Transportation

The dubious high-speed rail report

Zelda Bronstein
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The dubious high-speed rail report

The Chron’s blast at the state’s high-speed rail system is a big headline, but the report it’s based on is pretty dubious.


As the always-insightful Robert Cruikshank at Calitics points out, the state auditor is trying to blame the High Speed Rail Authority for the fact that federal funding for the project isn’t yet in place. But there’s no reason to believe that situation will remain forever; both Congress and the Obama administration have been friendly toward high-speed rail, and California is in line to get a significant amount of it.

 


And in the worst-case scenario, if there’s no federal funding at all, the money California voters have already approved won’t go to waste — it will go, for example, to improve the existing Caltrain lines.

 

Cruikshank:

 

For some HSR critics and skeptics, the uncertainty around federal funding is a reason to either not build the project, or to not build it in their backyard. The proper response, however, is not to be a passive actor, but to instead actively work to secure federal funding for HSR. You can go to the FourBillion.com site and told their Congressional representatives they want $4 billion in the FY 2011 budget, as a first step toward advocacy for the $50 billion in the transportation bill reauthorization.

 


MTA board approves controversial budget

Sasha Cuttler
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MTA board approves controversial budget

By Adam Lesser

City Hall needed an overflow room to accommodate all the disenchanted Muni riders who showed up to protest the two-year San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency budget plan yesterday (4/20). The budget locks in a 10 percent service cut through July 1st, 2011, at which point the MTA board is hopeful that the service cut will be lowered to 5 percent. The controversial budget was adopted on a 4-3 vote, and now goes to the Board of Supervisors, where progressive supervisors have already signaled opposition to the service cuts.

“It still seems and feels as I look at it [the budget], that it’s very tenuously put together. In light of the fact that it’s going to impact the least, the lonely, and the lost of us, I had to say, let’s keep looking at it,” said Director James McCray, who was one of three dissenting votes.

McCray, along with Director Malcolm Heincke who voted for the budget, were the two directors to openly express concern about the pay of transit operators and overtime charges. In a $750 million budget, service cuts wound up providing $29 million in savings, a relatively small number compared to the $456 million that will be spent on salaries and benefits, as well as the $59 million in work orders to other agencies like the police department and the city attorney.

Small revenue measures like adding 1,000 metered spaces, eliminating free reserved parking around areas like City Hall, and window advertising wrap on buses are part of the budget.

Heincke questioned MTA Executive Director Nathaniel Ford about the budget which includes $10 million in labor concessions from MTA employees while locking in a $9 million raise in 2011 and a $9.5 million raise in 2012 for transit operators from Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 250-A. Transit operators’ wages and raises are written into the city charter. 

“The bubble over my head says wow,” said Heincke. Ford’s attempts to negotiate with the union over work rules have been unsuccessful. Sup. Sean Elsbernd is pushing a charter amendment for the November ballot that would remove the TWU’s pay rates from the city charter.

Anger over Muni’s payment of work orders to other city agencies was a constant theme among community groups as diverse as the Chinese Progressive Association and the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. Those work orders have increased from $36 million in 2006 to $66 million in 2010.

“What really happened is the rest of the city had a budget crisis and the mayor went after Muni looking for funds,” said Dave Snyder, coordinator for the San Francisco Transit Riders Union. Newsom appoints the directors who sit on the MTA Board. “Muni is paying for service the public doesn’t want them to pay for at the expense of transit service.”

Members of the Latino and Chinese-American community were out in large numbers, not just to protest service cuts that they felt disproportionately impact the Mission and Chinatown, but to complain about harassment by the police. Enforcement of the Proof of Payment program has increased with Muni agents and police checking the amount of time left on riders’ transfer tickets, and issuing fines.

“You have police asking for ID and issuing $75 fines. There have been a few cases of deportation,” Beatriz Herrera, an organizer for People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER). Referring to riders whose transfers expire while riding a bus, Emily Lee of the Chinese Progressive Association said, “They expect folks to get off the bus. That’s an unreasonable expectation. It’s stressful for the community. The police are intimidating.”

The service changes are slated to take effect May 8th.

Rolling forward

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Rolling forward

By Adrian Castañeda

news@sfbg.com

San Francisco’s Potrero del Sol Skatepark is often packed with skaterboarders, a testament to the sport’s popularity and to the dearth of places in the city where it’s legal to skate. But that will soon change with the city’s commitment to build two new skateparks: one in SoMa and the other in the Haight.

Both have been tentatively approved by the Board of Supervisors. But before any concrete is poured, the skaters will have to overcome budget crises, angry homeowners, and their own bad reputations, particularly in the Haight, where the proposed park has gotten caught up in the furor over vagrants and the proposed sit-lie ordinance.

San Francisco has long been a skateboarding hub, yet there’s always been friction with police, businesses, and everyday city life. Even though it’s legal, there just aren’t that many places to do it anymore, partially because the city and property owners routinely attach barriers to any surfaces that might be appealing to skaters.

Skateboarders, long accustomed to being ignored and disenfranchised, have responded in their usual DIY fashion, such as building a few obstacles in an empty parking lot under a freeway overpass. The city took notice of the demand and after three years of planning and meetings, the newest of San Francisco’s skate parks has finally been allotted the necessary funds to begin construction around the end of summer.

The Central Freeway Skate Park will be located in what is now a parking lot at the intersection of Duboce and Stevenson streets in the north Mission District area. With $2 million collected through the Central Freeway Corridor Housing and Transportation Improvement Act of 1999, which provides for the sale and lease of parcels of city land that were under the now-demolished freeway, officials plan to develop the park to eventually include basketball courts and a dog run.

Rich Hillis of the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development said the city is considering a variety of improvements, but confirmed that “we think the skate park is the priority.” He attributes the park’s relatively unopposed approval to the demands of the city’s skaters and to the community as a whole. “They embraced the idea of a skatepark early on,” Hillis said of the forward-thinking residents of the area. He jokingly adds that the park should be named “Hornbeck Park” after Bryan Hornbeck, director of the San Francisco Skateboard Association. Hornbeck and his associates started the SFSA to push the city to build new parks designed with skaters in mind.

“San Francisco has to have a world-class skatepark,” Hornbeck said at one of the many skate events his group organizes. Hornbeck said the city has been receptive, working with skaters on the design of the park, but left SFSA to organize skaters and raise the funds. “It’s bake sale; it’s lemonade stand; it’s the best we can do,” Hornbeck said. “We’re not trying to take anything, we’re trying to make our own thing.”

Plans for the park, drawn up by notable skatepark design firm New Line Skateparks, are currently under review by civil engineers. After the plans are finalized, the project will be bid out to find a contractor. Tentative 3-D renderings have been online for months, sparking heated debate on skateboarding Web sites.

When the acclaimed Potrero del Sol Skatepark opened in 2008, many skaters felt that while it was well-designed and enjoyable, it didn’t have enough terrain that mimicked street riding. New Line has designed a number of skating plazas, most recently in Los Angeles. Its involvement gives many skaters hope that the new park will incorporate obstacles that represent the city’s rich street skating history.

But things are not moving as swiftly for the city’s other planned skate park, just beyond where Waller dead-ends at Stanyan in the Haight, which doesn’t have the same guaranteed funding stream. While bids for a design have been submitted, the Recreation and Park Department needs to get approval for $1 million–$2 million in construction funds before moving forward. The city proposed the 120,000-square-foot cul-de-sac at the end of Waller and next to SFPD’s Park Station after the original site near the Golden Gate Park horseshoe pits was found to be too small and lacking the necessary sight-lines for safety. But according to some residents groups, the parking lot is less safe for youths.

Citing police incident reports, Lena Emmery, president of the Cole Valley Improvement Association, told us the Waller park would be in an area with a high number of reported assaults and drug arrests and would add to noise pollution. “This location puts a skateboard park too close to a dense residential area, as well as some businesses that would be negatively impacted by the noise from the skaters,” she wrote via e-mail.

While the lot is occasionally used for bicycle safety classes and overflow parking at Kezar Stadium, it sits empty most of the year, although a farmers market will hold its grand opening there April 28. Will Keating, a Waller Street resident and skateboarder who works on Haight Street, is excited about the proposed park. He disagrees with claims that the park would be a negative impact on his neighborhood. “I hear homeless mutants going crazy outside my window every night, I would much prefer skateboards,” Keating said of the current noise pollution.

The Haight Ashbury Improvement Association, which is leading the charge for a sit-lie ordinance, conducted a survey on its Web site and found that many of its visitors feel the skatepark would increase noise and safety problems in the Haight. Visitors to the site also said the lot would be better used as a farmers market. Yet city officials say the two are not mutually exclusive, and early designs for the project are said to include a large public plaza adjacent to the park intended for community events.

“We realize this is going to be a multiuse space,” said Nick Kinsey, property manager for the Recreation and Park Department. “Throughout San Francisco there are thousands and thousands of skateboarders but only two places where it is legal to skate.” Kinsey called the park is “a done deal,” citing a 2007 ordinance introduced by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi that mandates the department build a skatepark on the cul-de-sac.

