountability," Avalos said.

Instead of increasing fares and cutting services, Avalos suggested that the MTA extend meter hours to evenings and Sundays. For a moment, it looked as if the progressives would be able to muster the seven votes needed to reject the deal. Ultimately Chiu, Sophie Maxwell, and the other MTA budget opponents stuck to the deal, which was reapproved May 27.

But the episode underscores why Avalos wants to reform the composition of the MTA board. Currently the mayor appoints all seven members. The only thing the supervisors can do is confirm or reject his nominations.

The mayor also appoints MTA’s executive director. Under Newsom, Ford was hired to the post for $316,000 annually, making him the city’s highest paid employee and someone who feels accountable to the mayor. "In all the cities, the mayor takes the heat for the transit system," Ford told the Guardian when challenged on his agency’s seeming lack of independence.

But under Avalos’ amendment, the mayor and the Board of Supervisors would each nominate three board commissioners while voters would elect the seventh. "The new MTA board composition will create greater checks and balances and also ensure that the MTA director is not solely accountable to one person, but to a board that is more representative of the city and county of San Francisco," Avalos said.

MTA now faces an additional $10 to $16 million deficit, thanks to union negotiations and fears that the state will raid city property tax and gas tax coffers. But as part of his budget deal with Chiu, Ford promised that the agency would study extending parking meter enforcement hours to close the gap.

Confirming that the agency dropped a $9 million a year proposal to extend meter hours citywide after receiving input from merchants, Ford said that "we’ll clearly have to revisit parking. We’ll be looking at how to administer extended meter hours, and how that impacts churches if we do it Sundays. But we are sitting here with a structural deficit that’s been going on for decades. We need to figure out the revenue streams we need to enhance the system."

Campos thought that a progressive Board of Supervisors should have gotten a better MTA budget. "As Sup. John Avalos and I pointed out, there’s almost nothing different between this budget and what was presented last week," Campos said. "I think it’s an illustration of how it is not enough to have power. You have to be willing to use it."

But Chiu defended his deal as a necessary way out of the board conflict with Newsom’s office. "Nat Ford has committed publicly and privately that he will propose meter hour change. And MTA Board President Tom Nolan has committed that he will ensure that car owners pick up more of the burden, and that if the budget gets worse, the additional problems won’t be balanced on the backs of Muni riders, which was not something we heard last week," Chiu said.

Avalos was less sanguine: "It was a clear moment for the Board of Supervisors to support transit-first and the city’s most vulnerable residents."

But he felt that concerns about the deal, and the realization that Newsom is an increasingly absent mayor, will help voters see the need for MTA reform.

"There wasn’t a single MTA commissioner or director accessible or accountable to the greater part of San Francisco. But they were responsive to Room 200, the Mayor’s Office," Avalos said. "Clearly, we need greater checks and balances."

Mirkarimi observed how, when faced with a crisis, people make practical decisions. "What gets lost when we are in crisis mode is our larger objective," he said. "We are a transit-first city that has strong climate change legislation, and Mayor Gavin Newsom is constantly campaigning on green issues. So it’s counterintuitive for us to broker an MTA budget on the backs of Muni riders and not understand that this deal could diminish that ridership."

But MTA spokesperson Judson True believes that what got lost in the discussion is that, as a result of Proposition A, the agency adopted a two-year budget that slapped drivers with increased rates and fees in 2008 while Muni riders and services were mostly spared.

Things changed, True said, when the economy tanked in 2008 and the MTA was left facing an unprecedented deficit. "At that point we reopened the budget and put everything on the table," True said.

Either way, Chiu has been urging supervisors to move on and focus on the next big thing: the mayor’s budget. "There’s a half-billion dollar hole in this budget," Chiu said last week. "It’ll make this debate look like child’s play."

Steven T. Jones contributed to this report.

The struggle continues

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>rebeccab@sfbg.com


Video of May 26’s anti-Prop 8 rally. Video by Rebecca Bowe. For more videos from that day, click here.

An estimated 10,000 people turned out in San Francisco May 26 for a day of rallies and marches staged in reaction to the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Proposition 8, the voter-approved measure passed in November 2008 that outlawed same-sex marriage in California. Expressing anger and frustration with the news, same-sex couples and advocates for marriage equality nonetheless vowed to push ahead with a new fight to overturn Prop. 8 at the ballot.

"Today’s court decision means we have to go back to the ballot," Abdi Soltani, executive director of the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told a crowd gathered outside San Francisco City Hall. "The issue is not whether we go back to the ballot. The key question for us to tackle now is what we have to do in order to win at the ballot. That’s the difficult work that is ahead for all of us."

It was an emotional day for same-sex couples. Protesters took to the streets in permitted and spontaneous marches, and 200 arrests were made after a sit-in was staged at Van Ness and Grove streets around midday.

"It’s a sad day to be a Californian, as far as I’m concerned. I’m embarrassed," Castro District resident Hank Doonan, standing arm in arm with his partner Michael Talty, told the Guardian. Talty displayed his engagement ring. "We’re still getting married, and it doesn’t matter," he asserted with a note of defiance. "But we’re really sad today."

Molly McKay, media director for nationwide same-sex marriage advocacy group Marriage Equality USA, appeared at the San Francisco rally in a wedding dress. "I’m sorry we have to keep fighting the same battle," she told the Guardian later. "But I’m proud of all the people who turned out."

Shrinking government

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steve@sfbg.com

Mayor Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2009-10 city budget June 1, proclaiming it far better than doomsayers predicted and emphasizing how he minimized cuts to health and human services that he once said could be as deep as 25 percent in order to bridge a $438 million budget deficit.

"It doesn’t come close to balancing on the backs of our health and human services agencies, as some had feared," Newsom told the department heads, elected supervisors, and journalists who were tightly packed into his office for the announcement event.

But there’s still plenty of pain in a city budget where the General Fund — the portion of the budget local officials can control — would be reduced by more than 11 percent, its only reduction in recent memory. And at a time when every reasonable Democrat in Sacramento has been nearly begging for tax hikes to prevent budget blood, San Francisco’s Democratic mayor proudly proclaimed that there are no new taxes in the budget.

"We didn’t raise taxes, and we didn’t borrow," he said. You can almost hear that line being repeated in the ads he’ll be running as he campaigns for governor.

Newsom proposes slashing the city’s public health budget by $128.4 million, or 8 percent (a total of 400 employees), while the human services budget would take a $15.9 million hit, or 2 percent. "That’s a lot, but by no means is it devastating," Newsom said, noting that he restored some of the deepest cuts that were the subject of alarming public hearings. "I listened to the public comments at the Board of Supervisors… Things got a lot better than the headlines and the hearings."

The proposed budget includes 1,603 full-time-equivalent layoffs, or a 5.8 reduction in the city’s workforce, trimming more than $75.5 million from the general fund budget. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services is cutting back its workweek to 37.5 hours to further trim costs.

"The smoke hasn’t cleared yet and there’s a lot of devastation in this budget that isn’t being talked about," Sup. John Avalos, who chairs the Board of Supervisors Budget Committee, said at the event. Newsom’s budget will be analyzed and then face its first committee hearing June 17, with approval by the full board required by July 31.

"The mayor told us a lot about what’s in the budget, but not a lot about what’s not in the budget, so we’ll spend a few days figuring that out," board President David Chiu told the Guardian.

The budget was aided greatly by more than $80 million in federal stimulus funds and other one-time revenue sources (such as $10 million from the sale of city-owned energy turbines) that were used to plug this year’s gap and offset cuts by the state and depressed tax revenue.

Although Newsom doesn’t want to raise taxes, licenses and fees would go up 41 percent, increasing revenue by $64 million to $220 million. Some of those proposed fee hikes range from the cost of parking in city-owned garages to admission fees for city-owned facilities such as the Strybing Arboretum. Muni riders will also see fares hiked to $2.

There will also be deep cuts to some key city functions. The Department of Emergency Management would take a 24 percent cut under the mayor’s plan, while the Department of Building Inspection faces a 20 percent cut to expenditures and a 29 percent reduction in staff.

The Planning Department would also take a hit of about 7 percent, with most of that focused on the department’s long-range planning functions, which were slashed by 19 percent to $4.7 million.

But it’s not an entirely austere budget. The police and fire departments have status quo budgets with no layoffs. Travel expenses would increase 13.5 percent to $2.9 million and the cost of food purchased by the city would rise 127 percent to $7 million.

The Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development — which often uses public funds to subsidize private sector projects — would get a 32 percent increase, to $24.7 million.

It’s unclear how much the Mayor’s Office has shared the budget pain. During the presentation, Newsom said his office’s budget has been cut by 28 percent, but he later clarified that was spread over the five years he has been mayor. Yet even that is tough to account for given that some functions have been shuffled to other departments.

The document shows a proposed 60 percent increase in the Mayor’s Office budget, although the lion’s share of that comes from the Mayor’s Office of Housing’s one-time financial support for some long-awaited projects, including rebuilding the Hunters View housing and support services project for low-income people connected to the Central YMCA, and an apartment project on 29th Avenue for people with disabilities.

Avalos has said he will look to find money by cutting some of the highly paid policy czars and communications specialists added to the Mayor’s Office in recent years, as well as Newsom’s cherished 311 call center and the Community Justice Court he created. Supervisors are also expected to resist Newsom’s penchant for privatization. Newsom proposed to privatize seven city functions, from jail health services and security guards and city-owned facilities, and to consolidate another 14 functions between various city departments.

Newsom pledged to work with supervisors who want to change the budget, continuing the rhetoric of cooperation that he opened the budget season with in January, which supervisors say hasn’t been matched by his actions or the secretive nature of this budget. "This budget is by no means done," Newsom said. "It’s an ongoing process."

In fact, Newsom warned that the budget news could be even worse than his budget outlines. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is talking about new cuts that could total $175 million or more for San Francisco only, although Newsom only included $25 million of that in his budget because it went to the printer on May 22 and the total hit is still unclear. "So," Newsom said, "we’re by no means out of the woods."

Let there be lunch

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paulr@sfbg.com

In the restaurant pageant, places that don’t serve dinner are at risk of being seen as a ragtag contingent. Dinner is glory, while breakfast and lunch, if not preceded by the adjective "power" — relic of a pre-bust past — are routine. There are time constraints and concerns about drink, not to mention daylight, which, while delightful, can be inhibiting. People are free to dance the night away, but not the noon hour.

One response to this predicament is to be very good-looking — like, say, Stable Café, which opened about a year ago in a building that, in the 1870s, actually housed the mayoral stables, back in the days when mayors had stables of horses instead of (or in addition to) floozies. The structure has a Wild West, stagecoach-stop look and has been painted black — shades of that sex club on Castro Street in the early 1990s. Inside, though, all is spare, sunlit grace, with ice water pourable from a pewter ewer and a lovely gated courtyard, set with tables and patio umbrellas, on the north side of the building. The quiet style and attention to detail aren’t surprising, considering that there’s an architecture firm, Malcom Davis Architecture, on the building’s second floor, and that Davis and his partner, Brian Lackey, own the property and are its redesigners.

Lackey runs the food operation, which serves both the café and a catering concern called Mission Creek Kitchen. The former’s menu naturally emphasizes soups, salads, sandwiches, and panini — the last being Italian-style sandwiches pressed in a waffle-iron-like device and served hot. This method is especially effective when cheese is involved, since cheese melts and melted cheese holds things together while adding a gooey voluptuousness that is its own reward. Turkey sandwiches, for instance, can be dry, but Stable’s turkey and cheddar panino ($6.75) was enlivened by plenty of melted white cheddar. A vegetarian edition ($6.75) of tomato, pesto, and mozzarella cheese, was like a reimagined slice of pizza margherita. The bread used for the panini is plain french bread, not fancy but pillow-fresh within a tender-crisp crust.

Panini come with a sizable heap of mésclun, tossed with some carrot ribbons and a cherry tomato or two and glossed with a simple vinaigrette. If that doesn’t offer enough counterpoint, then perhaps a small bowl ($3.50) of the day’s soup, which might be a coarse purée of tomato and roasted red bell pepper — a strange combination for late spring, but let’s let it go because, even in the presence of out-of-season soup, Stable is as attractive a place to look at and sit in, or next to, in this part of the Mission since the days of the original Citizen Cake a decade ago. If you’ve missed a haven of sunny serenity since that operation packed up and moved to the Civic Center, then Stable Café might well strike you as paradise regained.


Just off Union Square, in the Chancellor Hotel, we find another handsome, daytime-only spot called Luques. We find it after some searching, since the dining room is well-concealed behind the hotel lobby. Furtiveness does offer its joys, but a restaurant that people have trouble finding is in danger of becoming a restaurant that people stop looking for. Yet those who manage to suss out Luques will find themselves in a comfortably appointed, skylit dining room that, in its remove from the street bustle just a few steps away, can seem almost like a private or VIP facility.

Chef Darren Lacy offers a mainstream California menu with gentle Southern flourishes. You can get po’boy sliders, for instance, or a Creole-style croque monsieur ($10) — the classic ham-and-cheese sandwich, made here with tasso instead of ham. (Tasso is an cold-smoked relative of prosciutto, with pork shoulder used in place of leg.) For a bit of added luxury, the bread is brioche, although that cake-like quality is somewhat obscured by a downpour of béchamel sauce. On the side: a mixed green salad for the ascetic or, for the rest of us, delicately golden, crisp fries.

I particularly liked Lacy’s cream of mushroom soup ($3.50 for a cup), which was thick with strips of shiitake mushrooms and creamy, although not too creamy, thanks to an expert blending of cream and stock. No Creole influence here (unless the cream counts), or on the California chicken sandwich ($9.25), a friendly get-together of boneless grilled chicken breast, avocado, tomato slices, jack cheese, bacon, and aioli on sourdough. Still, it did what a good lunch is supposed to do: satisfy without encumbering, so that when you leave the secret chamber you’re still as fleet of foot and clear of mind as you rejoin the daily pageant.

STABLE CAFÉ

Mon.–Fri., 8 a.m.–3 p.m.; Sat., 9 a.m.–3 p.m.

2128 Folsom, SF

(415) 552-1199

www.stablecafe.com

No alcohol

AE/MC/V

Not noisy

Wheelchair accessible

LUQUES RESTAURANT & BAR

Daily, 7 a.m.–2:30 p.m.

433 Powell, SF

(415) 248-2475

www.luquesrestaurant.com

Full bar

AE/DS/MC/V

Not noisy

Wheelchair accessible

Appetite: Absinthe gimlets, fancy ‘wiches, sparkling spirits, dinner in bed, and more

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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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NEW OPENINGS
Grand Tavern dining room. Photo by Virginia Miller

The Grand Tavern opens in Oakland
Take a turn-of-the-century house on Grand Ave (near Camino) and turn it into The Grand Tavern, making use of each room (dining room with fireplace, lounge areas with chairs from Mission vintage shops, a dark wood bar, and patio)… add a menu cooked by Kay Eskind, aka "Mom", put the entire operation in the capable hands of her son, Temoor Noor, who has, with care and saavy, thought out each detail, from craft beer selection to beautiful artisanal cocktails (I’m ready to go back for the Absinthe Gimlet!), and you’re starting to get an idea of what kind of appealing hang out this tavern is.

With a $5-18 menu featuring rib-eye steak, Cornish hen with ginger and onions, and roasted squash with chili, onions and garlic sour cream sauce, it’s comforting gastropub fare, paired with an Affligem Blonde on tap or Devil’s Whiskers cocktail. The Kold Draft machine means they’re serious about perfect temperature and quality in their drinks, and the welcoming ease of staff and owner mean you can sip or sup in any room or move between them as you wish. They’re in soft opening phase right now but don’t let that stop you (in the first week along, I had a pretty seamless experience). Mi casa su casa.
3601 Grand Avenue, Oakland
510-444-4644
www.grandtavern.net

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EVENTS

6/1 – Supperclub 4-course Dinner with Jamie Lauren and Jennie Lorenzo
Dinner in bed? You’ll want to splurge for this one-of-a-kind night at Netherlands-based Supperclub’s one US location. Waited on hand-and-foot while lounging in Roman-style beds as you’re surrounded by opera singers, contortionists dangling from colorful fabric above you, even flaming sword-carrying belly dancers… who knows what might appear? Don’t worry, it’s not merely style sans substance. Launched in February, Supperclub’s “Uber Dinner” series started with a one-night-only dinner cooked by three Michelin-rated chefs from Europe and our own Elizabeth Falkner. Not bad, eh? Tonight it’s another rare gig… come and be surprised by an undisclosed four-course meal, paired with cocktails and wine (all included in the price). Highlighting Great Chefs of San Francisco, “Uber Dinner II”‘s guest chefs are Jennie Lorenzo, Exec Chef of Michelin-rated Fifth Floor, and Jamie Lauren, Exec Chef at Absinthe, and recently of, well, you already know… Top Chef. A night of exotic and sensuous feasting, this is one those meals engaging all your senses.
$125
7-10pm
657 Harrison Street
415-348-0900
www.supperclub.com

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Cocktail Party at Domaine Chandon in Napa Valley
I love any excuse for a dress-up cocktail party, one with fine spirits, company, and tunes. In wine-centric Napa Valley, Yountville’s sparking wine queen, Domaine Chandon, is throwing a unique party this Thursday night with three hours of sparkling wine cocktails (created by Nopa’s Neyah White – yes!), small bites from on-site Etoile restaurant (which gets a 25 food rating in Zagat), and DJ Dukes providing the dance soundtrack, all in Chandon’s lovely open-air lounge and terrace, where you can roam under the stars in your little black dress or vintage suit. Sounds worth a trek up North.
$30
1 California Drive, Yountville
888-242-6366
www.chandon.com

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NEWS

Calling all cooks… sandwich contest where you can win $25,000
With the gourmet sandwich craze reaching an apex these days (Sentinel, Kitchenette, Pal’s, and so on), I couldn’t help but notice that Napa Valley-based Mezzetta, producer of jarred olives, peppers and specialty foods, launched a Summer-long contest for America’s Best Sandwich Recipe on Memorial Day. The eye-catcher? Grand prize is a whopping $25,000 (plus a trip to Napa) and two runners-up win $1000 each. Given the inspiration we have all around us in amazing sandwiches, I figured it’d be a natural to have a Bay Area winner, right? They say, "let your culinary imagination run wild", so now’s your chance to create a recipe to rival the great ones we eat all the time. Submit as many recipes as you want in three categories (Cold, Hot or Vegetarian), using at least two of Mezzetta’s products, from their peppers, olives, gourmet foods line, Napa Valley Bistro pasta sauces and olives, or Kona Coast teriyaki and BBQ sauces. I’d say those parameters are worth $25k. In these times, to win that much for a recipe is nothing short of a golden opportunity.
www.makethatsandwich.com

Appetite: Bar Crudo’s new digs, Bruno’s good evening, sweetbreads, pastas, and more

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Every Monday, 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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Campy/classy Good Evening Thursdays

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EVENTS

Good Evening Thursdays at Bruno’s… a sexy, weekly, speakeasy-like supper club
Take "Pussycat" in giant, Parisian ’60’s lettering, white tablecloths and waiters in vintage suits, a Rat Pack-vibe menu (reasonably priced) of Filet Mignon with bone marrow, chop salad, martinis, and Oysters Rockefeller, throw in a leering cat from the rafters, and, yes, a gold pole in the middle of the room (hmmm…?) and you have Good Evening Thursdays (at least until another name is decided upon). Up leopard-carpeted stairs in Bruno’s intimate, 35-seat private room, you’ve got yourself about the coolest non-restaurant, meal ticket in town. The genius behind this concept? A cracker-jack chef line-up of Chris Kronner (from Serpentine), Slow Club, Chez Panisse), Danny Bowien (of Bar Tartine), Sam White and Howie Correa (both front of house at Chez Panisse), and Oliver Monday (from brand new flour+water) who create and cook the meals each week. I went on debut night, May 7, and found it worth dressing up for. Sans reservations, the downstairs ’60’s-chic lounge celebrates Thursdays, too, no res. required, with old school imbibements and killer bar food, like Let’s Be Frank dogs with kimchi and bacon mayo, or pork banh mi. Read more and see photos in my latest Perfect Spot newsletter.
7pm-1:30am
Reservations: goodeveningthursday@gmail.com
2389 Mission, SF
415-643-5200
www.brunossf.com

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Artic char at Bar Crudo

NEW OPENINGS

Who says there’s a recession? All these new openings are keeping me busy… 5A5 Steak Loungeofficially debuted last week (mentioned in soft opening phase in my Perfect Spot newsletter). Ebisu just re-opened, remodeled and with new menu. In SoMa, Italian La Briciola opened where Vino e Cucina used to be. Swell took over in the former Bar Crudo space with Japanese Euro ethos still in play. Moroccan fave Tajine even returned… inside a Van Ness club, Heights Lounge. Little Skillet’s chicken ‘n waffle window is finally up and running and it’s tasty, y’all!

Bar Crudo moves to bigger digs on Divisadero
Bar Crudo is a spot like no other. Long one of my favorite places for seafood, it’s the place to be wowed with delicate, inventive crudo. The original spot, long situated downtown, recently closed, making way for a larger locale in the Western Addition. Fans like me are delighted to know there’s five new crudos to try (and eight hot dishes, thanks to a bigger kitchen). Owners (and actual bros), Tim and Mike Selvera, converted a former pizza joint on Divis into a new Bar Crudo, debuting this week. With Tim’s love of obscure, artisan beers, there’s fine ales to pair with your oysters, like Deschutes Brewery’s The Abyss, plus an impeccable wine list, even five cocktails created by non other than Jacqueline Patterson of Heaven’s Dog. Though I’ll kinda miss the charming, cramped layout of the original, thankfully, I don’t have to miss sparkling-fresh seafood and crudos like Arctic char with creamy horseradish, wasabi tobiko and dill.
665 Divisadero, SF
415-409-0679
www.barcrudo.com

flour+water opens in the Mission
This one’s been long-awaited from a foursome with Gary Danko/La Folie and Postrio/Plouf pedigree. Yes, it’s yet another Italian restaurant (across from Cafe Gratitude) with salumis, wood-burning oven for pizzas and a communal table, but with a quality-focused menu based around the "four pillars" of Italian cuisine: pizza, pasta, salumi, and, of course, vino. In the pizza realm, I like the sound of the Novo, with potato, farm egg, house pancetta, oregano, or the Cariciofi: artichokes, onion, pecorino and capers. Hand-rolled pastas intrigue, like Corzetti Stampati with braised Monterey squid and fava beans. Antipasti include sweetbread, Meyer lemon and spring onion fritto – works for me! There’s a handful of entrees, salads, and desserts like olive oil cornmeal cake with honey-thyme ice cream. Don’t forget a mostly Italian wine list of around 60 bottles priced between $30 and $60. I can’t wait to see what Sean Quigley, owner of Paxton Gate, has done with the interior design.
2401 Harrison, SF
415-826-7000
www.flourandwatersf.com

From East (NYC) to West (here), 54 Mint debuts in Mint Plaza
Umbrian native Alberto Avalle, founded and helmed New York’s famed Il Buco and after 15 years in the Big Apple, desired the relaxed pace and weather of California. Thankfully for us, he’s also bringing his passion for, and mastery of, Italian food to our city. Slated to open today, 54 Mint (neighbor to Blue Bottle Cafe and Chez Papa Resto), is a place for pure simplicity and high quality: hand-rolled pastas, truffles, Sicilian rice cakes with black squid, and wines all happily under $35 a bottle. Starting with dinner this week, by early June they plan to add lunch… for a Summer of la dolce vita.
54 Mint (between Jessie & Mission Streets)
415-543-5100
www.54mint.com

Appetite: Beer-battered rings, French on the fly, and a chef bacchanal

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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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Oh yes, there shall be chef: SF Chef. Food. Wine. period.

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EVENTS

August 6-9: SF Chefs.Food.Wine (calling food, wine and spirits lovers)
Start saving pennies, mark your calendar and buy your tickets now for an unparalleled event coming up in August I’m quite excited about, the first of its kind in our fair city. SF Chefs.Food.Wine is going to be a Pebble Beach/Aspen Food and Wine Classic- reminiscent event but right in an urban city center at a fraction of the price (though you’ll still shell out $150 for a one-day pass). Union Square will be turned into a sea of tents housing not only Bay Area food, wine, beer, and spirits vendors offering day-long tastings (beer garden, cocktail samplings, wine tasting, food), but each day offers over 20 sessions/panels/classes appealing to food, wine and spirits cognoscenti and uninitiated appreciators alike.

An example of just a few sessions over three days:
FOOD – "Haute vs. Bistro" cooking demo from Hubert Keller (Fleur de Lys) and Roland Passot (La Folie); "Heirloom Tomatoes" with Gary Danko and Joanne Weir; interviews with cooking luminaries and authors like Martin Yan, Joyce Goldstein, Georgeanne Brennan; a cooking competition between Jamie Lauren (Top Chef/Absinthe) and Chris Cosentino (Incanto/Iron Chef America).
SPIRITS/COCKTAILS – "Green Cocktails" with Scott Beattie (author of Artisanal Cocktails), H. Joseph Ehrmann (Elixir) and Thad Vogler (Bar Agricole); "Agave Academy" with Rebecca Chapa (Tannin Management) and Julio Bermejo (Tommy’s).
WINE – "Raid the Cellar" with Rajat Parr (Michael Mina restaurants) and Larry Stone MS (Rubicon Estate); "Sparkling Personality" with sparkling wine masters from Schramsberg Vineyards, Domaine Carneros and Roederer Estate.

These are just a few examples… there are sessions on chocolate, sushi, oysters, cheese, eggs, making the perfect coffee, beer brewing, trends in wine and spirits, marketing, design and service, food reviewing and everything of interest to those who love food and drink.

Evenings are equally enticing: the Opening Reception highlights Rising Star Chefs and Bar Stars from the SF Chronicle’s last five years of winners, as well as an advance screening of Julie and Julia, the highly anticipated Meryl Streep film. Galas run nightly, like a Pacific Rim feast from Charles Phan, Martin Yan and Arnold Eric Wong; an LBGT culinary gala at Orson with Elizabeth Falkner, Emily Wines, Harry Denton; American Culinary Pioneers Awards given to Joyce Goldstein, Judy Rodgers, Patricia Unterman, Emily Luchetti, Patrick O’Connell; a dinner honoring Master Sommelier, Larry Stone; a bluesy rock party from chefs with musical ties.

Convinced yet? The hard part now is choosing which events, days and sessions to splurge on. This surely creates a problem when your choices are this good and plentiful. Go online and take a look at the line-up and whether you’re a cocktail hound, wine imbiber, beer brewer or food fanatic, you’ll want to be a part of this momentous event.

$40-250 (discounts for Visa Signature card holders)
August 6-9
www.sfchefsfoodwine.com

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NEW OPENINGS

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Spencer on the Go!
Maybe the food cart mania is getting to you, or, like the rest of us, you’re ever thrilled to find gourmet food on-the-cheap popping up around town. Well, here’s one we haven’t seen before. Laurent Katgely, Chez Spencer’s talented chef, launched Spencer on the Go! last Thursday night outside of Terroir wine bar, offering fine French fare from a shiny, converted taco truck with Spencer’s chic logo on the side. It was a long wait for food debut night, and Frog Legs and Curry were sadly sold out by the time I got there, but I hear waits have already improved, the crowd was friendly and festive, and I dig the Grilled Sweetbreads and amazingly addictive Escargot Puffs (escargot, breaded and on a stick)! With a menu all under $9, pair French snacks with Perrier and cookies or take it across the street to Terroir and order a glass of wine. Watch for the truck to soon be at Tuesday and (upcoming food cart-centric) Thursday farmers markets at the Ferry Building. It’s the bon vivant’s ideal "fast food".
6pm-12am
Thursday-Saturday
415-864-2191
http://spenceronthego.com

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Urban Burger
It’s time for a new burger joint on Valencia near 16th, Urban Burger opened last week in the tiny, former Yum Yum House space, now brightly painted sporting white leather stools, orange walls, and playful signs with phrases like "Nice Buns". Besides build-your-own burger options, there’s a list of ten hefty special burgers like a Breakfast Burger loaded with cheese, bacon, fried egg and fries (yep, all together), Mission Heat, with chilies, pepper jack and chipotle, or a Cubano with grilled ham and swiss. Opening day, I enjoyed the Buffalo version with blue cheese and hot sauce. Want it a bit lighter? Choose turkey, gardenburger, or Portabella mushroom instead of beef. But if you’re downing a hearty burger, why not pair it with a Mitchell’s milkshake and beer-battered onion rings?
581 Valencia Street
415-551-2483
http://urbanburgersf.com

ChevWrong

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news@sfbg.com

When Chevron Corp. holds its annual shareholders meeting at its San Ramon headquarters May 27, its top executives are expected to give investors a glowing report on how this global enterprise came to rake in a profit of $23.9 billion last year — a staggering 28.1 percent increase over the past year.

As Chevron CEO Dave O’Reilly put it in the company’s annual report, 2008 was "a momentous year." Apparently O’Reilly will also claim that his company’s activities are improving people’s lot worldwide. "Energy," he writes, "is not a luxury — it’s the foundation for economic growth. By investing in the future, we’re creating value not only for our stakeholders, but we’re also building economic prosperity around the globe."

But O’Reilly’s high opinion of his company is not shared by a growing coalition of groups who believe that Chevron’s fifth consecutive year of record profits was earned, once again, at the cost of degrading the environment and its poorest communities, both here in Richmond and further afield, from the Amazon and Nigeria to Iraq and Kazakhastan.

Critics, who include what they describe as "a coalition of those directly affected by Chevron’s operations, political control, consumer abuse, and false promises," planned to hold a May 26 press conference to release The True Cost of Chevron, an alternative annual report that seeks to provide Chevron shareholders "with the most comprehensive exposé of Chevron’s operations — and the communities in struggle against them — ever compiled," according to the report’s authors.