Kent Uyehara, merchant chair for the HAIA and owner of FTC skateshop on Haight, said the community’s fears about pedestrian safety are understandable, but that fears of increased violence and drug use are irrational. “If you can’t have a skate park next to a police station, then basically you are saying you can’t have it.”

If the city enacts the sit-lie ordinance, which Uyehara supports, it would be easy to imagine that a skate park would be a magnet for homeless and others looking to escape police harassment. But Uyehara is adamant that the park would not become a haven for Haight Street refugees. “Skateboarders self-police their own areas,” he said. “We’re not trying to kick the homeless out,” he added. “We’re trying to make the neighborhood attractive for everyone, whether they’re buying something or not.”

Uyehara is no stranger to opposition. When his shop first moved to the Haight in 1994, he had to deal with threats from residents and a neighborhood organization, similar to the one he is now a part of, because of what skateboarding represented to them. Since then skateboarding and his business have prospered, and FTC now has four locations worldwide. “For a city that hosted the X-Games, it’s pathetic how skateboarding has been treated.”

Uyehara says the Waller park, along with the Central Freeway and Potrero del Sol parks, are part of a plan developed by the San Francisco Skate Task Force, created in 2002 by then-Sup. Gavin Newsom to address the growing friction between the city and its skateboard population. The task force envisioned “a series of five parks located in a star pattern, and one in the middle of the city, [that] would make it possible for users to easily get to a park within at least two miles of their home.”

All the meetings and fundraising will be in vain if the park is poorly designed and built, said Jake Phelps, editor-in-chief of Thrasher Magazine. He says locals should design the park “so we have no one to blame but ourselves,” and avoid another flawed park like Crocker Amazon in Sunnydale where, he says, “the fence costs more than the skatepark.” Unimpressed with preliminary designs for the park on Duboce, the notoriously blunt Phelps says, “They’re going to come to our town, drop a turd, and leave.”

The veteran skater is wary of “landscape designers” with grandiose ideas. “There are people who get too involved. They don’t skate. Who are they to tell anybody what it is?” Newer skateparks are too crowded with obstacles trying to please all different kinds of skaters, he said. Instead, he urges a simple design similar to the streets of downtown. “The whole idea of skating is being utilitarian with your environment.” Regardless of the design, he believes it won’t have a dramatic effect on the Haight community: “Homeless people are gonna sleep there,” he said. “People are gonna tag on it and think it’s theirs.”

“The whole city’s a park, but people need somewhere to go when they get kicked out of everywhere,” says pro skater Tony Trujillo, who is able to skate to the Potrero park from his house and thinks others should have the same proximity to hassle-free skating. Julien Stranger, another local pro, feels a park in the Haight would benefit youth in the area by giving them a healthy, creative outlet, something the Haight symbolizes to many. “I don’t think that the neighborhood should be complaining about the energy a skate park will bring,” he said. “Skate parks are pretty positive.”

Earlier this month, an informational meeting hosted by the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, Kinsey, Hornbeck, and other residents raised concerns that noise pollution and property damage would increase because of the skate park. “There’s been no public outreach,” said Martha Hoffman, who lives across from where the park is slated to be built. “If we’d known about it sooner, we would have opposed earlier.”

Thuy Nguyen of the SF Skate Club, an after-school program that promotes skateboarding as a safe and positive activity, urged residents to look beyond their property values and consider the benefits for the city’s youth. “It’s important for kids who feel that traditional sports aren’t for them.” Her partner, Shawn Connolly, added that skateboarding has grown in popularity with children. “It’s right after baseball,” he said.

“If the city doesn’t have a skatepark, the city is the skatepark,” Hornbeck said of the Waller Street lot where he often hosts skate events with donated ramps to ease the community into the idea of skateboarders using the area. But until the city budget can provide for skateboarders, the debate over the park will rage — and the underused parking lot at the end of Waller will remain just that.

Driving up the cost of housing

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Driving up the cost of housing

By Jobert Poblette

news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY If you think living in the Bay Area is expensive, think about what it would be like if you didn’t have access to public transportation. A new report by Chicago-based think tank Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) considers just that problem, offering a new way of understanding just what constitutes affordable housing.

The CNT report — dubbed the Housing and Transportation (H+T) Affordability Index (www.htaindex.cnt.org) — maps housing affordability for 337 metropolitan areas and provides before-and-after snapshots that show how affordability changes when transportation costs are taken into account.

Affordable housing is usually defined as consuming 30 percent or less of a household’s income, but CNT proposes a redefinition. Under CNT’s new definition, housing is only considered affordable if the sum of housing and transportation costs constitutes 45 percent or less of household income. That redefinition would have dramatic effects on the Bay Area’s affordability picture.

Many communities in the region that would have been considered affordable under the old definition — including large swaths of Hayward, Marin County, Sacramento, and Stockton — would be unaffordable under the new standard. And San Francisco, well served by public transit, would be deemed a lot more affordable.

The difference that smart planning and public transportation make can be huge, especially for households already feeling the pinch of a weak economy. According to CNT, transportation costs in “location efficient” neighborhoods — its term for “compact, mixed-use communities with a balance of housing, jobs, and stores, and easy access to transit” — can be as low as 12 percent of a household’s budget versus up to 32 percent for less efficient neighborhoods where residents must drive to jobs and services.

For example, CNT calculated an annual transportation cost difference of $2,780 between Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood, which it calls “compact,” and the city of Antioch, which it considers “dispersed.”

CNT says “location efficiency” in development can translate to big savings. According to its report, if 50 percent of new growth in the Bay Area occurs in compact rather than dispersed neighborhoods, the region could collectively save more than $1.1 billion in transportation costs.

Besides reducing a community’s environmental impact and improving residents’ quality of life, the report argues that things like walkability, proximity to jobs and services, and efficient public transportation help make an area more livable and affordable. The report also raises questions about the wisdom of cutting public transportation, especially in a period when many households are being forced out of their homes.

CNT hopes that its analysis will lead to more awareness for policy makers and more transparency for consumers. “What we’re looking for is a new definition of affordability, transportation cost disclosures for consumers, and incentives to build more compact communities around transit,” CNT spokesperson Nicole Gotthelf told us.

Gotthelf said the Bay Area has been at the forefront of this issue, specifically mentioning the work of the Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), the agency that plans, coordinates, and finances transportation in the nine counties that make up the region. “They’ve been actively trying to understand the housing and transportation trade-offs for Bay Area households.”

In turn, MTC offered support for the principles behind the CNT study. “We agree that it is good policy to promote the development of affordable housing at or near transit hubs,” MTC spokesperson John Goodwin told the Guardian.

In its “Transportation 2035 Plan for the San Francisco Bay Area,” which outlines how the agency will spend $218 billion in transportation funds over the next 25 years, MTC even sets out a goal of “decreas[ing] by 10 percent the combined share of low-income and lower-middle-income residents’ household income consumed by transportation and housing.”

Goodwin told us the agency is committed to smart growth principles: “The Bay Area is not unique, but I think the Bay Area is part of a vanguard … We are among the leading metro areas in making this a policy priority, and I feel confident in saying that this priority will continue to be affirmed.”

Goodwin pointed to the agency’s Transportation for Livable Communities (TLC) program, which is designed to promote development that “revitalizes central cities and older suburbs, supports and enhances public transit, promotes walking and bicycling, and preserves open spaces and agricultural lands.” Now in its 12th year, the TLC program has helped fund scores of transportation-related and affordable housing projects.

The MTC also administers the Housing Incentive Program, which “rewards communities … when they successfully promote high-density housing and mixed-use developments at transit stops to support transit use.” The program provides up to $3 million in grants to local governments that partner with developers to build housing near transit hubs.

Conversely, the agency also won’t approve funding for new transit stops that aren’t in dense areas. The thresholds require a minimum number of housing units within a half-mile radius of new transit stops, from 750 units for new ferry terminals to 3,850 units for new BART stations.

But the MTC’s efforts represent only one part of the equation. Goodwin said that coordination is key. “What we have here in the Bay Area is that decisions about transportation funding — for the most part — are conducted at the regional level, while land-use decisions are made at the local level. So it requires coordination between regional agencies like MTC and local cities and counties.”

In spite of the MTC’s efforts, huge problems plague the region. Housing costs in the Bay Area are among the highest in the nation. A recent report conducted by the Urban Land Institute — based on research conducted by CNT — found that, on average, Bay Area households spent $41,420 a year on housing and transportation, a whopping 59 percent of median income.

With budget crises affecting many of the region’s public transit providers, service cuts and fare hikes make the picture bleaker. Recently, AC Transit and Muni services were cut by almost 10 percent, causing longer waits and crowded buses — and a huge budget deficit could mean deep cuts in Caltrain service this summer. If these cuts force more Bay Area households to turn to cars, the region’s affordability can be adversely affected, even as households deal with the pressures of a weak economy.

On the national stage, several developments offer signs that smart growth principles — including the link between housing affordability and transportation — may be gaining wider traction. These developments are presenting smart growth and public transportation advocates with opportunities to push for reform.