The study includes reports from Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, the Gulf Coast, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Washington, D.C, and Wyoming as well as Angola, Burma, Canada, Chad, Cameroon, Ecuador, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and the Philippines.

The next day, people carrying shareholder proxies intend to enter Chevron’s annual meeting to discuss the report with shareholders while a protest is held at Chevron’s front gates.

"Chevron’s 2008 annual report is a glossy celebration of the company’s most profitable year in its history, and one in which CEO David O’Reilly became the 15th highest paid U.S. chief executive, with nearly $50 million in total 2008 compensation," the authors state. "What Chevron’s annual report does not tell its shareholders is the true cost paid for those financial returns or the global movement gaining voice and strength against Chevron’s abuses."

The 44-page report details numerous lawsuits against the company, nationally and around the world — cases, the report’s authors claim, that have "potential liabilities in excess of Chevron’s total revenue from 2008, posing a material threat to shareholder value and the company’s bottom line."

As they wrote: "When a company operates in blatant disregard for the health, security, livelihood, safety, and environment of communities within which it operates, there can be real financial repercussions."

The report concludes with six specific obligations demanded of Chevron and leaves shareholders with the following message: "Chevron is right. The world will continue to use oil as it transitions to a sustainable green renewable energy economy. Whether Chevron will be in business as we make the transition depends upon what sort of company it chooses to be and whether the public is willing to support it."

The report also includes a series of large "ChevWrong Inhumane Energy ads" that spoof Chevron’s Human Energy ad campaign — images that popped up all across San Francisco last week after a group of renegade Chevron critics gathered at an secret location, mixed batches of wheat paste, and grabbed armfuls of the freely downloadable posters and set off into the night to bomb the city streets with the series of subvertisements.

Claiming that Chevron’s Human Energy campaign, which depicts smiling people alongside phrases like "I will try to leave the car at home more" is an attempt to greenwash the petro-giant’s activities, this group of mostly youthful critics pointed to the ongoing pollution, human rights abuses, and wars in regions where the oil company is stationed as they set off on bicycles, skateboards, and foot, armed with glue rollers and stacks of "ChevWrong" images. Some stashed their tools in Banana Republic shopping bags, which gave them an almost comical air of being disoriented tourists as they lurked and lingered on city street corners searching for suitable spots to paste their alternative ad campaign.

Soon newspaper racks on Market Street, pillars outside the Ferry Building, buildings in the Richmond District, and walls in North Beach bore the fruits of their work — along with the glass office door of public relations consultant Sam Singer, who represented Chevron in criticizing two renowned Ecuadorian environmental activists who were in town to receive the Goldman Prize.

"I will not complain about my asthma," states one such subversive ad, which depicts a beautiful but non-smiling young black man beside the claim that "Chevron’s refinery in Richmond, Calif. poisons the community." The ad is accompanied by a retooled logo that says "ChevWrong."

"I will try not to get cancer," states another that hot glue artists had affixed to Sandra Bullocks’ buttocks — or at least a life-sized depiction of the actress featured on a Market Street billboard promoting The Proposal.

"I will suffer in silence" states another, alongside the claim that Chevron props up Burma’s military dictatorship.

An ad reading "I will give my baby contaminated water" portrayed a smiling Nigerian woman alongside the claim that Chevron refuses to clean up its mess in Nigeria.

One activist told the Guardian she got involved "because Chevron is poisoning communities and cutting corners across the world, and is even shameless enough to do that here in Richmond."

Another said he was inspired to take this action because of a billion-dollar lawsuit Chevron is fighting in Ecuador, and because of its activities in Nigeria.

Others said they decided to drop the subvertisements all over the city after they heard that CBS Outdoor refused May 14 to sell the group space for the images on billboards citywide.

As they noted, the images are all freely downloadable from truecostofchevron.com, a site supported by Amazon Watch, Crude Accountability, Global Exchange, Justice in Nigeria Now, Rainforest Action Network, CorpWatch, Filipino-American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Trustees for Alaska, Communities for a Better Environment, Mpalabanda, Richmond Progressive Alliance, and EarthRights International.

Mitch Anderson, corporate accountability campaigner with Amazon Watch, confirmed that members of the truecostofchevron coalition approached CBS Outdoor but were told that CBS has a policy not to run negative or attack ads — a claim Anderson found laughable. "What about all the attack ads we see posted during election season?"

A CBS Outdoor spokesperson confirmed that CBS had refused to accept the proposed ad campaign, and that it is the company’s policy not to run negative or attack ads.

Calls to Rachel Sutton, Chevron PR person at its corporate headquarters in San Ramon, seeking comments about truecostofchevron’s charges remained unanswered as of press time.

But at Amazon Watch, Anderson said he thought it was "great that the Bay Area community took to the streets this week to tell Chevron that our hearts and minds are not for sale.

"Chevron is trying to paper-over its widespread human rights and environmental problems across the world by spending millions to propagate insulting lies," he continued. "From its disaster in Ecuador to its hiring of global warming deniers as lobbyists, this company has shown complete disregard for the environment, human rights, and yes, wisdom. Chevron is on the wrong side of history. Just as there can be no social justice on a dead planet, Chevron should know that you can’t profit off a dead planet either."

In a final swipe at Chevron’s Human Energy campaign, critics are distributing posters that ask "Will you join us?" and show a woman smiling alongside the promise "I will protest Chevron."

Crash landings

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news@sfbg.com

As the U.S. military wrestles with President Barack Obama’s plan to expand the war in Afghanistan while reducing its presence in Iraq, there’s a mounting cost on the home front for the 1.9 million soldiers who have been deployed to those conflicts and are now beginning the often difficult transition back to civilian life.

Inadequate stateside mental health and other veterans’ services has been serious problem for years (see "Soldier’s heart, 12/22/04). A report in January 2008 by the RAND Corp. titled "Invisible Wounds of War" found that nearly 20 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans report symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or major depression, and that an additional 19 percent experienced a possible traumatic brain injury while deployed. But only slightly more than half of these returning veterans seek treatment that RAND called "minimally adequate."

The report estimated that PTSD and depression will cost the nation $6.2 billion in the two years following deployment, but also estimated that investing in more high-quality treatment — and thus lowering the rates of suicide and lost productivity among veterans — could reduce those costs by $2 billion within two years. Modern life-saving and protective technologies and repeated deployments appear to be making the problem worse now than in previous wars.

"Early evidence suggests the psychological toll of the deployments may be disproportionately high compared with physical injuries," the report stated, concluding that a national effort is needed to expand and improve the capacity of the health care system and to encourage veterans to seek this care.

That national picture is reflected in San Francisco. Judi Cheary of San Francisco’s Department of Veteran Affairs medical clinic said that 25 percent of the service members they see returning from Afghanistan and Iraq receive a mental health diagnosis.

Keith Armstrong, the clinic’s PTSD counselor and a professor of psychiatry at University of California-San Francisco, noted that veterans often have a diagnosis that includes depression and PTSD, or substance abuse and PTSD. "So they may be struggling with many problems," said Armstrong, who wrote Courage After Fire: Coping Strategies for Troops Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and Their Families (Ulysses Press, 2005). "Others simply have adjustment challenges from being in combat."

For instance, traffic can be difficult for returning service members who drove in combat conditions, where explosives were a constant concern. "They are scanning the environment because that’s what kept them safe in combat, or pushing the steering wheel when a friend is driving, trying to move from one lane to another," he explained.

According to V.A. data, California has the third-highest number of veterans in the nation. In Northern California, most live in the Central Valley, leaving some San Francisco vets feeling isolated. "There’s a lot of talk about supporting the troops, which is nice, but it’s intellectual," Armstrong said. "Here people may not disclose that a family member is in war, not because they’re afraid people will spit on him, but because they are afraid that people will say dumb things."

His clinic has seen an increase in these veterans in the past year. Armstrong typically sees three clusters of PTSD symptoms: intrusive symptoms (vets can’t get particular images and experiences out of their head); avoidance symptoms (vets believe they don’t have a great future ahead; they feel numb, it’s hard to get close to them); and arousal symptoms (vets are often irritable and angry).

Anger often causes the most problems. "We see more self-destructive and reckless behavior in younger folks," he added. "They have anger, revenge-based fantasies. They know what it’s like to blow someone’s head off or to see it being blown off, so when they get angry, that crosses their mind." But he said that couples and families often talk more about "the numbing" and "the inability to connect."

Armstrong also pointed out that many vets worry about the effect on their career of getting help, and how it looks to others if they do. "That’s due to both their training and age group," he said, noting that 50 percent of soldiers are 17-to-24-year-olds, and 89 percent are male.

"So it’s not just about war, but about the developmental stage of the troops," he said. "It’s an appropriate age to be independent and not get any help. But that, combined with the stigma of asking for help — and if they have PTSD avoidance symptoms — can keep them from going in."

As a result of recent studies showing that PTSD can develop up to five years after discharge, the V.A. extended what was previously a two-year limit in which veterans could get help to a five-year window. They also now have a suicide prevention hotline number for vets: 1-800-273-8255.

"The V.A. overall has made some mistakes, but it has really taken suicide prevention seriously," Armstrong said.

There are nonprofit options as well. Founded in 1974, Swords to Plowshares provides counseling and case management, employment, training, housing, and legal assistance to homeless and low-income veterans.

Equally important, it’s staffed by veterans like Walter Williams, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and has combat-related PTSD, and Tia Christopher, a survivor of military sexual trauma. "The experience of being in a war zone as well, or being sexually assaulted by some one in your own unit, that’s profound," Armstrong said.

As Christopher explained, she and Williams have similar symptoms and attend weekly V.A. appointments to deal with their own mental health issues, between providing services to other veterans at the group’s Howard Street office.

"Pretty much everyone coming back has combat stress and everyone I know has been buying rifles," Christopher said, noting that cleaning guns can be a meditative therapeutic activity for veterans. "Combat stress becomes clinical PTSD when those symptoms don’t go away."

Christopher said women who were in combat and survived military sexual trauma face "a double whammy." Out of the military for more than seven years, Christopher observed that "things get better, but the memories don’t go away."

In 2007 there were more than 2,000 reported military sexual assaults, but only 181 were court-martialed, she said. "So basically survivors are dealing with injustice of nothing happening.

"I used to wish that PTSD gave you purple spots," she added. "That way people would know you had it. Instead, you are left dealing with getting panic attacks all of a sudden and being on edge."

"I call it a flare-up," Williams said. "It’s different each time. Sometimes, when I have to focus and get my mind around something, I’m blank. I feel like I want to cry, but I can’t."

Unlike past generations who openly identified as vets, "this new wave of vets is "more intent on blending in," Williams said. "They’re trying to suppress their symptoms. They don’t want to be seen as weirdos."

Deployed to Iraq and then Afghanistan as a communications specialist in 2004, Williams recalled having to give up his weapon twice and being put on suicide watch. "For a week, they watched me, then they gave me my weapon back."

He’s convinced that the best solutions to the challenges facing this latest wave of PTSD-afflicted vets lie in "listening to stories from the mouths of people with it," he said.

Bobbi Rosenthal, regional coordinator for V.A.’s homeless program, said that an estimated 20 percent of the 6,514 people recorded in San Francisco’s 2009 homeless count are veterans.

Anita Yoskowitz, administrative site manager for the V.A.’s homeless services center on Third Street, said 90 percent of the vets who use the clinic’ showers, laundry facilities, and computer lab have PTSD.

And while many of the center’s clients are still from the Vietnam and Desert Storm era, the average age is starting to come down, she said, as veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan begin to trickle in.

Veterans can come to the clinic every day, but those who are not clean and sober are limited to three times a week. When folks come for medical care, Yoskowitz said, "the clinic is on the look out for mental health problems."

Jacob Hoff, who volunteers at the center’s computer lab, said that from conversations he overhears, it’s clear that coming back is hard. "There’s a lot of survivor’s guilt. I can really tell the young kids who are coming in and learning how to be homeless. The older guys tell them where to go for food."

Donald Fontenot, who enlisted in 1980, was on the computer looking for housing when he shared his story. He enlisted when he was 18 and then messed up his knees jumping out of a C-141 jet, so he understands the stress of no longer being able to perform.

"You are young and strong and then all of a sudden, you can’t do these things," said Fontenot, who was living in his car behind the clinic until it got towed by the police. "So I wound up more homeless."

Currently staying with a friend, Fontenot recalled meeting a Vietnam vet who likes to walk around Golden Gate Park at night with a pistol. "It gives him the feeling of walking around in the jungle," said Fontenot, who is searching for suitable Section 8 housing — another unique challenge for PTSD-afflicted veterans in San Francisco.

For some, the road to recovery leads them from the streets of San Francisco back into the arms of their family. One such local family shared their story with the Guardian and we decided to shield their identities for privacy. Mike recalled the dramatic change he saw in his brother, Joe, who joined the Marines directly after 9/11, after he tore up his shoulder in Iraq.

"His whole mentality, even if he didn’t support the war in Iraq, was of a to-die-for-it Marine," said Mike, recalling the hurt and disappointment in Joe’s voice after he had two surgeries, and couldn’t return with his unit to combat.

Mike said his brother’s state of mind worsen after he had been out of active duty for three years, and that the first signs that his brother might have PTSD were night sweats and an inability to pay attention.

"But how can you expect soldiers to pay attention to isolated thoughts, words, and action, when they are or have been immersed in culture that teaches you to ‘walk, talk, shoot, shit’?" Mike asked.

Joe was homeless in San Francisco for stints in 2007, but never longer than a week. Mike recalled how things came to a head when the two brothers got into a fight one night after Mike closed the bar where he worked.

"Here we are, I’m 30 and he is 28, in a fist fight, and I told [Joe], ‘I think you’re losing your mind.’ And he said, ‘then save me,’ lying on my kitchen floor at four in the morning. But then that was it, no more conversation."

Joe soon checked himself into a couple of private facilities where he berated psychiatrists for not knowing about military combat zones and could always check himself out. "Then he went over to the East Bay, went into a 24-hour Fitness Center to use the shower, got into it with a security guard for trespassing and disorderly conduct, got arrested, and was brought to the V.A.’s PTSD center in Palo Alto," Mike said.

It was at this state-of-the art facility that Joe began to get help, and this year he returned to Chicago, where he is living with family until he returns to school to pursue his master’s degree. Joe’s mother, Betty, said dealing with all this has been minor compared to the prospect of losing her middle son permanently. But she resisted labeling behavior she believes was connected to his imploding marriage and financial problems when he moved to California, as well as to fallout from his injuries in Iraq.

She recalls getting an e-mail from their now former daughter-in law saying, "Joe has been living in the park, camping." Betty said the first year after Joe came back was pretty tough. "We knew the marriage was over. And a couple of times I called two of his real close friends who are Marines, to tough-talk to him. For a period of time, he was acting out, a different person. You could tell something wasn’t right, and yeah, some blamed it on the service."