Last year, three federal agencies — the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, and the Environmental Protection Agency — announced a partnership that would have the agencies working together on housing and transportation initiatives. The partnership laid out six “livability principles,” including commitments to provide more transportation choices, “promote equitable, affordable housing,” support existing communities, and “value communities and neighborhoods.” The new partnership’s rhetoric includes references to location and energy efficiency, transit-oriented and mixed-use development, and walkable neighborhoods.

On Capitol Hill, Congress is working on a new omnibus transportation bill to replace a bill that expired in 2009. The bill would provide billions in federal funding for highways and other forms of surface transportation. Consideration of the new bill in both the House and Senate has stalled, but some proposals emphasize the creation of transportation choices and livable communities. Transportation for America (www.t4america.org), a coalition of housing, transportation, environmental, and other groups, is mobilizing to promote public transportation and sustainable development in the new transportation bill, seeking to make CNT’s way of looking at the world into official U.S. policy.

What do you get for your tax dollars?

David Talbot
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What do you get for your tax dollars?

By Steven Hill

OPINION Most Americans seem to regard April 15 — the day income tax returns are due — as a recurring tragedy akin to a biblical plague. Europe frequently plays the punching bag role during these moments because there is a perception that the poor Europeans are overtaxed serfs.

But a closer look reveals that this is a myth that prevents Americans from understanding the vast shortcomings of our own system.

The fact is, in return for their taxes, Europeans receive a generous support system for families and individuals that Americans must pay for exorbitantly, out-of-pocket, if we are to receive it at all. That includes high-quality health care for every single citizen, the average cost of which is about half what Americans pay, even as various studies show that Europeans achieve healthier results.

But that’s not all. In return for their taxes, Europeans also receive affordable childcare, a decent retirement pension, free or inexpensive university education, job retraining, paid sick leave, paid parental leave, ample vacations, affordable housing, senior care, efficient mass transportation, and more. To receive the same level of benefits as Europeans, most Americans fork out a ton of money in out-of-pocket payments, in addition to our taxes.

For example, while 47 million Americans have no health insurance, many who do pay escalating premiums and deductibles. Anthem Blue Cross of California announced that its premiums will increase by up to 40 percent. But all Europeans receive health care in return for a modest amount deducted from their paychecks.

Friends have told me they are saving nearly $100,000 for their children’s college education, and most young Americans graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt. But European children attend for free or nearly so (depending on the country).

Childcare in the U.S. costs over $12,000 annually for a family with two children; in Europe, it costs about one-sixth that amount, and the quality is far superior. Millions of Americans are stuffing as much as possible into their IRAs and 401(k)s because Social Security provides only about half the retirement income needed. But the more generous European retirement system provides about 75 percent to 85 percent (depending on the country) of retirement income. Either way, you pay.

Americans’ private spending on old-age care is nearly three times higher per capita than in Europe because Americans must self-finance a significant share of their own senior care. Americans also tend to pay more in local and state taxes, as well as in property taxes. Americans also pay hidden taxes, such as $300 billion annually in federal tax breaks to businesses that provide health benefits to their employees.

That’s something to keep in mind as you pay your income taxes.

Steven Hill is the author of the recently published Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age (www.EuropesPromise.org) and director of the Political Reform Program for the New America Foundation.

Chiu talks MTA reform as agency fails to support Muni

Sasha Cuttler
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Chiu talks MTA reform as agency fails to support Muni

With the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board of Directors poised to approve a truly terrible two-year budget today (4/20) – one that locks in Muni service cuts, subsidizes the police and other city departments, and fails to seek new revenue sources – there is talk about reforming an agency run exclusively by appointees of Mayor Gavin Newsom.

The most significant figure sounding that call is Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who told the Guardian that he plans to hold hearings this year on the MTA board failures to support transit service, with the goal of placing reform measures on the November ballot. Helping that effort will be his newest board aide, Judson True, who comes from a fire-tested stint as the MTA’s spokesperson and before that was a board aide to then-Sup. Gerardo Sandoval.

“We’re going to have a very serious discussion about MTA reform,” Chiu told the Guardian. “I’ve got some real questions and for the next six months, that will be front and center…I expect there to be a very robust discussion about the MTA and balancing that budget on the backs of transit riders.”

Those discussions will be wrapped into city budget season, a realm in which Chiu is also adding firepower right now by hiring Cat Rauschuber as his other new board aide. Rauschuber has her masters in public policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, most recently worked for city Budget Analyst Harvey Rose, and earlier worked in the city’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“It’s important that we hire folks who have experience in city government, particularly solid policy experience,” Chiu said, adding that his third board aide, Victor Lim, came from the Asian Law Caucus and has experience in immigration reform, another valuable asset given the ongoing standoff between the board and Newsom over sanctuary city policies. 

True and Rauschuber are also master networkers with strong and extensive connections in the progressive community, as well as more mainstream arts, culture, and political communities (Full disclosure: They’re also friends of mine). Those connections and social skills could help unite the varied critics of the current MTA budget, which range from the downtown-oriented SPUR to the new San Francisco Transit Riders Union (SFTRU) to the radical ANSWER Coalition, all of whom have areas of policy disagreement over the best way forward.

All are expected to weigh in today (4/20) at 2 p.m. when the SFMTA convenes in City Hall Room 400 to discuss and vote on the agency’s two-year budget. And while the groups may differ over partial solutions like extended parking meter hours, they all agree this a truly terrible budget that disproportionately punishes low-income people who rely on Muni.

“The budget is irresponsible and dishonest,” SFTRU project director Dave Snyder. “It reveals the hypocrisy in the mayor’s stated environmental commitments. This action will cut public transit permanently and that’s irresponsible.”

Mayoral press secretary Tony Winnicker has not yet responded to the accusations or to Chiu’s calls for MTA reform, but I’ll post his response in the comments section if I hear back.

Cheating U.S. workers

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The drive to strengthen workers’ rights is one of the most important ever undertaken by an American administration

Hundreds of thousands of workers are being cheated by U.S. employers who blatantly violate the laws that are supposed to guarantee workers decent wages, hours and working conditions.

That’s been going on for a long time, but rarely as extensively as it was during the administration of George W. Bush. Thankfully, Bush is gone. And thankfully, President Obama and his outstanding Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, have this month launched a major campaign to try to overcome the very serious damage of the past.

Even the name of the campaign itself is very un-Bush-like. “We Can Help,” it’s called. Bush, of course, never so much as offered help to badly exploited workers. But he did, of course, offer plenty of help to their law-breaking employers.

So, just what are Obama, Solis and their allies in the labor movement and elsewhere up to? They’re taking some very big steps to encourage workers to report employer violations of the wage and hour laws – especially low-wage workers, who are the most exploited. And they’re trying to respond as quickly as possible to the workers’ complaints.

Undocumented immigrants, who are perhaps the most exploited of all workers, are being encouraged to make complaints and are promised they won’t be punished for their illegal status. As the Labor Department explains, all workers deserve decent treatment, whatever their legal status.

Solis’ Labor Department has made the campaign a top priority. The department has already hired more than 250 new investigators, increasing the number by more than one-third. Even with a lesser number, the department recovered more than $170 million in back pay for more than 200,000 workers since Obama took office.

The key element of the campaign is to make sure that workers understand their rights under the laws and report any violations of those rights.

Certainly there’s no doubt that there are plenty of violations to report. For instance, a recent survey of workers in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago found thousands of rampant abuses of low-wage workers, many of them undocumented immigrants. They worked in stores, in factories and offices, at construction sites, in janitorial and food service jobs, in  warehouses, in  private homes  and elsewhere.

More than one-fourth of the workers had been paid less than the legal minimum wage, often by more than $1 an hour less. That amounted to an average of more than $50 week in underpayments on wages that averaged not much more than $300 a week to begin with.

Many of the workers had been denied overtime pay or had their pay illegally docked for the cost of tools or transportation. Some were forced work without pay before and after their regular work shifts. Slavery is the word for that – being forced to work without pay.

Although the Labor Department is relying primarily on workers themselves to report on employers’ labor law violations, the department is also getting help from the AFL-CIO, its affiliated unions and other worker advocacy groups.

They are distributing posters, fact sheets and booklets spelling out the wage and hour laws and how to report violations, arranging meetings between workers and Labor Department staffers, holding forums at union halls, and other steps.

The department also has begun a publicity campaign in English and Spanish that includes TV ads featuring prominent Latinos, such as Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, and prominent Puerto Rican actor Jimmy Smits.

Win or lose, the drive to greatly strengthen workers’ rights is one of the most important ever undertaken by an American administration. And I strongly suspect it will come in a winner.

Dick Meister, formerly labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

 

 

 

 

On Tax Day, are Americans getting our money’s worth?

Sasha Cuttler
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On Tax Day, are Americans getting our money’s worth?