Asked what she thought of giving vets with PTSD a Purple Heart, an idea the military floated earlier this year, Betty said, "I don’t know. They all have to go through it in some respects. My feelings about why he ended up totally collapsing is that he was trying to do too much on too little. They are over there, building cities and lives for people. Then they get back and find they can’t support their families or themselves. But at least it’s not like when folks came back from Vietnam and were labeled as bums."

Guardian staff writer Sarah Phelan’s son deployed to Iraq in 2007 and returned in April 2008.

Dazed and confused

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news@sfbg.com

Police officers in the Tenderloin have routinely violated city policies and wasted scarce public money sending people busted for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana to the Community Justice Center (CJC), a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom that was supposed to save money and clean up the Tenderloin.

Instead, all these minor drug possession cases have been dismissed by an already overtaxed court system. And as the police have only just begun to ease up on referring these cases to the CJC in its second month of operations, they continue to bust the homeless for quality-of-life violations.

The Tenderloin police station referred at least 17 cases of simple pot possession cases to the CJC since its inception in March. After only one month of the CJC’s operations in the Tenderloin, Public Defender Jeff Adachi could already see that such police referrals represented a larger misuse of resources occurring throughout the city.

Adachi’s office has handled more than 300 cases at the CJC. Of his caseload, he estimates that "about 80 percent of the cases have involved loitering, illegal camping, possession of marijuana, possession of paraphernalia, and blocking the sidewalk. The remainder of the cases were petty thefts, batteries, and other miscellaneous crimes."

Clarence Wilson, a 67-year-old African American Rastafarian, had his marijuana possession case dismissed at the CJC with Adachi’s help. Wilson’s ordeal began after he finished crossing the street at Hyde and Ellis at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 8. He recalls walking in the crosswalk during a green light. But when he gazed up while reaching the other side, it had just turned red.

Two Tenderloin station police officers stopped him for jaywalking and proceeded to question him to see if he was carrying anything. "Just herbal," he admitted, referring to the small amount of marijuana he had just purchased.

The officers faced Wilson against the wall, handcuffed him, and drove him to the Tenderloin police station where he spent 45 minutes handcuffed to a bench. Before they released him with a court date for the following Monday at the CJC, they booked him under a jaywalking infraction and a misdemeanor violation of marijuana possession of less than 28.5 grams (an ounce).

Wilson’s case stands out because he has lived in the city for 33 years with a clean record, but has now been sucked into Newsom’s costly criminal justice experiment. "I was the guinea pig for that day," he said. "All these other people were crossing the red light walking, and you chose me — and you wouldn’t even tell me why I was being arrested. You wouldn’t even read me my rights."

"If the officer wanted to cite Mr. Wilson for jaywalking, he could have written a citation and released him on the spot," Adachi said. "But to handcuff him, treat him as a common criminal for possession of a small amount of marijuana is exactly what the city’s directive prohibits."

Possession of less than one ounce of marijuana is a misdemeanor and carries a maximum sentence of a $100 fine. But city law, specifically Administrative Code Chapter 12X, calls for police to make possession of less than an ounce of marijuana their "lowest priority" and to focus their resources elsewhere. The Board of Supervisors approved the law in 2006, sponsored by then-Sup. Tom Ammiano, who wrote, "the federal government’s war on drugs has failed" and called for a more sensible approach in San Francisco.

Particularly at a time when Newsom is asking every city department to makes budget cuts of 25 percent to cope with a $438 million budget deficit, Adachi said many CJC cases are a waste of precious public resources.

The CJC only takes misdemeanors and nonviolent felony cases in its court system. Modeled after New York City’s Center for Court Innovation, it serves as a one-stop location for the court to refer offenders to social services to address the root causes of criminal behavior — although those programs dealing with substance abuse, mental health treatment, and other social needs are also on the budget chopping block.

CJC only handled violations in four selected central neighborhoods deemed to be burdened by chronic crime: the Tenderloin, SoMa, Civic Center, and Union Square communities. Capt. Gary Jimenez of the Tenderloin Police Station could not be reached for an extensive interview, but told the Guardian that his officers are simply enforcing the law by citing offenders and referring such cases to the CJC.

CJC coordinator Tomiquia Moss has weighed in by facilitating talks between Adachi and Deputy Chief of Police Kevin Cashman, who sits on the CJC advisory board to address which cases get referred. While all 17 of the pot cases have been dismissed at the CJC, Moss believes that Adachi must continue to communicate with Tenderloin police officers to advise on citation referrals. "We don’t have any impact on how the police department administers enforcement," she said. "We can only be responsible for what happens to the case once it gets here."

Moss takes pride in the CJC for providing services even to clients whose cases are dismissed. She believes that almost all the people who have been referred to the CJC accept assistance because caseworkers are respectful and culturally competent, although she has yet to compile comprehensive statistics on CJC cases.

To get a sense on of the big picture at CJC, the Guardian reviewed a report from the Coalition on Homelessness based on the court’s calendar for its first two months in existence. Out of 336 total cases between March 4 and May 1, 100 (30 percent) were for sleeping outside; 71 (21 percent) were for possession of a crack pipe; and 99 (29 percent) were "public nuisance" citations to the court, a subjective violation often given with another citation such as obstructing the sidewalk.

However, among the pending cases that faced trial, the CJC reports that more severe crimes like theft, fraud, disorderly conduct, possession with intent to sell drugs, and soliciting drugs — cases routinely heard in other courtrooms — make up the majority.

Moss acknowledged the limitations of the CJC during tight budget times. "We anticipate people not being able to get all their needs met because there aren’t enough funds. Services are in jeopardy … You gotta consolidate. You have higher client-to-service-provider ratios. It’s a significant issue."

If the CJC is to continue operating with limited resources, Adachi and homeless advocates say Tenderloin police need to focus their resources on serious crimes, rather than quality of life violations that predominately criminalize the homeless.

Bob Offer-Westort, the civil rights organizer for Coalition on Homelessness and coordinating editor of the local paper Street Sheet, says it’s a shame to continue funding the CJC while service centers like the Tenderloin Health drop-in center are being closed due to budget cuts. Offer-Westort acknowledges the laudable social services provided at the CJC, but said "its front-end is conducted by law enforcement officers" who treat it as a "homeless court".

While Newsom hoped the CJC would be popular with city residents concerned about the homeless, 57 percent of San Franciscan voters weighed in last November against allocating extra funding to the CJC with Proposition L.

Although the mayor is proposing a 25 percent cut in the public defender’s budget, Adachi fears this would mean firing 38 lawyers, or one-third of his staff. This could translate to a withdrawal from representing approximately 6,000 clients at his office. In turn, low-income defendants stretched thin by the economic crisis would have to turn to being assigned to private lawyers with costly hourly rates that will still have to be paid for by the city.

Adachi told the Guardian that the marijuana possession cases at the CJC represent the benign types of cases squeezing his office dry, and that Newsom still has not provided Adachi with the two lawyers he promised to handle CJC cases. Newsom’s spokesperson, Nathan Ballard, would not comment on the cases going to the CJC, telling the Guardian, "I’m not going to play along."

Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project, sees San Francisco’s use of scarce resources for marijuana cases as parallel to state and federal policy. "In a sense, it’s a small piece of a larger puzzle, which is that we waste billions and billions of dollars every year in tax money that could be being used for schools, roads, healthcare, etc. in arresting and prosecuting people for possession of a drug that’s safer than alcohol. It’s just crazy, it’s pointless, and every dollar spent on it is a dollar wasted — particularly when government is strapped for cash and cutting vital services to try to balance the budget."

The city and state continue to reassess their marijuana regulations and enforcement on a broader scale. In April, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi proposed legislation allowing the city to sell medical marijuana through the Department of Public Health. And in March, Assembly Member Ammiano began pushing for the state to legalize and tax marijuana.

In the meantime, the CJC, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Public Defender’s Office are still stretching their resources to handle small possession of marijuana cases cited by Tenderloin police station — in spite of the city’s stated priorities. And homeless individuals continue to get cited for quality of life violations while city workers providing social services see their budgets running dry.

State of the movement

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As local antiwar activists continue to oppose the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, they are struggling to mobilize popular support under a presidential administration that is less overtly bellicose than the Bush regime.

Antonia Juhasz, author of The Bush Agenda (William Morrow, 2006) and last year’s The Tyranny of Oil (William Morrow), has worked with a number of Bay Area antiwar groups. Over coffee in the Mission District, she said much has changed since President Barack Obama took office.

"It’s an amazing victory for the antiwar movement that we pushed people to elect a president who pledged to end the Iraq war. Now our job is to make that pledge a reality," she said, visibly tired from long work on a report about Chevron Corp.’s profiteering in Iraq and even at home in Richmond, where it’s sued the city to block a voter-approved tax increase.

Juhasz argues that all U.S. troops and contractors should leave Iraq immediately and that all bases be closed. But Obama’s plan includes a slower withdrawal timeline and for some U.S. forces to be left there indefinitely.

Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CodePink and Global Exchange, told the Guardian that Obama supporters need to realize that it’s fine to disagree with our first African American president on some policies. She described MoveOn.org, the prominent liberal organization that was a key player in Obama’s campaign, as "very top down," and focused on pro-Obama talking points. "It’s very hard because a lot of groups have become appendages to the administration."

Juhasz feels the antiwar movement needs to better communicate that "the organizing isn’t over when the campaign is over. Even if the leader agrees with you, they still need activists to push them."

But she acknowledges the difficulty of the task. "We want to keep from telling people they’re wrong. They won, which is great. But we need to say ‘You have the responsibility to keep organizing for the issues, not just the individual.’ It’s critically important to see beyond the leader, so it doesn’t become a cult of personality," she said, recalling that "under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, if there wasn’t a mass movement for revolutionary change, there wouldn’t have been a New Deal."

That kind of pressure is clearly not being exerted on Obama. Tom Gallagher, a San Francisco resident active with the Bernal Heights Democratic Club, told us during a March 21 San Francisco demonstration commemorating the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war, "If McCain had been elected there would be many more people here protesting. Obama is using the schedule Bush agreed to on pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq."

Gallagher grew more irked as he said, "Obama has sent 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan. He’s getting a pass on it, and McCain wouldn’t."

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) has continued to agitate against war and for social justice. Richard Becker, ANSWER’s Western Regional Coordinator, told us the relatively low turnout on March 21 was not surprising.

Becker said he sees Obama’s popularity as "elation" over Bush’s exit. But no matter how bad the past or good the intentions of a candidate, once the candidate is elected U.S. president, he said, "the job description is CEO of the Empire." Becker cautioned that it will take time for postelection euphoria to wear off and for people to realize that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are dragging on under Obama.

Local activist David Solnit, a mainstay of Direct Action to Stop the War, works with Courage to Resist, which supports military war resisters. The group also helps recruits fight "stop-loss," which sends soldiers back to Iraq for additional tours of duty without their consent. "Obama said he’s going to change it eventually, but we’re worried about right now," he said.

Courage to Resist organizer Sarah Lazare agrees with Solnit that peace activists should oppose U.S. military operations in Afghanistan. Lazare says it’s important to communicate that "Afghanistan is not a good war" and that "terrorism is a tactic" that cannot be destroyed militarily.

"Measuring the number of people at a demonstration is not the only way to measure what’s going on," she said. Among her examples of ongoing, dynamic organizing is the work of Courage to Resist and Iraq Vets Against the War.

IVAW is directly organizing active-duty members of the military to engage in dissent. SF Bay Area chapter member Peter Schlange told us that their ranks are growing as the Iraq war continues.

IVAW is also challenging the Afghanistan buildup. In a recently passed resolution, the antiwar veterans group "calls for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all occupying forces in Afghanistan and reparations for the Afghan people, and supports all troops and veterans working towards those ends."

Paul Kawika Martin, organizing and policy director for Peace Action, says his group wants all troops out of Iraq by 2010, with no "residual forces" or contractors left behind. Martin also says it’s important for activists to march and to lobby Congress. He stressed that both Martin Luther King Jr. and Ghandi lobbied for reform, and U.S. peace activists also need to do so.

Martin feels the peace movement will have an important impact on the new administration. "I don’t think he fears being too liberal," Marin told me. "But he wants to get things done, and like any politician he will be more pragmatic than we want him to be."

Martin said the troop escalation in Afghanistan was a concern for Peace Action. Martin is working with a group of 70 activists, think tanks, and aid workers who make up the Afghanistan Policy Working Group. He points to Reps. Raul Grijalva (now the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus), Lynn Woolsey, Barbara Lee, and Maxine Waters as key allies of antiwar activists in Congress. "We need to support them," he told me.

The antiwar movement itself also needs support, given that many of its top activists have been arrested repeatedly in the last six years.

Organizer Stephanie Tang with the World Can’t Wait dismisses hope for Democrats as a trap. She pointed to Nancy Pelosi’s early knowledge of torture and Obama’s recent announcement that the administration would block release of torture photos in the courts. In March 2008, Tang was arrested for allegedly obstructing police at a Berkeley demonstration opposing a military recruiting center.

Walter Riley, Tang’s lawyer, told the Guardian: "It’s my contention they identified Stephanie as a leader and are vioutf8g her constitutional rights to protest an illegal war."

Berkeley police referred inquiries to the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, which had not returned our call at press time. Riley said a Berkeley policeman "blind-sided her," and, holding his club horizontally, slammed Tang off her feet.

Police later attempted to get a statement from Tang while she was receiving medical treatment for injuries sustained during the incident. Berkeley police only later charged her with obstructing police at the march. Tang faces one year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Uphill climb

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Merger on the march

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Originally published August 24, 2005

THE NATION’S TWO largest alternative newspaper publishers have been in intense negotiations over a merger that would create an 18-paper chain controlled to a significant extent by venture capitalists, new documents obtained by the Bay Guardian show.

The documents, which appear to be valid, include a May 27, 2005, draft of a merger agreement between Village Voice Media and New Times. They were provided by a source close to the VVM side of the negotiations.

The draft calls for the creation of a new company controlled by a nine-member board. Five of the members would come from Phoenix-based New Times and its primary venture-capital firm, the Boston-based Alta Communications.

New Times, which owns 11 newspapers including the SF Weekly, would have 62 percent of the equity in the new venture, and VVM, which owns the Village Voice and six other papers, would have 38 percent.

The documents mention a Nov. 30, 2005, date for closing the deal, but suggest that the date may have to be pushed back, in part because of federal regulatory issues.

Rumors of a possible VVM-New Times merger have been swirling for months (see “Chain Gang,” 5/25/05). Neither of the principals has denied the reports, although employees of some VVM papers have attempted to dismiss them.

But the new documents are the first concrete confirmation that talks are indeed going on, and that the two parties are close enough to agreement that they’ve circulated draft bylaws of a new limited liability corporation that would own all of the VVM and New Times papers.

As of late May there were clearly still some issues to be resolved: The documents include a memo from VVM CEO David Schneiderman complaining that New Times wants to “renegotiate the terms of our deal” and arguing that some New Times papers, including the SF Weekly and the East Bay Express, are losing a lot of money.

“In the 2004 Calendar year, SF Weekly, East Bay Express and the Cleveland Scene racked up losses of $4 million,” the memo states. SF Weekly, it says, “is locked in a brutal struggle in SF with no sign of success and the same is true in Cleveland.”

The memo concludes: “In short, they have some real losers and we don’t…. given these facts, I don’t believe a renegotiation is warranted.”

But overall, the shape of the deal appears to be fairly clear. A new Delaware-based LLC would be created, with a nine-member board. Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin, the executive editor and CEO of New Times, would each have a seat on the nine-member board, as would an Alta representative. Lacey, Larkin, and the Alta rep would then choose two more members – one of whom would be New Times chief financial officer Jed Brunst – giving New Times and its banker a 5-4 majority.

Schneiderman (who is slated, the documents show, to receive a $500,000 bonus for his work on the merger) would have a seat on the board, and the final three seats would go to Goldman, Sachs & Co., Trimaran Capital Partners, and Weiss Peck & Greer, all of whom are VVM investors.

So in the end, at least four of the board members – and possibly five – will be venture capitalists

The documents state that all but two of the board members (also called “managers”) can be removed from the board for “cause” – but “the Lacey Manager or the Larkin Manager may not be removed as Managers with or without Cause, it being understood that the sole basis on which either such Manager may be removed as a Manager shall be such Manager’s conviction of a felony.”

The documents suggest that the new company has been set up with the idea of an eventual sale: They state that, for the first three years, the company can only be sold with the consent of six of the nine board members. But over the next two years, five board members could approve a sale, and after five years, three directors could make that decision.

“In the event the Board of Managers approves a Sale of the Company … all Members shall be required and hereby agree to cooperate with and participate in such sale,” they state.

The documents also address the prospect that the SF Weekly, the East Bay Express, and the Cleveland Scene could be sold off or closed if they continue to hemorrhage cash. “[I]f at any time up to and including the Third Anniversary date, the cumulative losses for any of the [East Bay, Cleveland or San Francisco units] (brackets in original document) exceed the cumulative projected losses for such unit … the Company, with the consent of five managers, shall be permitted to dispose of such non-performing unit by merger, consolidation, sale of assets or otherwise,” they state.

The new company would be required to honor the union contracts at the Village Voice – the only paper in either chain that’s fully unionized (the L.A. Weekly has some union workers). But other employees may not fare so well. The new company “may, in its reasonable discretion, transition all employees … to new compensation, benefit plans, programs or arrangements.”

One source in New York said that “as I understand it, Larkin will be the CEO and Schneiderman will run the Internet operations. I believe the rest of the VVM corporate staff (essentially finance people) will be let go.”

A separate document, dated June 1, 2005, is titled “NT/VV Proposed Business Consolidation Agreement Issues List Reutf8g to NT Draft of Contribution and LLC Agreement.” It lists some concerns – apparently from VVM executives – about the deal.

It cites a “drop date of Nov. 30, 2005,” but notes that “[t]his is too short, obtaining HSR approval may take a long time.” That’s a reference to the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, which requires federal approval of any merger that may have an impact on business competition.

That might not be routine: New Times and VVM have run afoul of federal antitrust laws in the past. The two chains were charged a year and a half ago with conspiring to end alt-weekly competition in Los Angeles and Cleveland (see “New Times Nailed,” 1/29/03). Under a consent decree, the companies are required for five years to give the Justice Department notice before pursuing any merger.

We’ve spoken to several sources close to the negotiations who say it’s likely that process is already under way. But the Justice Department has consistently maintained that any such notice would be confidential.

The two parties are also keeping a tight hold on the information. Staffers at VVM and New Times papers seem unaware of the details of the talks, and top management has refused to answer their questions about the situation. The agreement includes a clause stating, “No press releases or public disclosure, either written or oral, of the transactions contemplated by this agreement, shall be made by a party to the agreement without written consent of VV Media LLC and NT holdings.”

The merger would signal the biggest step so far in the consolidation of ownership in the alternative press. The merged company (which thus far is identified only by the dummy name “Newco”) would represent 14.2 percent of the membership of the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and would give one chain operation control of some of the biggest media markets in the country, including New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Denver, Seattle, Phoenix, and Houston (see “SOS: No secret New Times-Village Voice Media deal, sfbg.com).

Schneiderman, Lacey, and Larkin all declined to return messages seeking comment.

The Bay Guardian is suing New Times, charging predatory pricing by the SF Weekly.

Appetite: Brazilian piranha ribs, Korean tacos, schnitzel sandwiches, fancy ‘tinis, and more

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Every Monday, 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.

sfcocktailweek.jpg
‘Tini time at SF Cocktail Week

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EVENTS

May 11-18: SF Cocktail Week
SF Cocktail Week is here… In honor of SF’s truly vibrant cocktail culture and supporting the fab Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans (if you’re there, go!), the mission is "to preserve the Cultural Heritage of saloons and their cocktails in San Francisco, while also celebrating California’s Culinary Philosophy and Tradition". Sounds like a great mission to me. The third year in, this just keeps getting bigger. It’s no Tales of the Cocktail but it’s certainly a stellar line-up of parties, classes, competitions and events, taught and presented by a long list of the many of SF’s bartending greats.

A few highlights include opening (at Le Colonial) and closing (at Jardinere) parties, the US Bartenders’ Guild National Competition (all day Tuesday: 11am for SF competitors; 5pm for national finalists), CUESA’s Cane Spirits & Farmer’s Market Cocktails event is Wednesday night (their Winter Cocktails event was a blast – excellent cocktails at every turn!), there’s a historical cocktail and bar crawl with Tablehopper herself on Saturday, a Saturday class with artisanal cocktail genius,Scott Beattie, and monthly Savoy night at the one-and-only Alembic on Sunday. Thursday is Bar School, a day of classes around town, ranging from $25-45, the line-up includes Distillation 101 from Hangar One’s Lance Winters, Erik Atkins’ walk through the Gentleman’s Companion, Jeff Hollinger (Absinthe) and Neyah White (NOPA) teach you how to make your own cocktail ingredients from syrups to bitters, plus more worthy classes for the budding mixologist to take it to the next level.
All around SF; events free to $45
http://sfcocktailweek.com

May 12-16: The Big 4’s Wild Game Week returns
The Big 4 Restaurant (PSF) in Nob Hill’s Huntington Hotel has been around for decades and is just the kind of atmosphere I want when craving old world elegance and cocktails by the fireplace. On the food tip, its bi-annual Wild Game Week offers a menu so unique, it’s one of the only times you’ll see dishes like Himalayan yak or Rocky Mountain wapiti (elk chop, to you). This year a first is added: Brazilian piranha “ribs” with a creamy mustard dressing ($18). That’s right, piranha. Come hungry as the deer and the antelope certainly will play.
Appetizers: $16-19
Entrees: $38-46
1075 California Street
415-771-1140
www.big4restaurant.com

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Schmidt’s: Ready and German

NEW RESTAURANT and BAR OPENINGS
German haufbrau-reminscent Schmidt’s Deli opens in the Mission
Walzwerk’s Christiane Schmidt and David Pierce opened Schmidt’s last Wednesday, and I was warmly welcomed by the sweet staff that day. (I’m ready to go back!) The space is roomy, sparse with neatly ordered shelves stocking grocery items (and beer steins) from Germany — think herring, gooseberries, curry ketchup, rosti-in-a-box. They’ll be easing into hours, open from 11am-3pm on weekdays only for now. The plan is soon to be open all day from 11am-11pm, meaning it’ll be the go-to spot for veal schnitzel sandwiches, house-made sausages, spaetzle, kohlrabi (German turnip) and rutabaga gratin, sauerkraut, and German baked goods from Esther’s Bakery in Mountain View. And all under $11! Once the imported beers begin to flow (soon), I imagine the space cacophonous with happy locals at communal tables, clinking glasses over sausages.
2400 Folsom Street
415-410-0202

Korean tacos and burritos at John’s Snack & Deli
With the Korean taco craze in Los Angeles reaching a fever pitch (can anyone say Kogi?), John’s Deli owner (John himself) throws his hat in the Korean taco ring at his tiny deli offering Korean specials. Pairing kimchi with burritos and tacos includes meats (bulgogi beefbq chicken, pork, tofu) cooked Korean-style (with his Mom’s secret sauce) and toppings on the Mexican side (cilantro, onions, cheese). I dig the combo of sweet/savory meat mixed with spicy, pickled kimchi. Occasionally, come mid-afternoon, they sell out of certain meats (beef, last time I was there), but if you aren’t picky, they’re all good.
40 Batter Street
415-434-4634
www.snackanddeli.com

Workday gourmet lunches at Carte 415
Is there no end to food cart mania? It appears not. Downtown workers have gourmet-casual sandwiches and salads at The Sentinel, which set the standard. In cart form, there’s Carte 415 inside the Atrium at Second and Mission. Joshua Skenes, formerly Exec Chef of Chez TJ and Michael Mina’s Stonehill Tavern, launches out into gourmet food cart territory with, you guessed it: a changing, market-fresh lunch menu. A Bacon-jam BLT with burrata and heirloom tomato sounds particularly good to me, but there’s meat and veggie salads, sandwiches and snacks, like their granola or bbq vegetable chips. Call first as they’re not open yet but should be any day now. With plans for more carts around the city in the future, there will be no shortage of gourmet-on-the-go options.
101 Second Street
415-567-0415
www.carte415.com

Velo-mutations

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P>I’ve been aware of the intersection between alternative culture and bicycles since 1996, when I saw my first tall bike at Reed College in Portland, Ore. Since then, I’ve seen bikes at Burning Man tricked out with paint, fun fur, and EL wire. Bikes at Critical Mass made to look like animals or disco balls. Bike-powered carnival rides at Coachella. And punk girls, dressed in pink, dancing on minibikes at Tour de Fat.

But it wasn’t until "The Art of the Bicycle," an underground multimedia art show and party held in a warehouse in the Mission District last May, that I came to understand how these were each parts of a greater whole — spokes in the wheel of a bicycle culture that centers around creativity, empowerment, and, above all, fun. It also became clear, as I sipped cheap beer and listened to live punk rock in an unpermitted space, that this culture was very different from the road bike culture my dad (and his Spandex shorts) was a part of in the 1980s — or even the activist culture my friends in the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition are in now.

No, this bike culture is something else. Rooted in DIY principles, punk and anarchist values, a good dose of geekiness, and rejection of the mainstream, the alternative bike culture that exists in San Francisco and beyond is an entirely different animal — and it’s growing up fast.

In the Bay Area alone, there’s Cyclecide, a bicycle club known for mutating found and rejected bikes into new forms and pedal-powered rides, as well as for their carnie aesthetic and rodeo-inspired antics; the Derailleurs, a group of women who dance on, with, and about bicycles; and the Trunk Boiz, an Oakland-based community of kids who pimp out their bicycles the way their older brothers might’ve pimped out their low-riders; and many others — all of whom operate outside the realm of traditional bike culture or politics.

And each of these are connected to a greater network of bicycle artists across the country and the world. The past decade has seen the birth of the Portland-based Bicycle Porn festival, which screened films showing the sexiness of (or near) bikes at Victoria Theater last November; as well as the New York City-based Bicycle Film Festival, which had its first West Coast showing in San Francisco several years ago and now visits 39 cities per year. There are now more than 120 bicycle clubs all over the world, with originals like Black Label growing so big it has 40 chapters of its own. And only five years after the first bicycle dance troupe, the Sprockettes, was formed in Portland, there are 11 bicycle dance troupes worldwide.

But who are these people? Why are they so inspired by bikes? And why make art with or about them, rather than just ride them? The answer is complex. For some, the bike is simply a beautiful machine, an engineering problem whose solution hasn’t changed much since the 1600s but whose application is infinite. For others, it’s the bike’s democracy that’s so appealing: cheap, accessible, and available to all kinds of riders. Some see the bike as a vehicle for change, undermining car culture and the politics involved in non-people-powered transportation.

But what seems to tie all these people together is a counterculture instinct. These are artists, musicians, and math geeks. They’re the same people who may have been drawn to skateboarding or surfing (before both became commercial and mainstream), punk shows, Dumpster diving, or even Stitch ‘n’ Bitch parties. It’s a community of people dissatisfied with the status quo and filled with the imagination and ambition to work outside it — if not against it.

"We wanted to have fun," said Jarico Reesce, about founding Cyclecide in 1997. "And we wanted to break every rule we could." (Molly Freedenberg)

Shooting past “sharrows”

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San Francisco’s bicycle advocates have been focused on winning approval for 56 near-term projects outlined in the city’s bike plan, which would increase the number of miles of bike lanes from 45 to 79, and quadruple the number of city streets bearing "sharrow" markings (see "Street fight," 2/4/09).

But bike-related projects farther out on the horizon could significantly raise the bar for a bikeable San Francisco. Here are a six long-range concepts that could make cycling in the city more safe, enjoyable, and accessible to people who might otherwise be driving solo.

BRIDGING THE GAP


Cyclists who commute between San Francisco and the East Bay have asked an obvious question for years: why must I spend money on BART fares or bridge tolls to get across the bay when I know I’m capable of biking there? When construction of the new east span of the Bay Bridge is finished, cyclists will finally get a bike path — but it will only get them from Oakland to Yerba Buena Island. Luckily, the idea of installing a complementary bike path along the west span to San Francisco is being entertained. It’s expensive (estimates place the cost at $200 million) and complicated (a 2001 feasibility study found there would need to be tracks on both sides of the bridge for balance). But in early April, the Bay Area Toll Authority agreed to spend $1.3 million on an 18-month study so the project could be shovel-ready when funding becomes available.

CAR-FREE MARKET STREET


Market Street is a popular thoroughfare for bicyclists even though much of its design creates tight-squeezes and conflicts with automobiles. For years there’s been talk of making it car-free, an idea once advocated by former Mayor Willie Brown. It was studied in 1997, but never received enough support to move forward, in part because area merchants worry their business would be hurt by restricting motorists. But the latest attempt to quell Market Street traffic may get more traction. Sup. Chris Daly, who also sits on the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, requested a comprehensive study on restricting Market Street traffic and a draft report is expected by early summer. Andy Thornley, program director at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, notes that the overarching idea is not to make Market Street exclusive to bikes and pedestrians, but to improve it as a whole. "A car-free Market Street may be the route," Thorney says, "but it’s not the reason."

COLOR ME BIKEABLE


Ask Dave Snyder, transportation policy director at the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR), what constitutes an ideal bike lane, and he’ll say it has to be safe enough for parents to feel comfortable allowing their eight-year-old to ride a bike there. "That’s a very high standard," he says. "But it’s a correct standard." One approach for safeguarding bike lanes, adopted in New York City and elsewhere, is to color them in. Bike activists have been pushing the idea here, but the monkey wrench in the works is a sort of national bible of traffic symbols that lacks a standard for colored bike lanes. If the city rolls with a concept that’s outside the rulebook, the thinking goes, it could be a liability. But bike advocates hope to incorporate colored bike lines into the standard via a pilot program. In coming months, be on the lookout for more colorful city streets.