Editor’s Note: While the teabaggers try to claim Tax Day as a national day of protest against government and taxes, San Francisco author and activist Steven Hill (the father of the city’s ranked choice voting system) offers a different perspective, noting that it isn’t taxes and government that we should be so angry about today, but how little we get for them, thanks largely to right-wing opposition to expanding public services

By Steven Hill
Most Americans seem to regard April 15 — the day income tax returns are due to the Internal Revenue Service — as a recurring tragedy akin to a Biblical plague.  Particularly this year, with US government deficits soaring, everyone from the teabaggers to Fox News and Senate Republicans are sounding the alarm about a return to “big government.” Recently former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani even stated that President Obama was moving us towards — gasp — European socialism.
Europe frequently plays the punching bag role during these moments because there is a perception that the poor Europeans are overtaxed serfs.  But a closer look reveals that this is a myth that prevents Americans from understanding the vast shortcomings of our own system.

A few years ago, an American acquaintance of mine who lives in Sweden told me that, quite by chance, he and his Swedish wife were in New York City and ended up sharing a limousine to the theater district with a southern U.S. Senator and his wife. This senator, a conservative, anti-tax Democrat, asked my acquaintance about Sweden and swaggeringly commented about “all
those taxes the Swedes pay.” To which this American replied, “The problem with Americans and their taxes is that we get nothing for them.” He then went on to tell the senator about the comprehensive level of services and benefits that Swedes receive.

“If Americans knew what Swedes receive for their taxes, we would probably riot,” he told the senator. The rest of the ride to the theater district was unsurprisingly quiet.

The fact is, in return for their taxes, Europeans are receiving a generous support system for families and individuals for which Americans must pay exorbitantly, out-of-pocket, if we are to receive it at all. That includes quality health care for every single person, the average cost of which is about half of what Americans pay, even as various studies show that Europeans achieve healthier results.  

But that’s not all.  In return for their taxes, Europeans also are receiving affordable childcare, a decent retirement pension, free or inexpensive university education, job retraining, paid sick leave, paid parental leave, ample vacations, affordable housing, senior care, efficient mass transportation and more. In order to receive the same level of benefits as Europeans, most Americans fork out a ton of money in out-of-pocket payments, in addition to our taxes.

For example, while 47 million Americans don’t have any health insurance at all, many who do are paying escalating premiums and deductibles.  Indeed, Anthem Blue Cross announced that its premiums will increase by up to 40%. But all Europeans receive health care in return for a modest amount deducted from their paychecks.

Friends have told me they are saving nearly a hundred thousand dollars for their children’s college education, and most young Americans graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in debt.  But European children attend for free or nearly so (depending on the country).

Childcare in the U.S. costs over $12,000 annually for a family with two children, but in Europe it cost about one-sixth that amount, and the quality is far superior. Millions of Americans are stuffing as much as possible into their IRAs and 401(k)s because Social Security provides only about half the retirement income needed. But the more generous European retirement system provides about 75-85 percent (depending on the country) of retirement income. Either way, you pay.

Americans’ private spending on old-age care is nearly three times higher per capita than in Europe because Americans must self-finance a significant share of their own senior care. Americans also tend to pay more in local and state taxes, as well as in property taxes.  Americans also pay hidden taxes, such as $300 billion annually in federal tax breaks to businesses that provide health benefits to their employees.

When you sum up the total balance sheet, it turns out that Americans pay out just as much as Europeans — but we receive a lot less for our money.  

Unfortunately these sorts of complexities are not calculated into simplistic analyses like Forbes’ annual Tax Misery Index, a “study” which shows European nations as the most miserable and the low-tax United States as happy as a clam — right next to Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

In this economically competitive age, increasingly these kinds of services are necessary to ensure healthy, happy and productive families and workers. Europeans have these supports, but most Americans do not unless you pay a ton out-of-pocket. Or unless you are a member of Congress, which of course provide European-level support for its members and their families.

That’s something to keep in mind on April 15.  Happy Tax Day.

[Steven Hill is the author of the recently published “Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age” (www.EuropesPromise.org) and director of the Political Reform Program for the New America Foundation].

Editorial: No free ride for developers

David Talbot
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0

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

No free ride for developers

David Talbot
-
2
No free ride for developers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Access denied

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Access denied

rebeccab@sfbg.com

If tuition goes up to $40 per course unit at the community college where Dielly Diaz is working toward her associate of arts degree, she’s not sure she’ll be able to afford it. But Diaz isn’t just worried about her own shot at an education. She also wonders what’s in store for her 19-year-old daughter, a student at Laney Community College in Oakland. For parents scrambling in the face of the economic downturn even as their kids prepare for the future, she said, “it’s like we’re getting hit both ways.”

Diaz, who is 39 and originally from Venezuela, says she decided to enter Berkeley City College’s adult education program to earn her degree because the recession threw her into a precarious position, shaking the stability of her job as a mortgage loan officer. When she started just a year ago, tuition was $20 per course unit. It has since gone up to $26, and now the California Legislative Analyst’s Office is recommending ratcheting it up to $40.

Even as students are being asked to shell out more, California’s community colleges are reeling from the impacts of budget cuts: faculty layoffs, swelling class sizes, fewer available courses, and reductions in student services. For students hoping to transfer to other public institutions in the California State University (CSU) or University of California (UC) systems — or even for those seeking to develop a skill set that can garner a living wage — maneuvering the shredded educational framework can be frustrating. This past year, roughly 250,000 students statewide were denied access to community colleges due to a lack of course availability, according to education advocacy group Against Cuts.

“When you see all that, it’s like OK, I feel like I really need to do something,” Diaz said. “It’s not like we can just sit and wait, letting the cuts happen. I think we can really get organized.”

Between school, work, and being a mom, Diaz started pitching in on community outreach for Against Cuts, a grassroots effort that took shape last fall in the wake of devastating education cutbacks. It was one of hundreds of organizations that collectively launched mass demonstrations decrying funding slashes to education on March 4. The newly energized education movement plans to propel another mass rally to descend on Sacramento in the fall, Diaz noted, in the meantime focusing on awareness-raising efforts like an April 17 teach-in at Berkeley City College.

California’s community colleges are unique among the state’s higher education institutions in that they represent a gateway for nontraditional students to get a foothold for career advancement or a fresh start for people trying to improve their lives. They also offer an affordable option to complete lower-division coursework before transferring, a path that’s starting to become a bottleneck since courses needed to meet transfer requirements have been affected by cuts.

Yet even as fees climb and class sizes balloon, more people are opting to go the community college route, and demand for enrollment is only expected to increase. Some are college-age students whose families have been priced out of other institutions.

“We’re having this flood of people from the CSUs and UCs now trying to do their freshmen and sophomore year with us and then transfer,” notes Berkeley City College faculty member Joan Berezin. Others are individuals who can’t find work in an economic climate marked by 12.5 percent unemployment. “When we get hog-tied and cut and restricted, we close off possibilities to everyone,” Berezin says. “People who’ve just lost their jobs, people whose parents have lost their jobs, they’re all coming to us.”

Of the nearly 3 million students attending community college statewide, women and people of color are in the majority, and 80 percent work while attending school. It’s still a relative bargain for education, but fees are keeping pace with the rising costs of housing, transportation, childcare, and food.

“I have students who are homeless, who are living in their cars,” Berezin notes. “So we can say, oh, $40 a unit, that’s not a big deal. But if you’re taking 12 units and you have no income — and you don’t qualify for financial aid ’cause you don’t have an address … that’s a huge amount of money.”

Financial aid is available, but with narrow eligibility requirements — and even some of that funding may be headed for sacrifice on the budgetary chopping block. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year proposes suspending new awards for the Competitive Cal Grant Program, for a savings of $45.5 million. About 70 percent of Cal Grant award recipients attend community colleges.

“This award is dispersed according to income and GPA,” explained Theresa Tena, director of fiscal policy at the Community College League of California. “Many of our students have a high GPA and a low income.” Some 22,500 students receiving this financial help would be affected by the proposal — and Tena says more than 150,000 eligible students already compete for the award packages.

Research increasingly shows that students from working-class families are being priced out of college — even community college — and that it’s harder to pay their own way without taking on serious amounts of debt. A California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) report found that in 1975, a community college student would have earned well over the amount needed for a year of school, including housing and other expenses, by working a summer job in retail. Today that same student would only be able to scrape together about two-thirds of the needed amount — and that’s assuming every single penny was saved.

“In the old days, going to community college was a break-even proposition,” notes Adrian Griffin, assistant director of research and policy development for the CPEC. “With stagnating wages at the low end of the job market, it doesn’t work this way anymore.”

The blow to community colleges caused by a loss in state revenue and consequential budget cuts mirrors the damage done to the entire public education system. While the recession has triggered especially hard times, this low point follows a long-term trend of diminishing state funding for education. In 1965, the state general fund provided $15 for every $1 paid in fees by UC or CSU students, according to the CPEC. By 2009–10, that state contribution had declined to $1.40 for every dollar paid in fees. “We’ve gone from a taxpayer-supported system to a semi-privatized system,” Griffin observed.

This point hasn’t been lost on the education advocates at Against Cuts, who are pushing for reform in tax policy as a solution for restoring public education in California. An information packet created by the group highlights a nearly 50 percent decline in the share of corporate income paid in taxes since 1981, even as corporate profits have shot up.

“There is no reason for education to be cut in California, the world’s eighth-largest economy,” Diaz said. “We can’t just continue to accept and accept and accept. Having a population that does not have access to education is dangerous.”

Editorial: Avoiding a taxicab meltdown

David Talbot
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0

300 medallion holders who are now more than 70 years old will be allowed to sell their permits and pocket the money

The pilot program to privatize taxicab permits is a done deal. It’s a mistake, and its going to cause serious problems, but at this point, short of a new charter amendment, there’s not a lot anyone can do about it. Under the 2007 measure Proposition A, the Municipal Transportation Agency has the authority to revamp the rules for how cabs are regulated, and the MTA board, appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, has approved the privatization plan.

But the implementation rules can still be written to prevent some of the worst possible results.

Under the proposal, as many as 300 medallion holders who are now more than 70 years old will be allowed to sell their permits and pocket the money. The city will get 15 percent of the sale price. The idea is to encourage older drivers to retire. Since medallion holders must by law be active drivers – and the medallions are issued to drivers until they retire or die and the medallions are highly lucrative – the city’s taxi fleet includes a significant number of people who should no longer be behind the wheel.

But since 1978, the medallions have been issued to drivers for only a token fee – so in essence, the city just handed the older drivers a massive windfall. The permits – public property – are expected to sell for around $200,000, with holders pocketing 85 percent of that cash.

Newsom had much more ambitious plans – he initially wanted to put all the permits on the market and raise as much money for the city as possible. To her credit, Christine Hayashi, MTA’s taxi director, has held her ground and stuck to a plan she thinks will slowly address the problems in the current system (too many older drivers, too long a waiting list for permits).

But if this is going to be anything other than an utter disaster for cab drivers and the city, Hayashi needs to make sure that the permits don’t become speculative commodities – and that cab companies don’t use the new rules as a way to turn medallion buyers into indentured servants.

The rules still require that medallions be held by (and thus sold to) working drivers. But let’s face it: not many drivers have $200,000 cash on hand, so the system’s only going to work if the city can line up financing. Hayashi says she has several banks interested in making medallion loans (in fact, the banks will be the big winners here – medallions don’t depreciate and almost certainly won’t lose value over time). But the drivers will have to come up with a downpayment, probably 10 percent – and a lot of prospective buyers won’t have that much cash, either. One likely outcome: Cab companies will offer to front the downpayment for drivers who agree to associate their medallions with that company. Hayashi needs to press and enforce a rule that bans any cab company from lending money for permits. If this is going to benefit the average driver, the city ought to mandate low downpayments from participating banks or work with nonprofit microlenders to make those loans. (In fact, the city ought to be reaching out to the nonprofit finance community for advice on how to implement the entire program.)

MTA also needs to set a firm, reasonable cap on prices – at a level that a working driver earning the income possible at today’s fares can afford. Medallions can’t be allowed to sell at whatever the market will bear – or speculators and unscrupulous companies will be working all sorts of scams to cash in, the drivers will never have a chance, and the whole system will collapse.

Avoiding a taxicab meltdown

David Talbot
-
1
Avoiding a taxicab meltdown

EDITORIAL The pilot program to privatize taxicab permits is a done deal. It’s a mistake, and its going to cause serious problems, but at this point, short of a new charter amendment, there’s not a lot anyone can do about it. Under the 2007 measure Proposition A, the Municipal Transportation Agency has the authority to revamp the rules for how cabs are regulated, and the MTA board, appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, has approved the privatization plan.

But the implementation rules can still be written to prevent some of the worst possible results.

Under the proposal, as many as 300 medallion holders who are now more than 70 years old will be allowed to sell their permits and pocket the money. The city will get 15 percent of the sale price. The idea is to encourage older drivers to retire. Since medallion holders must by law be active drivers — and the medallions are issued to drivers until they retire or die and the medallions are highly lucrative — the city’s taxi fleet includes a significant number of people who should no longer be behind the wheel.

But since 1978, the medallions have been issued to drivers for only a token fee — so in essence, the city just handed the older drivers a massive windfall. The permits — public property — are expected to sell for around $200,000, with holders pocketing 85 percent of that cash.

Newsom had much more ambitious plans — he initially wanted to put all the permits on the market and raise as much money for the city as possible. To her credit, Christine Hayashi, MTA’s taxi director, has held her ground and stuck to a plan she thinks will slowly address the problems in the current system (too many older drivers, too long a waiting list for permits).

But if this is going to be anything other than an utter disaster for cab drivers and the city, Hayashi needs to make sure that the permits don’t become speculative commodities — and that cab companies don’t use the new rules as a way to turn medallion buyers into indentured servants.

The rules still require that medallions be held by (and thus sold to) working drivers. But let’s face it: not many drivers have $200,000 cash on hand, so the system’s only going to work if the city can line up financing. Hayashi says she has several banks interested in making medallion loans (in fact, the banks will be the big winners here — medallions don’t depreciate and almost certainly won’t lose value over time). But the drivers will have to come up with a downpayment, probably 10 percent — and a lot of prospective buyers won’t have that much cash, either. One likely outcome: Cab companies will offer to front the downpayment for drivers who agree to associate their medallions with that company. Hayashi needs to press and enforce a rule that bans any cab company from lending money for permits. If this is going to benefit the average driver, the city ought to mandate low downpayments from participating banks or work with nonprofit microlenders to make those loans. (In fact, the city ought to be reaching out to the nonprofit finance community for advice on how to implement the entire program.)

MTA also needs to set a firm, reasonable cap on prices — at a level that a working driver earning the income possible at today’s fares can afford. Medallions can’t be allowed to sell at whatever the market will bear — or speculators and unscrupulous companies will be working all sorts of scams to cash in, the drivers will never have a chance, and the whole system will collapse.

Revenue for all

David Talbot
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2
Revenue for all

OPINION Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut: this is the sound of your government — parks, schools, playgrounds, hospitals, clinics, public transportation, programs for youth and seniors, arts, social services, the whole fabric that makes San Francisco what it is — fading away as state and local politicians refuse to raise revenue to revitalize our economy.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and big business groups have promoted a defeatist politics of low expectations, cutting spending, laying off city workers by the thousands, and offering tax breaks to businesses and developers rather than tapping San Francisco’s deep pockets of wealth to generate economic opportunities citywide.

It’s time for a new path: a fiscal politics of optimism, opportunity, and addition rather than subtraction. It’s time for an unapologetic progressive taxation movement for this November’s ballot and beyond, to make the city’s great wealth — individual and corporate, often badly undertaxed — work for all San Franciscans.

As California crumbles, local revenue movements could fuel a statewide campaign of towns, cities, and counties to overturn Proposition 13. San Francisco can take the lead with progressive taxation to create jobs, promote small neighborhood businesses, expand affordable housing and public transit, save public health, and more.

A citywide campaign for progressive taxes is building, including leaders from community-based nonprofits, grassroots organizing and neighborhood groups, labor unions, and some corners of City Hall. There are many promising ideas; with the right political will and organizing, the city could, for instance, tax large-scale real estate and levy profits from large firms. Progressive taxes could, at minimum, bring in close to $100 million and help save critical city services.

To win this campaign, a strong coalition must educate and mobilize the public about the vital importance — and citywide benefit — of raising revenue through targeted taxes on large firms and wealthy individuals. The city’s political leaders will need prodding, pressure, and support to get this done.

Progressive taxation will benefit all of San Francisco, not just some — working-class people of color and immigrants who endure the cuts’ harshest effects, everyone from youths to seniors, and vitally needed city employees like social workers, nurses, librarians, park workers, and firefighters.

The politics of austerity poses false choices between public safety and public health — as if health isn’t a safety issue. San Franciscans of all stripes must reject the pitting of services and "constituencies" against each other, reject the wedge politics that pit labor against nonprofits (both of which work to uplift working-class and poor residents), and unify around progressive revenue.

Nobody likes taxes, least of all the middle class, working class, and poor (the vast majority of us) who shoulder the bulk of the burden. But wealthy individuals and corporations can and must pay their fair share. According to a 2007 World Wealth Report produced by Merrill Lynch, 123,621 households in the Bay Area — many of them in San Francisco — "had $1 million or more in financial assets in 2007, up 10.8 percent from the year before," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

At a Feb. 14, 2007 Town Hall on Poverty in Bayview-Hunters Point, Newsom asserted, "we haven’t addressed the wealth divide; we haven’t addressed the health divide; we haven’t addressed the economic divide … why in a city like San Francisco has income inequality grown like it has?"

Yet Newsom and others continue to avoid progressive taxation — despite polls suggesting such measures can win. Tell Mayor Newsom, and your district supervisor, to make San Francisco’s wealth work for everyone. Now. *

Christopher Cook, an award-winning journalist and former Bay Guardian city editor, is communications director for the Revenue for All campaign of Budget Justice, a coalition of members from dozens of community organizations, labor unions and their allies working to raise revenue and protect the most vulnerable San Franciscans from budget cuts.