THINK INSIDE THE BOX


A bike box is a colored bike zone just before an intersection designed to let cyclists get out in front of traffic at a red light so they can be more visible. SF has two low-profile bike boxes, Thornley notes, but plans are on the horizon to install more. When the city of Portland, Ore. installed them, it produced a video called "On the Move with Mr. Smooth" to promote the concept. Hosted by a greasy character in a neon green shirt, the video makes a big deal about how motorists get a great view when they stop behind the bike-box line. "The bike box," Portland’s slogan proclaims. "Get behind it."

A BLUE-GREEN WORLD


Blue for the water, green for the parks and open space, the Blue Greenway is envisioned as a 13-mile corridor along the southeastern waterfront that would connect a string of existing parks from the Giants’ stadium to Candlestick Point State Recreation Area. "We want to connect not only parks along the Blue Greenway, but connect people to the waterfront," explains Corrine Woods, who is working on the project through the Neighborhood Parks Council. The corridor will serve as the city’s southeastern portion of the San Francisco Bay Trail, a massive interconnected trail network planned by the Association of Bay Area Governments that is envisioned as a 400-mile recreational "ring around the Bay."

BACK ON TRACK


For now cyclists aren’t allowed to bring their bikes — not even the folding kind — on Muni trains or buses (although some buses have bike racks outside). But it’s something the Municipal Transportation Agency has on its radar as a possible policy change, according to spokesperson Judson True. "As we move forward and people become more aware of the benefits of public transit, our vehicles become more and more crowded," True notes. This may be a good problem to have, but it means the agency must work out a strategy to accommodate wheelchair-bound passengers, strollers, walkers, bikes, and other essentials that passengers bring on board. Once the bike-plan injunction is lifted, True says, he expects MTA to approve a pilot program for bikes on Muni. In order to discourage more people from driving, he says, "linking sustainable modes of transportation like biking and transit is key."

Saving the southeast

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sarah@sfbg.com

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This map of all foreclosures in San Francisco shows a heavy concentration in the southern part of the city, home to many low-income communities of color.

When Mayor Gavin Newsom and Sup. Sophie Maxwell convened a task force in July 2007 to figure out why African Americans are leaving San Francisco and how to reverse this trend, the subprime loan market crisis was about to send a shock wave of home foreclosures sweeping through southeast San Francisco.

Hope SF, the promised rebuild of the city’s public housing projects, is underway at a cost of $95 million. The city’s certificates of preference program, giving housing priority to black residents displaced by redevelopment, has been expanded and extended. But little has been done to address the immediate problem.

Instead political leaders have focused on a plan to subsidize Lennar Corp.’s construction of thousands of new condos in the southeast section of the city — the heart of the San Francisco’s remaining African American community — and have done nothing to promote a plan that could convert hundreds of foreclosed homes into affordable for-sale or rental units there, right here, right now.

African American Out Migration Task Force (AAOMTF) members recall warning that the crisis would likely hit San Francisco’s already dwindling black population extra hard. And Sup. John Avalos, who was running for election in District 11, remembers seeing impacts in the Excelsior District as early as 2007.

"I was telling people in early 2007 that this was a problem in District 11, and even real estate people didn’t believe me," recalled Avalos, who is exploring legislation to hold banks accountable and spoke at an ACORN protest in support of Excelsior homeowner Genaro Paed, a Filipino native who just staved off eviction orders pending the outcome of his lawsuit against Washington Mutual concerning what Paed describes as "a predatory loan" secured in 2006.

Avalos also planned to introduce legislation on May 12 that would expand protection of renters, including those in foreclosed homes who are now being evicted by banks.

This isn’t the first time city leaders have studied the African American exodus or ways to prevent low-income and minority households from being preyed upon or displaced. Indeed, this task force’s initial findings, (released last summer after Lennar spent millions to persuade voters to support building 10,000 condos in the city’s southeast) suggests San Francisco’s entire black community is at risk unless proactive and immediate steps are taken.

According to U.S. Census data, the city’s African American population shrank to 6.6 percent of the city’s total population by 2005 (a 40 percent decline since 1990) and will likely slip to 4.6 percent by 2050, according to the California Department of Finance. And these findings were made before the foreclosure crisis heated up.

In 2008 Maxwell and other elected officials convened a Fair Lending Working Group (FLWG) to figure out how to respond to the wave of foreclosures. By year’s end, there were 667 home foreclosures in San Francisco, almost all in the city’s southeast sector.

These numbers sound small compared to Contra Costa County or Oakland, where thousands of foreclosures occurred. And they aren’t big enough to qualify for the first round of President Barack Obama’s National Stabilization Program grants, which were released earlier this year. Based on a census-driven formula, the grants sent $8 million to Oakland and no money to San Francisco.

But with half the city’s foreclosures in the Bayview, home to most of the city’s remaining African Americans, the fact that little has been done to save these homes — or to follow early recommendations to do so — is a gentrification crisis in the making.

Ed Donaldson, housing counseling director at the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation in the Bayview District, served on the FLWG and remembers suggesting a two-tier track. First, take steps to protect renters in places that have been foreclosed and second, buy as many foreclosed properties as possible with the aim of reselling or leasing them as affordable units. While the FLWG liked the renter protection angle, it did not support the foreclosure acquisition program.

"The idea fell on deaf ears," recalls Donaldson, who was disappointed his foreclosure purchase plan didn’t make it onto FLWG’s recent recommendation list. FLWG members include financial institutions such as Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual, and Patelco Credit Union; community-based organizations such as Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, SFHDC, Mission Economic Development Agency; and city agencies. The agency also has received staff support from Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting, the Mayor’s Office of Housing, Treasurer Jose Cisneros and the Office of the Legislative Analyst.

"We’d already seen the spike in foreclosure numbers, so how did these recommendations get pushed out? We need something with teeth," Donaldson said.

SFHDC executive director Regina Davis says she suggested a foreclosure purchase and resale plan as an AAOMTF member and was concerned when she noticed that her recommendation was not included on the list discussed at the April 23 meeting. Billed as a closing-out session, that meeting took place at the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency and was attended by Davis, chair Aileen Hernandez, Redevelopment director Fred Blackwell, the Rev. Amos Brown, Barbara Cohen of the African American Action Network, Tinisch Hollins of the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, and former supervisor and assessor Doris Ward, among others. The AAOMTF is finishing up its work this week.

"I got involved because I believed that in exchange for participation, we would see things done and/or funded. Part of what we want to see are real action items that keep African Americans in San Francisco or bring them back. So we really want this issue to move forward with substance," Davis told the Guardian.

Recognizing that San Francisco is facing massive budget constraints, SFHDC is proposing to borrow $1.5 million from Clearinghouse CDFI, a Los Angeles community development financial agency, to acquire and rehabilitate these foreclosed properties.

Davis’ group would then turn it around and offer residents several options: buy (if the prospective buyer qualifies for the city’s $150,000 downpayment assistance and a $50,000 loan from the California Housing Financing Agency); lease (in which SFHDC sells the home to the buyer but leases the land, making the price affordable), lease-to-own. Or, Davis adds, people could rent the units at affordable rates.

But to make the plan work, SFHDC need the banks to sell the properties AT below market rates. Noting that foreclosed properties are still selling in the Bayview for $400,000, Davis says her nonprofit intends to purchase 100 to 200 homes during a 24-month period at less than $200,000 mark.

Yet Davis remains optimistic about the plan’s chances as SFHDC negotiates with major banks for a 50 percent discount, noting that there is a monthly average of 50 foreclosures in the Bayview-Hunter’s Point, and SFHDC has access to 100 qualified buyers.

Blackwell said the Redevelopment Agency hasn’t developed an initiative or a funding pool to respond to the foreclosures in the city’s southeast sector. But, he said, the agency is looking at ways to apply for National Stabilization Program funds even though "federal guidelines mostly don’t apply well in expensive markets like San Francisco.

"We are engaged in advocacy so San Francisco can take advantage of any federal stabilization funds, but we don’t have an agency-specific proposal," he continued.

"Frankly, I think community-based organizations are the best to do programs like that, especially since there is so much anxiety about the Redevelopment Agency and property acquisition in the southeast," Blackwell added.

He believes that given the city’s current budgetary constraints, the AAOMTF "will likely look for leadership from the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors in cases where members have made recommendations and there is an opportunity to bring in public money."

Blackwell feels the city is still getting its mind around its foreclosure problem. "We’ve been spared the wholesale neighborhood-by-neighborhood devastation that places like Antioch faced," Blackwell said. "So, there wasn’t the same sense of urgency. And there’s a need to look more closely at the data. A lot of the information is based on anecdotes."

Yet the feds seem willing to help if city officials take the initiative. Larry Bush, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s regional office, says San Francisco and Oakland could file a joint foreclosure plan application.

"If they can identify 100 homes, they’d be eligible for $5 million," Bush said, noting one snag that could unravel the plan locally. "Foreclosed properties must be vacant for at least six months. And as you know, in San Francisco, foreclosed homes still sell."

Maxwell says the city could do more to confront predatory lenders and enforce tenant rights, as well as developing a plan to buy foreclosed properties. "But in San Francisco it’s an issue because of relatively high prices," she told us.

Yet the city’s high prices are the very problem pushing out low-income residents. African American home ownership actually increased after 1990, even as out-migration among black renters increased. But now, if the foreclosures stand, that exodus will likely accelerate.

Asked if she supports SFHDC’s current foreclosure plan, Maxwell said, "It makes sense to me. If that could be done, it would be optimal."

Myrna Melgar of the Mayor’s Office of Housing says she’s not sure that a foreclosure resale plan would work in San Francisco for folks who bought a couple of years ago, when house prices hit $700,000, only to see house prices fall to around $400,000.

"San Francisco is a very different universe from Detroit," Melgar said. "Properties don’t sit around empty and vacant. They are bought by speculators who are betting that in two or three years, their values will go up. So if we had money to buy these properties, which we don’t, we’d be in competition with the speculators, who have lots of money with no strings attached, and who drive the prices up."

Another difference, Melgar said, is that San Francisco banks are holding onto 50 percent of their foreclosed properties, whereas Antioch banks are only holding onto 22 percent. "We’d like to keep folks in the homes," Melgar said. "But it’s a policy issue related to the reality that we have such limited funds."

Uphill climb

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steve@sfbg.com

Bicyclists generally try to avoid hills, so one of the most popular bike routes in town is a series of turns called the Wiggle, which snakes along a valley through the Lower Haight. The route — a sort of bridge between east and west — is traveled by a growing number of bicyclists, from hipster kids on colorful fixies to grizzled seniors on comfortable touring bikes.

I ride the Wiggle every day. Coming from the Panhandle, the most harrowing approach is the three blocks I have to travel on busy Oak Street, competing for space with impatient motorists who often seem to forget that they’re wielding deadly weapons. Many times I’ve had cars zip by me within inches, honk (a very startling sound when you’re not wrapped in metal and glass), zoom up right behind me, or flip me off.

But then I turn right onto Scott Street — and the world suddenly changes. My heart rate drops and I breathe deeply. Rain or shine, there are almost as many bikes there as cars. The cyclists smile and nod at one another and even the motorists seem more respectful, sometimes waving us through the stop signs even when it’s their turn. It feels like an informally functional community. It’s how traveling around this city ought to be.

Even though the citywide percentage of vehicle trips taken by bicycle in San Francisco is still in single digits (compared to more than 20 percent in many European cities), and even though a court injunction that’s expected to be lifted this summer has banned any new bike projects in the city for the past three years, bicycling is booming in San Francisco, increasing by almost 50 percent since 2006. I’m never alone these days on my solo commute.

My decision to ride a bike and sell my car wasn’t about joining a movement. I just like to ride my bike, a simple joy that I really began to rediscover about 10 years ago. It’s fun, cheap, and an easy way to get exercise. And it connects me with my surroundings — the people, buildings, and streetscapes of this beautiful city — in a way I didn’t even realize I was missing when I drove.

But as pressing political and planetary realities have welled up around my personal transportation choice, I’ve come to see that I am part of a movement, one that encapsulates just about every major issue progressive San Franciscans care about: public health, environmentalism, energy policy, economics, urban planning, social justice, public safety, sustainability, personal responsibility, and the belief that we can make our communities better places, that we’re not captive to past societal choices.

As a bicyclist and a journalist, I’ve been actively engaged in these struggles for many years. I understand that bicyclists are criticized in many quarters as a vocal minority with a self-righteous sense of superiority and entitlement, and that I’m personally accused of bias for writing empathetically about bicyclists in dozens of bike-related stories.

Well, guess what? I don’t apologize. We are better than motorists, by every important measure. We use less space and fewer resources and create less waste and pollution. Bikes are available to almost every segment of society, and we don’t need to fight wars to power them. They improve the community’s health and happiness. And when we get into accidents, we don’t kill or maim the people we hit.

And you know what else? This really is going to be the Year of the Bicycle, as it’s been dubbed by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the city’s largest grassroots civic organization, with more than 10,000 dues-paying members. There are more of us than ever, politicians now listen to us, and San Francisco is on the verge of the most rapid expansion of its bike network that any American city has ever seen.

This is the moment we’ve been moving toward for many years, a turning point that the Guardian has meticulously chronicled and proudly promoted. The bicycle has become a metaphor for progress that is long overdue. So mount up on May 14, Bike to Work Day, if you’d like to be a part of the solution to what’s ailing our city and planet.

I love my bike, and so do most people who see it. San Franciscans appreciate the little things, like someone who rides a silly-looking bike.

It started as a basic used mountain bike, but I styled it out for Burning Man a few years ago, covering it with heavy red acrylic paint that looks like stucco, a big basket covered in fake fur and ringed with electro-luminescent wire, and custom-welded high handlebars topped by a lizard horn.

Maybe you’ve seen me around town — and if so, maybe you’ve seen me blow through stop signs or red lights. Yes, I’m that guy, and I only apologize if I’m stealing a motorist’s right-of-way, which I try to avoid. Rob Anderson, who successfully sued San Francisco to force detailed studies of its Bike Plan (and blogs at district5diary.blogspot.com), regularly calls me and my ilk the "bike fanatics."

I’ve interviewed Anderson by phone a few times and tangled with him online many times. He’s actually a pretty well-informed and well-reasoned guy, except for his near pathological disdain for bicycling, which he considers an inherently dangerous activity that government has no business promoting and is not a serious transportation option.

But San Francisco would be a gridlocked nightmare without bikes. Transportation officials say this is already one of the most traffic-choked cities in the country (second after Houston), a big factor in Muni never reaching its voter-mandated 85 percent on-time performance. During peak hours, most Muni lines reach their holding capacity. Imagine 37,500 additional people (the estimated number of San Franciscans who primarily travel by bike) driving or taking Muni every day.