Momentum shifts against sit-lie

Sasha Cuttler
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19
Momentum shifts against sit-lie

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

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

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

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

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

Caltrain faces deep cuts, perhaps even closure

Sasha Cuttler
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13

Serious doubt was cast over the future of Caltrain today, with this vital commuter rail link threatened by the same funding cutbacks that are hobbling other regional transit agencies. The joint-powers agency might be forced to cut its service in half this summer – probably by eliminating night and weekend service — or perhaps even shutting the system down.

San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is in a fiscal emergency and moving ahead with service cuts and small but controversial revenue enhancements, all approved Tuesday by its Board of Directors, and the nearby San Mateo County Transit District (SamTrans) and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) are in similarly desperate straits.

Those three agencies run Caltrain, and all have had to scale back their funding commitments in order to preserve bus and light rail services in their core communities. “We’re rapidly approaching a cliff,” Caltrain CEO Mike Scanlon told the Caltrain Board of Directors today, according to the San Mateo Times. “It’s going to be very, very painful. It’s probably going to force people back on congested freeways.”

Caltrain spokesperson Mark Simon told the Guardian that the agency is fully funded through the current fiscal year that ends June 30, but after that, “I don’t know how long we can survive.”

“I don’t think I need to tell someone at the San Francisco Bay Guardian how bad things are at the SFMTA,” he said, adding that the situation is as bad or worse at the other two agencies, and that Caltrain has no other sources of operating revenue.

“That issue has come to a head and it’s come to a head because the state has zeroed out how much money it gives to public transit,” Simon told us. “What’s really heartbreaking is that this is a time when we should be adding service.”

Indeed, Caltrain has been moving ahead with plans to electrify its track, which would increase train speed and therefore system capacity while polluting less. But while it seeks federal grants for that capital project, the operating funds that have traditionally come from the state via SFMTA, VTA, and SamTrans have dried up (state and federal transportation funds are strictly divided between capital and operating funds).

Unlike Caltrain, SFMTA and many other transit agencies have the authority to put general tax measures on the ballot to fund transit services, but so far in San Francisco, neither Mayor Gavin Newsom nor the seven SFMTA board members he appointed have shown any leadership is doing so.  

Newsom wants more authority for party-crashing cops

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trash talk

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Trash talk

Sarah@sfbg.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Building better buses

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
Building better buses

By Adam Lesser

news@sfbg.com

GREEN CITY To hear Jaimie Levin talk is to understand that his cause is larger than just promoting alternative fuels for public transportation. “We either pay the tax ourselves or we pay the tax of sending money to the Middle East,” he said as we walked through the noisy AC Transit bus yard in East Oakland. “There’s a human cost of lives lost in a foreign war.”

AC Transit uses 6.5 million gallons of diesel per year. As the agency’s director of alternative fuels policy, it’s Levin’s job to lower that number. He has experimented with biodiesel and gas-electric hybrid buses. But the passion that consumes him these days is hydrogen. He has spent the last 10 years testing and deploying three hydrogen fuel cell buses for AC Transit, and he’s ready for more.

The first of 12 new hydrogen fuel cell buses begin arriving from Belgium at the end of April, doubling the number of fuel cell buses operating in the United States. They will run on multiple lines, including the 57, 18, and the NL transbay route, which runs between San Francisco and Oakland.

Levin promotes a mix of energy sources, but he argues that hydrogen is the best way to go, even if there’s a big near-term problem: the price of a hydrogen fuel cell bus. The new buses cost $2.5 million each compared to a standard diesel bus, which runs $400,000. Levin describes the buses as research vehicles and works with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to monitor their performance.

“It’s not cheap. We understand that. These are still hand-made. We’re talking about making less than 20 vehicles,” he says. Levin is hopeful that if orders for hydrogen fuel cell buses could reach even 200, the cost of the fuel cells would come down by 45 percent. Levin has secured 16 different grants from federal, state, and regional agencies, ranging from the Federal Transportation Administration to the California Air Resources Board, to cover the $57 million program. The use of outside funds has been critical at a time when AC Transit is cutting service to deal with its budget shortfall.

The cost of the hydrogen fuel itself has caused some to ask if it’s a viable alternative to gasoline. A kilogram of hydrogen, which is equivalent to a gallon of gas in terms of energy content, typically costs $7-$8. But hydrogen fuel cells are twice as energy efficient as internal combustion engines.

AC Transit currently gets its hydrogen fuel from its own production facility that it built with Chevron, which is regularly criticized by environmental and human rights groups for everything from pollution to obscene profits to support for despotic regimes. “Chevron Hydrogen” billboards plaster the bus yard, and the logos are yellow and baby blue, a noticeable difference compared to the traditional blue and red Chevron insignia. There’s an ecofriendly, sunny quality to the branding.

But come September, Chevron will exit its collaboration with AC Transit, which will begin purchasing its hydrogen from a Linde plant in Southern California. Part of the reason is that the Chevron-designed system does not have the capacity to produce hydrogen for 12 buses. Industry watchers note that oil companies have scaled back initial forays into hydrogen, perhaps not wanting to facilitate the transition from fossil fuels.

“The big issue is the infrastructure side. What’s cooling it off right now is how far the oil companies have backed off,” said Tim Lipman, codirector of the UC Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center. “If you’re an oil company, you’ve got to figure you’re going to lose money for a while — and you’re making tons of money in your existing business. It’s not broken right now. They don’t see an advantage of being the first to market. We’re not running out of oil.”

Maybe not yet, but between the global warming impacts of oil and the increased cost of extracting oil after the most readily available supplies peak, there is a pressing need to develop alternatives to fossil fuels.

“The oil companies were getting all sorts of pressure to get off oil and carbon so they go out looking for an alternative that looks good and takes the longest to implement. Hydrogen is perfect,” said David Redstone, editor of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Investor, who has covered hydrogen for more than 10 years.

After studying hydrogen for so many years, Redstone has become skeptical about its real potential. “I was a believer when I started,” he told us. “I learned a lot. I knew a lot less when I started. I knew a lot less about the engineering and cost issues involved.”

For example, fuel cells require platinum, which acts as a catalyst to help burn hydrogen fuel. There is ongoing research to reduce the amount of platinum needed in a fuel cell, and exploratory work with less expensive catalysts like nickel. But for now and in the foreseeable future, hydrogen is still a very expensive technology. “They’ve been demonstrating these fuel cell buses for 20 years. It’s like the mentality at the companies involved is that it’s perfectly normal to be a demonstration technology forever,” added Redstone.

He believes that the realistic solutions to the overuse of fossil fuels lie in a mix of behavioral changes and economic incentives, not technological silver bullets. Stop suburban sprawl, get people to live closer to work, and start taxing carbon. Or in Redstone’s simpler terms, you’ve got to put an end to “assholes commuting 75 miles to work in a Hummer.”

The International Panel on Climate Change estimates that surface temperatures will rise 2 degrees to 11.5 degrees Farenheit in the 21st century. Greenhouse gas emissions are a major contributor to global warming.

The promise of hydrogen fuel is that its only emission is water. The major criticism of the move toward battery electric plug-in vehicles has been that the power to charge batteries comes from a power grid that is frequently a heavy greenhouse gas emitter. Half of the electricity generation in the U.S. comes from coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels.

But the hitch with hydrogen fuel is how to make it. You can’t drill for hydrogen, you have to create it in a process that requires energy. The predominant source for hydrogen fuel is natural gas, which emits less carbon than gasoline but is still a fossil fuel.

The holy grail of alternative energy is an efficient method for making hydrogen fuel from water instead of natural gas. The problem has been the significant amount of energy required to electrolyze water, to split apart H2O to make hydrogen fuel.

Levin believes he has the beginning of an answer. Before the end of 2010, AC Transit will complete its installation of a solar-powered proton electrolyzer in Emeryville. Solar panels will be built atop the roof of the hydrogen fueling station and the solar energy trapped will power the electrolyzer, in turn producing hydrogen fuel from water, hopefully about 60 kilograms per day, enough to power two buses. Levin received $6.4 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for the project. The remaining 10 hydrogen fuel cell buses will rely on hydrogen fuel made from natural gas.

As important as the production of hydrogen fuel are the pump stations to deliver it. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s promised “hydrogen highway” hasn’t happened. The initial plans called for 50 to 100 stations by the end of 2010, and a station every 50 miles, but there are now just 21 stations clustered in urban areas. And with oil companies withdrawing their support and government agencies hurting for resources, the hydrogen highway remains as far off as ever.

“I see the power of corporations growing and the power of politicians actually waning,” Lipman said. “Who is really going to benefit the most? It’s society and consumers, but they’re not going to lobby for it.”

When it comes to lobbying, few can outgun the power of the Western States Petroleum Association. WSPA is consistently among the top few lobbyists in California, spending $10.5 million to influence the Legislature in 2007-08. Even with the push for alternative energy options, it’s oil that really governs the debate. Relatively inexpensive and easily storable, oil is still king even as gasoline prices hover at $80 a barrel.

“We will never run out of oil, but the question is, can we afford it?” said WSPA spokesperson Tupper Hull. Rising oil prices have helped proponents of alternative energy because the cost spread between gasoline and other energy options has narrowed. But they worry that momentum will be lost if the recession lingers and oil drops in price.

Proponents of the “peak oil” theory say we are approaching a point at which global oil production will start declining, necessitating a rapid and potentially painful transition to new fuels. But identifying the peak is difficult, complicated by events such as the 2007 discovery of more than 5 billion barrels of oil off the coast of Brazil. The oil field was found under 7,060 feet of water, 10,000 feet of sand, and another 6,600 feet of salt. What the oil industry is ultimately worried about is whether we will hit a point where extracting oil gets so expensive that the cost of oil starts to cripple the global economy. Drilling four miles under the sea isn’t cheap.

In an e-mail exchange about Chevron’s AC transit hydrogen fueling station, Chevron spokesperson Brent Tippen wrote, “Hydrogen has potential as a transportation fuel in the long term, but significant technical and economic obstacles prevent it from being a widespread commercial fuel option right now.”

Levin is cautiously optimistic that it could be the gas companies like Linde and Praxair, and not the oil companies, that carry the hydrogen torch forward.

After a brief ride in a hydrogen fuel cell bus, Levin noted how quiet they are. At one point, he bought Tibetan bells and had them welded to the bus so it would be audible as it moved, but there wasn’t enough vibration to make them ring.

Therein lies Levin’s dream: a quiet, nonemitting vehicle for public transportation. And maybe even someday an entire society running on a clean, renewable, domestic fuel source. But for now he’ll start with what he’s got: a $2.5 million bus that emits water from the tailpipe and doesn’t make any noise.

Quick Lit: March 31-April 6

David Talbot
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0
Quick Lit: March 31-April 6

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Wednesday, March 31

Vito Acconci
Hear writer/visual artist turned designer and architect, Vito Acconci, talk about “Words/Action/Architecture,” where he will discuss recent and upcoming projects of Acconci Studio like an artificial island in Graz, an elevated subway station in Coney Island, and a street that runs through a building in Indianapolis.
7:30 p.m., free
Mills College
Lisser Theater
5000 MacArthur, Oak.
(510) 430-2164


Performing South Africa’s Truth Commission: Stages of Transition
Join author Catherine M. Cole as she discusses South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, which helped to end apartheid by providing a public forum to exposed human rights abuses, and how the truth commission as public ritual and national theater provided a medium for performing evidence and truth to legitimize a new South Africa.
5:30 p.m., free
University Press Books
2430 Bancroft, Berk.
(510) 548-0585


Thursday, April 1

James Hannaham and Andrew Sean Greer
McSweeney’s and Modern Times Bookstore present an April Fool’s Day evening of literary debauchery with James Hannaham reading from his award-winning novel, God Says No, and Andrew Sean Greer reading his acclaimed NASCAR piece from the McSweeney’s publication, San Francisco Panorama.
7 p.m., free
Amnesia
853 Valencia, SF
(415) 970-0012
www.mtbs.com

April Martin Chartrand
Attend this audio visual presentation of April Martin Chartrand’s book, Angel’s Destiny: A novel story of poems and illustrations, and experience the emotional life of a multi-cultural woman in the United States trying to overcome violent adversities and embrace self-love.
6 p.m., free
San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin, SF
angelsdestiny2009.blogspot.com

K.M. Soehnlein
Hear Soehnlein read from his new book, Robin and Ruby, a sequel to The World of Normal Boys where he introduces the character Robin MacKenzie. In this new story of love and loss we meet Robin’s sister Ruby.
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc.
2275 Market, SF
(415) 864-6777

Surviving the Dragon
Hear author Arjia Rinpoche share his inspiring survival story of the years he spent in Tibet during the Cultural Revolution at this reading for his book, Surviving the Dragon: A Tibetan Lama’s life under Chinese rule. Rinopoche witnessed the torture and arrest of his monastery family, spent 16 years in a forced labor camp, and endured many other hardships before he escaped to the United Stated in 1998.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

World Poetry Night in the Oral Tradition
Enjoy recited poetry from diverse cultures and time periods in the “oral tradition,” where one poem inspires another from classics such as Rumi, Sappho, Hafiz, Whitman, Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Dickinson, Neruda, and more.
7 p.m., $12
Mechanics’ Institute
57 Post, SF
(415) 393-0100
www.milibrary.org

Friday, April 2

Litpunk
Enjoy intense, punk-edged lit readings and music at this punk rock alternative to the popular Litquake annual reading series. Featuring Penelope Houston, lead singer of the Avengers, reading poetry, prose, and singing, John Shirley, author and former lead singer of SadoNation, Eddie Jetson, of Ice 9, “Jennifer Blowdryer,” Johnny Genocide, and more.
7:30 p.m., $5
Makeout Room
3225 22nd St., SF
(415) 647-2888

Reality Hunger: A manifesto
Author David Shields argues that our culture is obsessed with reality because we experience hardly any. At this reading, Shields will share his stance that aims to reframe how we think about “truthiness.”
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Saturday, April 3

Indivisible: An anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry
Kick off national poetry month at this book launch, reading, and signing of this collection of poetry from contemporary American poets from different cultures and faiths who trace their origins back to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The anthology aims to capture the simultaneous tensions of belonging and not belonging in America.
Featured contributors: Ravi Chandra, Tanuja Mehrotra, and Swati Rana
7:30 p.m., free
Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Monday, April 5

The Hills in Berkeley
Attend this UC Berkeley geology talk where professor Dr. Doris Sloan will discuss the formation of the Hills in Berkeley.
7:30 p.m., $5
The Hillside Club
2286 Cedar, Berk.
(510) 848-3277
www.hillsideclub.org

Tuesday, April 6

Homero Aridjis with Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Hear Mexican poet, novelist, and environmentalist, Homero Aridjis read from his new collection of poetry, Solar Poems, addressing both his ecological concerns and a mystical relationship to the sun. Lawrence Ferlinghetti will also read several poems from the new bilingual edition of his book, What is Poetry?/¿Qué es la Poesía?, which Aridjis translated.
7 p.m., free
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus, SF
www.citylights.com

Biking Book Club
Join members of the SF Bike Coalition and other biking enthusiasts for this book club and discussion group about bike and transportation related books. The current book up for discussion is Traffic: Why we drive the way we do by Tom Vanderbilt. Bring ideas for future reads.
6:30 p.m., free
San Francisco Bicycle Coalition
995 Market, SF
www.sfbike.org/books

Insectopedia
Hear author Hugh Raffles discuss his new book that pays tribute to bugs of all kinds in this collection of 26 offbeat and bizarre essays and philosophical musings.
7 p.m., free
BookShop West Portal
80 West Portal, SF
(415) 564-8080

Prop 17 discourages going car-free

Sasha Cuttler
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6
Prop 17 discourages going car-free

Efforts to encourage car-sharing and ways of getting around that don’t involve owning a car would be undermined by Proposition 17, a June ballot measure that I wrote about in this week’s cover story. While I didn’t mention that impact in the story, it is of real concern to people like me who don’t own cars and encourage others to try the car-free lifestyle on for size.

The measure, sponsored by Mercury Insurance, allows companies to substantially increase monthly premiums on customers who haven’t had continuous insurance coverage. That would be one more barrier to people making the leap of faith to give up their cars and rely on bicycles or public transit, a switch that ought to be encouraged in increasingly traffic-congested cities such as San Francisco.

As I wrote about in another cover story last year, I made the decision several years ago to give up my car, although I still sometimes rent cars to visit my children. Consumer advocates say the cost of renting cars or using car-sharing services – particularly locally owned companies that can’t self-insure like the corporate behemoths – could increase and there would be a disincentive to consider trying it.

 “Anyone who has used car sharing (or for that matter rental cars) as their means of transportation would almost certainly not be considered continuously insured and would face the Prop 17 surcharge if they had to go back to private insurance at some point,” Doug Heller, an insurance expert with Consumer Watchdog, told me.

Currently, the law allows insurance companies to issue discounts to those who have maintained continuous policies with them (Prop. 17 would expand that to allow drivers to change companies and keep their discounts, which would be offset by surcharges on customers who were new or had a lapse in their coverage), and those companies use that discount to actively try to discourage people from experimenting with car-free lifestyles.

Brian Smith, who works for an environmental nonprofit in Oakland, recalls getting that kind of hard sell when he made the leap and got rid of his car.

 “When I cancelled my car insurance, AAA warned me not to. They said, ‘We will make it much more expensive when you come back.’ I said, ‘I sold my car, I don’t need car insurance.’ They said ‘We are just giving you a warning, Sir.’ I said, ‘Cancel it you fucking bastards. I’m never coming back.’ That was 10 years ago.’” Smith wrote to me about the issue.

Proponents of the measure say it would save some drivers $250 per year, while opponents (citing data from Mercury) say the surcharges for everyone else would be about $1,000 per year. So for the soldiers who go off to boot camp, the college students who get an internship in a city with good public transit or bikeways, unemployed individuals who need to trim expenses, or people who want to experiment with going car-free, they would all pay for more for insurance if they went back to driving a car than those who continuously maintained a car-dependent existence.