Conversely, imagine the transportation system if bicycling rates doubled and some of those bulky cars and buses became zippy bikes. Quality of life would improve; the air would be cleaner; we would emit far less greenhouse gases (transportation accounts for about half of the Bay Area’s carbon emissions); housing would get cheaper (building parking increases costs and decreases the number of housing units); pressure would decrease to drill for oil offshore and prop up despotic regimes in oil-rich countries; pedestrians would be safer (about a dozen are killed by cars here every year); and public health would improve (by reducing obesity and respiratory ailments associated with air pollution).

Increase bicycling rates even more, to the levels of Berlin, Copenhagen, or Amsterdam, and San Francisco would be utterly transformed, with many streets converted to car-free boulevards as the demand shifts from facilitating speeding cars to creating space for more bicyclists and pedestrians.

Sure, as Anderson points out, many people will never ride a bike. The elderly, those with disabilities, some families with kids, and a few other groups can credibly argue that the bicycle isn’t a realistic daily transportation option. But that’s a small percentage of the population.

For the rest of you: what’s your excuse? Why would you continue to rely on such wasteful and expensive transportation options — a label that applies to both cars and buses — when you could use the most efficient vehicle ever invented?

At the SFBC’s annual Golden Wheels Awards banquet on May 5, SFBC director Leah Shahum described a bike movement at the peak of its power, reach, and influence. "In the last two years, we’ve seen an unprecedented political embrace of bicycling," she said, praising Mayor Gavin Newsom for his championing of the Sunday Streets car-free space and calling the progressive-dominated Board of Supervisors "the most bike-friendly board we’ve ever seen."

In just a few years, the SFBC went from fighting pitched battles with Newsom over closing some Golden Gate Park roads to cars on Saturdays — a two-year fight that ended in a compromise after some serious ill-will on both sides — to Newsom’s championing an even larger Sunday Streets road closure on six days this spring and summer, even fighting through business community opposition to do so.

As with many Newsom initiatives, it’s difficult to discern his motivation, which seems to be a mixture of political posturing and a desire to keep San Francisco on the cutting edge of the green movement. Whatever the case, the will to take street space from automobiles — which will be the crux of the struggles to come — is probably greater now than it has ever been.

Because at the end of the day, Anderson is right: bicyclists do have a radical agenda. We want to take space from cars, both lanes and parking spaces, all over this city. That’s what has to happen to create a safe, complete bicycle system, which is a prerequisite to encouraging more people to cycle. We need to realize that designing the city around automobiles is an increasingly costly and unsustainable model.

"The streets do not have to be solely — or even primarily — for cars anymore," Shahum told an audience that included City Attorney Dennis Herrera, top mayoral aide Mike Farrah, and several members of the Board of Supervisors (including President David Chiu, a regular cyclist and occasional bike commuter), drawing warm applause.

Shahum was certainly correct when she called the politically engaged community of bicyclists "one of the strongest and most successful movements in this city," one she believes is capable of moving an ambitious agenda. "During the next six weeks, we have the opportunity to win a literal doubling of the city’s bike network."

She’s referring to the imminent completion of environmental studies that support the city’s Bike Plan, which will allow the courts to lift the nearly three-year-old injunction against new bike projects in the city. The SFBC has been aggressively organizing and advocating for the immediate approval of all 56 near-term bikeway improvements outlined in the plan, which have been studied and are ready to go, most with grant funding already in the bank.

"I think San Francisco is hungry for a higher use of public space," she said. "Imagine streets moving so calmly and slowly that you’d let your six-year-old ride on them."

That’s the standard advocated by the international car-free movement, which I interacted with last year when I covered the International Carfree Conference in Portland, Ore. These influential advocates believe bikeways should be so safe and insulated from fast-moving traffic that both the young and old feel comfortable riding them.

"Streets belong to us — they are the public spaces of the city — but they don’t feel like they belong to us," said Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City, a sponsor of Sunday Streets, which was honored at the Golden Wheel Awards. The streets, he told the crowd, "don’t need to be the objects of fear."

Later, as we spoke, Radulovich said it’s not enough to create narrow bikes lanes on busy streets. One of the great joys of riding a bike with a friend is to be able to talk as you ride, something he said transportation advocates around the world refer to as the "conversational standard."

Politically, there’s a long way to go before San Francisco embraces the conversational standard, the creation of permanent car-free bike boulevards, or traffic law changes that promote bicycling. Anderson and his ilk reacted with outrage last year when the Guardian and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission began discussing adopting Idaho’s bike laws here, in which bicyclists treat stop signs as yield signs and stop lights as stop signs (see "Don’t stop: Bike lessons from Idaho," 5/14/08).

Yet until bicycling is taken more seriously as a real transportation option, all this talk about sustainability and green-everything is going to continue falling woefully short of its objectives.

The powerhouse environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council held a gala awards dinner May 9 at the California Academy of Sciences for its first Growing Green Awards, an effort to honor innovators in the growing sustainable food movement.

The award selection panel was chaired by journalist Michael Pollan, whose The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin Press, 2006) and other works have made him a leading voice calling for recognition and reform of a corporate food system that is unsustainable, unhealthy, and harmful to the environment.

That movement has garnered some high-profile support and attention, but has so far failed to effectively counter the influence of agribusiness interests, he told me. "We need an organization like the NRDC in the food area, or we need to get NRDC to embrace our issues."

The awards banquet showed that Pollan and his allies have made progress with the NRDC, which should be a natural ally of advocates for better food and transportation systems, two realms that have the biggest impact on this country’s natural resources.

But when I left the ceremony as hundreds of guests were being seated for dinner, I rode away — on the only bicycle there.

Appetite: Sticky toffee, casual clambake, Mama mia, Jimmy the Greek. and more

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Each 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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Scottish Eggs, Chips & Pastie at Martins West. Photo by Chris Andre

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NEW RESTAURANT and BAR OPENINGS

Martins West helps you wash down fine eats
Time to trek down South (the Peninsula, that is) to Redwood City for this week’s hot opening, Martins West Pub. The original Martins is in Edinburgh… this locale is an homage to that gastropub (I’ll admit, an overused term) where comfort, hand-crafted beers, and hearty food meet seasonal, gourmet sensibilities. Like the beer, cocktails and scotch selections are extensive so you can wash down Michael Dotson’s (of Tahoe’s Plumpjack Cafe) quality "pub grub" (think Ploughman’s lunch, herb-crusted marrow bones or house-made charcuterie). Pastry Chef, Kelly Fields (of Sens and some of New Orleans best restaurants) stays sweet with sticky toffee pudding, drunken raisin ice cream or hot toddy pot de creme. Inside the 1896 Alhambra building, once a theater and saloon, you’ll feel the spirit of Wyatt Earp, who used to frequent the place while his wife, Josie, sang from the adjoining theater. Belly up to the 25-foot bar, boys!
831 Main Street, Redwood City
650-366-4366
www.martinswestgp.com

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Sake bar at Otoro Sushi. Photo by Virgina Miller

Tiny but chic Otoro Sushi makes three in Hayes Valley
Hayes Valley already hasSebo and Domo for impeccable sushi, but why not one more? A couple blocks away from the heart of Hayes, lunch and dinner of the fresher kind can be had at tiny but chic Otoro, just opened a few days ago. I’ve already enjoyed a generously-portioned lunch and look forward to more. There’s a snug, eight-seat sushi bar, sake bar and a handful of tables, with plenty of sashimi, udon, and rolls like the Hip Hop Roll, topped with garlic white tuna.
205 Oak Street
415-553-3986

Fly Bar debuts in Brick space with pizza and video games
Brick morphs into a Fly, or rather, into sister location to ever-popular Fly on Divisadero. Responding to the times with nothing over $12, Fly Bar will surely win some fans. A 4:30-6:30pm Happy Hour offers drink specials and half-price pizzas (like Southwestern or Jimmy the Greek), while the usual menu means apps, pizzas and sandwiches galore. Playful cocktails are only $7-8 at full price, like Island Root Beer (dark rum, Abita root beer and house-made ginger syrup), or Scrum: Boddington’s with a shot of Jameson. Sneak to the back room for a four-player arcade, snazzed up with cup holders and free games! It’s good to reinvent oneself from time to time.
1085 Sutter Street
415-441-4232

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EVENTS

May 10 – La Festa Della Mamma at Bar Bambino
It’s time to honor Mama. If she’s in town, or you want to raise a glass to her, Bar Bambino has a special Mother’s Day prix-fixe. Starting off with a choice of crespelle di frutta, a crepe-like dish with strawberries and ricotta, soup or sformatino di porri (a cheesy leek flan with Dungeness crab salad), you then move on to main courses: either a Parmigiano-Reggiano, egg, frisee salad, a braised leg of lamb, or grilled swordfish marinated in olive oil, lemon, garlic and oregano. Still hungry for dessert? It’s sorbet and biscotti or chocolate tarlets with berries. With Mamma the beating heart of Italian life, you know she’ll be treated right, Italian-style, at Bambino.
$45
11am-3pm
2931 16th Street
415-701-8466
www.barbambino.com

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DEALS

Cali-Casual Clambakes at Nettie’s Crab Shack
I don’t know why the word "clambake" evokes nostalgic memories for me – I partly grew up in Jersey, not nearby New England. But when I heard Cow Hollow’s Nettie’s Crab Shack turned Sunday nights into California Casual Clambakes (replacing Sunday Crab Feeds), I got a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. It’s all family-style, from salad, cornbread, a pot of whole prawns, mussels, clams, Delta crawfish, spicy sausage and boiled potatoes, to Whoopee pies for dessert.
$35 per person
Sundays, 5–10pm
2032 Union Street
415-409-0300
www.nettiescrabshack.com

TICed off

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news@sfbg.com

San Francisco tenants who are supposed to be protected by city and state laws are now facing eviction as a result of real estate speculators working hand-in-hand with banks in a scheme that has been implicitly endorsed by federal regulators and the courts.

Kaushik Dattani, whose company owns multiple properties throughout San Francisco, won a summary judgment to use the Ellis Act to evict four families from their rent-controlled apartment. Judge Charlotte Woolard’s April 21 ruling, denying the low-income Mission District families a jury trial, could leave the 12 longtime residents — seniors, disabled, single mothers, and children — homeless within a couple of weeks.

In August 2007, court records show Dattani secured an 18-month, interest-only $1.3 million loan from Circle Bank of Marin to buy the Victorian building at 19th and Lexington streets. The loan included an agreement that he would pull the units from the rental market using the Ellis Act, renovate the building, and sell the five Victorian units as tenants-in-common (TICs).

Traditionally banks haven’t offered loans to individual TIC owners, but Circle Bank of Marin was one of the first banks to start offering such "fractional" loans in 2005, a practice that created a strong market for TICs, loan officer Mark Skolnick (who says he’s an independent contractor and not a bank employee) told the Guardian.

In making the loan to Dattani, court documents show Skolnick predicted a 42 percent profit, which would require all five TIC units to be sold for $3.3 million. But according to Tenderloin Housing Clinic attorney Steve Collier, Dattani has not yet paid off the balloon payment — due April 1 — putting the building at risk of getting handed over to the bank, emptied of residents.

Kevin Stein, associate director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, said the lending scheme is contrary to the federal Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages banks to meet the credit needs of the low-income communities. "It’s within the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s power to say these kinds of loans that result in the displacement of low and moderate income tenants are not helping to meet the community’s credit needs," he said, noting that the FDIC has refused to get involved.

Others argue the importance of creating home ownership opportunities in a city where about two-thirds of residents rent.

"Here we have what looks like a condo, feels like a condo, but it’s a TIC. It’s a way of creating affordable housing," Skolnick said. "Some people lose their home, some people gain a home. The TIC platform is proving to be a very affordable option for this different subset of people."

But for the subset of people being displaced using the Ellis Act — a state law intended to allow existing landlords to get out of the rental business, not to encourage real estate speculation — the affect can be devastating in a city where little new rental or affordable housing is being built.

"They just come in out of nowhere and they see this place, buy it and kick everyone out. There’s no soul there," said Luise Vorsatz, who lived in the house for 30 years before being evicted.

This is not Dattani’s first Ellis Act eviction (when the Guardian contacted Dattani for comment, he hung up on us). In 2000, he hired infamous antitenant lawyers Wiegel & Fried to evict senior Alma Augueles from her flower shop in the Mission. In 2007, he evicted a group of tenants living above Revolution Café on 22nd and Bartlett streets. That building has sat empty for over a year, something that could also happen with his new property given the slumping real estate market.

Under the Ellis Act, if the unit go back on the rental market within five years, the evicted tenants have first priority at their old rent level, but that’s up to the tenants to enforce. "It’s possible the landlord won’t be able to sell and will end up renting it at higher rents," Ted Gullicksen, executive director of the San Francisco Tenants Union, told us.

"They don’t look at the fact that we have pride of tenancy—that we have lived here all these years," said 23-year resident Ronny Ruddrich, who raised her children here and walks to her job as a Noe Valley shoe store manager for the past 22 years. "He drives up in his Mercedes and shows no respect whatsoever."

Shop local, City Hall!

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news@sfbg.com

On Dec. 3, 2008, just before noon, Mayor Gavin Newsom arrived at a press conference in Noe Valley to remind city residents why it’s important to shop locally. The mayor climbed out of his shiny new hybrid SUV, walked into the Ark Toy Company, showed charts and graphs, and talked about how money spent in town helps the local economy. Joined by Steve Falk, president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, Newsom urged holiday shoppers to look first in San Francisco before buying something on the Internet or in some suburban mall.

The mayor’s shop-local press conference was a clear sign that the debate over the role of small business in the San Francisco economy is over. Everyone from the mayor’s business advisors to the Chamber of Commerce to small business advocates and progressive economists now agrees that small local businesses provide the vast majority of the jobs, keep their money in town, and generate more tax dollars, more wealth, and more prosperity for this city than the big out-of-town chains.

It was a picture-perfect scene, until KPIX-TV reporter Hank Plante asked the mayor an embarrassing question: Why, he wanted to know, did the Mayor’s Office buy Newsom’s new car in Colma?

Newsom said he didn’t have a clue.

Actually, the reason was pretty simple: the dealership in Colma submitted the lowest bid. But San Francisco lost out on the sales tax, a local Chevy dealer that was going out of business lost a local sale, San Francisco workers lost a commission — and in the end, the city almost certainly lost more on the deal than it saved with the Colma discount.

That’s the untold story behind the mayor’s promotion. San Francisco, as a buyer of goods and services worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, does a terrible job at shopping local. Indeed, for years small business advocates have been trying to get city officials to make it easier for local merchants to get city contracts — and they’ve made very little progress.

"I’ve worked so hard on this, year after year, and nothing ever happens," Scott Hauge, a small business activist and organizer, told us. "After a while, I just threw in the towel."

Hauge is devoting his energy these days to statewide issues. But on the local level, there’s a growing sense that the city needs to do more to help small local businesses get their share of the massive public spending pie.

"The Small Business Commission has made it clear that this will be a priority over the next year," Regina Dick-Endrizzi, the commission’s acting director, told us.

Nobody knows exactly what percentage of city contracts for goods and services go to local businesses. Hauge said the Mayor’s Office did a limited survey about a year ago, but the data wasn’t very good. And while Newsom signed an executive order in 2005 directing departments to look for ways to patronize local businesses, there’s not much to show for it.

"I think probably less than 10 percent [of city spending] goes to local businesses," Hauge said.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, a former small business commissioner, agrees. "I think it’s accurate to say that at least 70 to 90 percent of all city contracts go to out-of-town businesses," he told us.

As Dick-Endrizzi pointed out, city purchasing has strict rules — and for good reason. "In most cases, you have to put out a request for proposals and take the lowest bid," she said. "If you didn’t have that, you’d have a big problem with favoritism."

But when the lowest bid is the only criterion, San Francisco businesses are at a distinct disadvantage.

"Say a city agency wants to buy five hammers," said Steven Cornell, owner of Brownie’s Hardware. "I have the hammers for $6, but somebody in Nowhere, Miss., can sell them for $5.99.

"Well, the shop in Mississippi doesn’t have to pay San Francisco’s minimum wage, doesn’t have to pay for sick days, doesn’t have to pay for health care … We’ve asked businesses to contribute to all these good social policies, then those businesses get penalized because someone else can sell something cheaper."

Cornell — who says he agrees that local businesses should pay well and give their workers benefits — is frustrated that when it comes to purchasing, the city doesn’t give anything back. "We lost S&C Ford, we lost Ellis Brooks Chevrolet," he said. "Those were all union jobs, with good benefits. And how many cars did the city buy from them?"

When Cornell was on the Small Business Commission, he remembered some small locally owned cabinet-making shops came to complain about a $4 million city contract for woodwork. "They told us that they lost the contract to a Canadian firm," he said. "The costs of operating in San Francisco were higher than in Canada, so they couldn’t compete."

"We do not as a city reflect the fact that we ask employers to do good things for their workers," Chiu added. "When we spend perhaps $1 billion a year in city contracts, those employers don’t have a level playing field."

Sure, on the surface and in the short term, the city gets a better deal when it awards contracts based entirely on price. But San Francisco has, as a matter of public policy, already decided there are good reasons to give minority-owned contractors some advantage in bidding, and that public contractors should pay prevailing union wages and offer benefits to domestic partners. Local enterprises get a modest advantage in some bids, but nowhere near enough to make up for the cost difference of operating in San Francisco.

And as Newsom himself has made clear, spending money locally has a long-term economic benefit that almost certainly outweighs the price differential in most bids. "When Newsom bought his car in Colma, the city lost the sales taxes, and lost the multiplier effect of the money being spent in town," Cornell noted.

In fact, a 2007 study by Civic Economics, sponsored by the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance, showed that if city residents shifted just 10 percent of their purchasing from national chains to locally-owned businesses, the city would gain 1,300 new jobs and $200 million in economic activity every year.

Imagine the activity — the positive benefits to the local economy — that would come with the city shifting, say, 25 percent of its spending to local businesses.

Obviously the city can’t buy everything in town. "Nobody in San Francisco makes Muni trains," Cornell noted. But a lot of what city departments buy, from hammers and paper to cars and trucks, is available from local suppliers — or could be. "If the city made it known it was looking to buy something locally, some entrepreneur would come along and figure out a way to supply it," Cornell said.

So how could this work on a policy level? It’s not that complicated. The city controller, or the Human Rights Commission, which oversees contracting policy, could devise a formula showing how much the cost of complying with city laws like the minimum wage, health care, and sick days (laws that most of us, and many small businesses, fully support) drives up the cost of doing business in San Francisco. Then give local merchants an equivalent advantage in the bidding process.

In other words, if the hammers at Brownie’s Hardware cost 25 cents more than the hammers in Nowhere, Miss., because Cornell pays for his workers’ health insurance, he should only have to come within 25 cents of the cut-rate suppliers’ price to get the city’s business. And if the taxpayers have to fork over a few cents more to buy local hammers, the money will come back, and more, from the demonstrated benefits of shopping locally.

Chiu thinks that’s a good idea, and he’s already taken the first steps to forcing the city to shop local. Chiu introduced legislation in April requiring the city to set aside a portion of all contracts for locally-wned businesses and to increase the financial advantage local firms get in bidding.

And at Chiu’s request, the HRC will appear before the supervisors Land Use Committee May 11 to present the latest data on how much city spending goes to local businesses. "I’ve been asking for this for two years," Chiu said.

"It is unwise for our city not to take $1 of public money and give it to a local business that will pass that dollar onto its local employee, who will then spend it at another local business," he added. "The multiplier effect of this is that money spent locally is better for the economy, and for the taxpayers."

Our 2009 Small Business Awards

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Why can’t City Hall shop local?

EMPLOYEE-OWNED BUSINESS AWARD

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Photo by Pat Mazzera

CHURCH STREET FLOWERS

"It was really all about trust," says Stephanie Foster of Church Street Flowers, when asked about the benefits and perils of transferring ownership of the delightful bouquet boutique — and perennial Guardian Best of the Bay winner — near the Castro to the employees. Foster, along with Rachel Shinfeld and Brianna Foehr, took over in December 2008 from previous owners Michael Ritz and Thomas Teel, who’d run the shop for a decade. "The three of us had worked here for a while and we knew our stuff, so Michael and Tom knew they could rely on us to preserve the legacy. And the outpouring of support from our neighbors and regular customers has been overwhelming."

The ownership change of the cozy shop, bursting with vibrant blooms and friendly energy, went off without a hitch. "We were part of the lucky few who received a small business loan before the economic collapse," Shinfeld says. "But our business plan was smart, and the bank saw that we knew what we were doing." And, even in the current climate, business is thriving. "Our arrangements aren’t your standard cookie-cutter stuff," Foster says. "People nowadays want personalized, reasonably priced, green-minded, and locally sourced. We fit into all that — most of our flowers are from the downtown flower market and we keep an eye out for organic. Plus we strive to create a real connection with our customers, so we can give them exactly what they want."

"Sure, there have been some adjustments," Shinfeld adds. "There’s a lot of paperwork — and the first thing we needed to tackle was a Web site redesign. But our experience working here helped us through, and I think we’re just beginning to blossom in our new roles." (Marke B.)

CHURCH STREET FLOWERS

212 Church, SF

(415) 553-7762

www.churchstreetflowers.com

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GOLDEN SURVIVOR AWARD

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Photo by Charles Russo

GREEN APPLE BOOKS

What is the special ingredient that transforms a business from just another store into a place that makes people feel inspired and connected? After 42 years as a San Francisco independent bookseller, Green Apple Books and Music seems to have found it. Located on Clement Street in a building that predates the 1906 quake, it’s a "big, sprawling, dusty and funky new and used bookstore," as co-owner Pete Mulvihill describes it, creating an atmosphere for interactions that might seem impossible in a big-box store. Several weeks ago, for instance, a customer approached the store clerks, presented a CD, and requested that they play it. He also asked them to clear out the philosophy room. "I want it to myself for just a minute," he explained. The staff complied, the music started, and the man whisked his girlfriend into the philosophy room and proposed to her.

"To me, that’s an honor that somebody loves the place so much that they would propose to their girlfriend here," says Mulvihill, one of three owners and an employee for more than 15 years. A founding member of the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance, he has been at the forefront of a push to identify and promote the city’s small, independent businesses. "Locally-owned businesses recirculate more money in the local economy than national chains," the SFLOMA Web site points out.

"Frankly, we’re invested in the community," Mulvihill explains. "[We] love San Francisco, and we don’t want to go anywhere." (Rebecca Bowe)

GREEN APPLE BOOKS

506 Clement, SF

(415) 387-2272

www.greenapplebooks.com

———–

CHAIN ALTERNATIVE AWARD

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Photo by Charles Russo

HUT LANDON

Hut Landon is responsible the past few years for helping direct millions of dollars into small business in San Francisco and beyond, and millions more into the local economy.

He does it through his energetic and creative leadership of two key organizations that promote the interests of locally-owned small business. Landon has been the executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), which promotes the interests of 200 independent bookstores in the region. He is also executive director of the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance (SFLOMA).

Under Landon’s stewardship, the two groups commissioned a pioneering 2007 study that quantified the value of locally-owned businesses in the city. Their stunning finding: if consumers redirected l0 percent of their retail purchases from chains to locally-owned merchants, the result would generate about $200 million for the economy, l,295 jobs, and $72 million new income for workers.

Landon’s timing could not have been better. As the economy tanked, local merchants and neighborhood business organizations used the l0 percent consumer shift as a mantra. The study also pointed out that the local economy could get another big boost if the city would shop locally with the tens of millions it now spends outside the city for goods and services.

Landon likes to use the example of two brothers who live together. One works on Potrero Hill and eats lunch at one of the many locally-owned restaurants. The other works at Stonestown shopping center and eats at a chain restaurant because that’s all there is out there. The Potrero Hill money, he points out, stays in the community. The chain store money is sent back to headquarters. (Bruce Brugmann)

HUT LANDON

Northern California Independent Booksellers Association

1007 General Kennedy, SF

(415) 561-7686

www.nciba.com

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SMALL BUSINESS ADVOCATE

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Photo by Abi Kelly

REGINA DICK-ENDRIZZI

Small business owners often feel as if they don’t have many advocates at City Hall. But they do have Regina Dick-Endrizzi.

Dick-Endrizzi, acting director of the Small Business Commission, has been moving rapidly on ways to help small businesses feel more comfortable dealing with the city — and to help them thrive in a tough economic environment. She helped establish the Small Business Assistance Center, which guides local merchants and prospective entrepreneurs through the thicket of city regulations. "It’s a tremendous asset," she told us. "When people walk through the door, we can take the time to help them develop a roadmap to doing business here." And she’s a driving force behind the Shop Local campaign, which will launch this month with bus shelter and bus-side ads designed to encourage San Franciscans to keep their money in town (co-sponsored by the Guardian).

Known in political circles as a former aide to Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, Dick-Endrizzi has a solid background in business. She moved to San Francisco in 1986 to open the Haight Street Buffalo Exchange store, and worked with that company for 13 years. "We bought our inventory from local people, and I had to have a close relationship with local small businesses," she said. "I have an intimate understanding of what it takes to run a business."

After several years in Mirkarimi’s office, she learned of the opening at the Small Business Commission, and plans to stay there for a while. "I truly believe in what this department offers to small business," she said. "There’s such a tremendous need." (Tim Redmond)

REGINA DICK-ENDRIZZI OFFICE OF SMALL BUSINESS

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett, SF

(415) 554-6134

www.sfgov.org

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GOOD NEIGHBOR AWARD

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URBAN SOLUTIONS

Urban Solutions has its roots in the South of Market Foundation, an economic development corporation formed in 1992 in response to what SoMa merchants, residents, and community-based organizations felt was a lack of accountability in their neighborhood’s development.

A decade later, the organization changed its name and Urban Solutions was born. Two years after that, the burgeoning nonprofit opened a second office, this time in the Western Addition, becoming an important source of service in both neighborhoods.

Urban Solution’s executive director Jenny McNulty says she is currently excited about her organization’s Green Business initiative, which helps educate small business on how to conserve resources and reduce their carbon footprints — and save money in the process.

McNulty is also amped about Urban Solution’s effort — undertaken with the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency — to revitalize Sixth Street’s commercial corridor.

"We’re expanding our Green Business Initiative program, which offers free consulting to help small businesses go green by implementing cost-saving practices to increase the sustainability of their business operations," McNulty said.

Urban Solutions’ Sixth Street revitalization effort includes beautifying the area and helping businesses, in conjunction with Redevelopment Agency grants, by improving their facades, installing new awnings, repainting buildings, and replacing windows, storefronts, and entrance ways.

"Our focus is low-income businesses," McNulty said. (Sarah Phelan)

URBAN SOLUTIONS

1083 Mission, SF

(415) 553-4433

www.urbansolutionssf.org

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GOOD NEIGHBOR AWARD

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Photo by Abi Kelly

JENS-PETER JUNGCLAUSSEN

Jens-Peter Jungclaussen had a dream: Buy a gutted, camouflage-painted school bus on eBay, convert it to biodiesel, and put it to use as a mobile classroom by day and a party on wheels by night, a rollicking omnibus of education, culture, and sustainability. With a few flicks of his wrist, Jungclaussen, a former German windsurfing pro and biology and PE teacher, transforms the bus to suit the need at hand — pulling down a movie screen from the roof; unpacking a buffet table, wet bar, or set of turntables from beneath the seats; or simply switching on the "party lights." Dubbed das Frachtgut ("the good freight"), the bus has hosted dinner parties on Twin Peaks, ecology classes in Muir Woods, sunrise raves on undisclosed beaches, and screenings of The Big Lebowski (complete with bowling and White Russians). It also serves as a mobile billboard for its various local, eco-friendly sponsors and can be rented for field trips and corporate events.

The ever-enthusiastic and tireless Jungclaussen recently turned his attentions to youth education, this year offering for the first time a "mobile summer camp." Teaming up with fellow teachers Michael Murnane, Gretchen Nelson, Justin Ancheta, and Leah Greenberg, he’ll present three, 11-day sessions on wheels that will introduce young people to a variety of Bay Area natural, artistic, and historical treasures. But don’t worry, the parties will still keep rolling. As Jungclaussen promises of the bus, "What you want it to be, it will become." (Marke B.)

JENS-PETER JUNGCLAUSSEN

(415) 424-1058

www.teacherbus.com

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ARTHUR JACKSON DIVERSITY IN SMALL BUSINESS AWARD

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IRENE HERNANDEZ-FEIKS

It’s easy to assume that the purpose of Chillin’, the brainchild of Mexico City native Irene Hernandez-Feiks, is simply to have a good time. But the multimedia parties Hernandez-Feiks has been throwing for 11 years are much more than entertainment. Their actual purpose is to stimulate the economy and support one of the most difficult small businesses to sustain: the business of art.

A former designer herself, Hernandez-Feiks started out organizing weekly happy hours at 111 Minna where she would feature up to five independent Bay Area designers. Her philosophy? Charge the designers nothing for the opportunity and take no commission. The formula worked so well that Chillin’ eventually grew from weeknight happy hours to Saturday night events, complete with DJs. Now Chillin’ is a full-fledged happening — indeed, the June 13 anniversary show at Mezzanine features 180 photographers and artists, 40 filmmakers, 80 fashion designers, and 12 DJs.

But watching Chillin’ grow — and seeing participating artists transform themselves from local to international names — isn’t enough for Hernandez-Feiks. She also devotes much of her time to charity work, including involvement with Gen Art, the Mexican Consulate Cultural Affairs division, the United Nations and Natural World Museum, and the Art Seed Apprenticeship Program benefiting Bayview- Hunters Point youth.

"Because of Chillin’, I have relationships with so many artists," she says. "I want to use those connections to help everybody out." (Molly Freedenberg)

IRENE HERNANDEZ-FEIKS

Chillin Productions

(415) 285-1998

www.chillinproductions.com

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