So, add this to the list of good reasons – and there are many of them in this week’s cover story — to oppose Prop. 17. 

Why Muni is in such trouble

David Talbot
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10
Why Muni is in such trouble

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SF Supervisor David Campos represents District 9.

The Green Party’s nadir

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Green Party’s nadir

This should be a great time for the Green Party. Its namesake color is being cited by every corporation and politician who wants to get in good with the environmentally-minded public; voters in San Francisco are more independent than ever; and progressives have been increasingly losing the hope they placed on President Barack Obama.
But the Green Party of San Francisco — which once had an influence on city politics that was disproportionate to its membership numbers — has hit a nadir. The number of Greens has steadily dwindled since its peak in 2003; the party closed its San Francisco office in November; and it has now lost almost all its marquee members.
Former mayoral candidate Matt Gonzalez, school board member Jane Kim, community college board member John Rizzo, and Planning Commissioner Christina Olague have all left the party in the last year or so. Sup. Ross Mirkarimi — a founding member of the Green Party of California and its last elected official in San Francisco — has also been openly struggling with whether to remain with an organization that doesn’t have much to offer him anymore, particularly as he contemplates a bid for higher office.
While a growing progressive movement within the Democratic Party has encouraged some Greens to defect, particularly among those with political ambitions, that doesn’t seem to be the biggest factor. After all, the fastest growing political affiliation is “Decline to State” and San Francisco now has a higher percentage of these independent voters than any other California county: 29.3 percent, according to state figures.
Democratic Party registration in San Francisco stood at 56.7 percent in November, the second-highest percentage in the state after Alameda County, making this essentially a one-party town (at last count, there were 256,233 Democrats, 42,097 Republicans, and 8,776 Greens in SF). Although Republicans in San Francisco have always outnumbered Greens by about 4-1, the only elected San Francisco Republican in more than a decade was BART board member James Fang.
But Republicans could never have made a real bid for power in San Francisco, as Gonzalez did in his electrifying 2003 mayoral run, coming within 5 percentage points of beating Gavin Newsom, who outspent the insurgent campaign 6-1 and had almost the entire Democratic Party establishment behind him.
That race, and the failure of Democrats in Congress to avert the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, caused Green Party membership to swell, reaching its peak in San Francisco and statewide in November 2003. But it’s been a steady downward slide since then, locally and statewide.
So now, as the Green Party of California prepares to mark its 20th anniversary next month in Berkeley, it’s worth exploring what happened to the party and what it means for progressive people’s movements at a time when they seem to be needed more than ever. Mirkarimi was one of about 20 core progressive activists who founded the Green Party of California in 1990, laying the groundwork in the late 1980s when he spent almost two years studying the Green Party in Germany, which was an effective member of a coalition government there and something he thought the United States desperately needed.
“It was in direct response to the right-wing shift of the Democrats during the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. It was so obvious that there had been an evacuation of the left-of-center values and policies that needed attention. So the era was just crying out woefully for a third party,” Mirkarimi said of the Green Party of California and its feminist, antiwar, ecological, and social justice belief system.
But he and the other founding Greens have discovered how strongly the American legal, political, and economic structures maintain the two-party system (or what Mirkarimi called “one party with two conservative wings”), locking out rival parties through restrictive electoral laws, control of political debates, and campaign financing mechanisms.
“I’m still very impassioned about the idea of having a Green Party here in the United States and here in California and San Francisco, vibrantly so. But I’m concerned that the Green Party will follow a trend like all third parties, which have proven that this country is absolutely uninviting — and in fact unwelcoming — of third parties and multiparty democracy,” Mirkarimi said.
Unlike some Greens, Mirkarimi has always sought to build coalitions and make common cause with Democrats when there were opportunities to advance the progressive agenda, a lesson he learned in Germany.
When he worked on Ralph Nader’s 2000 presidential campaign — a race that solidified the view of Greens as “spoilers” in the minds of many Democrats — Mirkarimi was involved in high-level negotiations with Democratic nominee Al Gore’s campaign, trying to broker some kind of leftist partnership that would elect Gore while advancing the progressive movement.
“There was great effort to try to make that happen, but unfortunately, everyone defaulted to their own anxieties and insecurities,” Mirkarimi said. “It was uncharted territory. It had never happened before. Everyone who held responsibility had the prospect of promise, and frankly, everybody felt deflated that the conversation did not become actualized into something real between Democrats and Greens. It could have.”
Instead, George W. Bush was narrowly elected president and many Democrats blamed Nader and the Greens, unfairly or not. And Mirkarimi said the Greens never did the post-election soul-searching and retooling that they should have. Instead, they got caught up in local contests, such as the Gonzalez run for mayor — “that beautiful distraction” — a campaign Mirkarimi helped run before succeeding Gonzalez on the board a year later.
Today, as he considers running for mayor himself, Mirkarimi is weighing whether to leave the party he founded. “I’m in a purgatory. I believe in multiparty democracy,” Mirkarimi said. “Yet tactically speaking, I feel like if I’m earnest in my intent to run for higher office, as I’ve shared with Greens, I’m not so sure I can do so as a Green.”
That’s a remarkable statement — in effect, an acknowledgement that despite some success on the local level, the Green Party still can’t compete for bigger prizes, leaving its leaders with nowhere to go. Mirkarimi said he plans to announce his decision — about his party and political plans — soon.
Gonzalez left the Green Party in 2008, changing his registration to DTS when he decided to be the running mate of Nader in an independent presidential campaign. That move was partly necessitated by ballot access rules in some states. But Gonzalez also thought Nader needed to make an independent run and let the Green Party choose its own candidate, which ended up being former Congress member Cynthia McKinney.
“I expressly said to Nader that I would not run with him if he sought the Green Party nomination,” Gonzalez told us. “The question after the campaign was: is there a reason to go back to the Green Party?”
Gonzalez concluded that there wasn’t, that the Greens had ceased to be a viable political party and that it “lacks a certain discipline and maturity.” Among the reasons he cited for the party’s slide were infighting, inadequate party-building work, and the party’s failure to effectively counter criticisms of Nader’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns.
“We were losing the public relations campaign of explaining what the hell happened,” he said.
Gonzalez was also critical of the decision by Mirkarimi and other Greens to endorse the Democratic Party presidential nominees in 2004 and 2008, saying it compromised the Greens’ critique of the two-party system. “It sort of brings that effort to an end.”
But Gonzalez credits the Green Party with invigorating San Francisco politics at an important time. “It was an articulation of an independence from the Democratic Party machine,” Gonzalez said of his decision to go from D to G in 2000, the year he was elected to the Board of Supervisors.
Anger at that machine and its unresponsiveness to progressive issues was running high at the time, and Gonzalez said the Green Party became one of the “four corners of the San Francisco left,” along with the San Francisco Tenants Union, the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which helped set a progressive agenda for the city.
“Those groups helped articulate what issues were important,” Gonzalez said, citing economic, environmental, electoral reform, and social justice issues as examples. “So you saw the rise of candidates who began to articulate our platform.” But the success of the progressive movement in San Francisco also sowed the seeds for the Green Party’s downfall, particularly after progressive Democrats Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano, and Aaron Peskin waged ideological battles with Mayor Gavin Newsom and other so-called “moderate Democrats” last year taking control of the San Francisco Democratic Party County Central Committee.
“Historically, the San Francisco Democratic Party has been a political weapon for whoever was in power. But now, it’s actually a democratic party. And it’s gotten progressive as well,” Peskin, the party chair, told us. “And for a lot of Greens, that’s attractive.”
The opportunity to take part in that intra-party fight was a draw for Rizzo and Kim, both elected office-holders with further political ambitions who recently switched from Green to Democrat.
“I am really concerned about the Democratic Party,” Rizzo, a Green since 1992, told us. “I’ve been working in politics to try to influence things from the outside. Now I’m going to try to influence it from the inside.”
Rizzo said he’s frustrated by the inability of Obama and Congressional Democrats to capitalize on their 2008 electoral gains and he’s worried about the long-term implications of that failure. “What’s going on in Washington is really counterproductive for the Democrats. These people [young, progressive voters] aren’t going to want to vote again.”
Rizzo and Kim both endorsed Obama and both say there needs to be more progressive movement-building to get him back on track with the hopes he offered during his campaign.
“I think it’s important for progressives in San Francisco to try to move the Democratic Party back to the left,” Kim, who is considering running for the District 6 seat on the Board of Supervisors, told us. “I’ve actually been leaning toward doing this for a while.”
Kim was a Democrat who changed her registration to Green in 2004, encouraged to do so by Gonzalez. “For me, joining the Green Party was important because I really believed in third-party politics and I hope we can get beyond the two-party system,” Kim said, noting the dim hopes for that change was also a factor in her decision to switch back.
Another Green protégé of Gonzalez was Olague, whom he appointed to the Planning Commission. Olague said she was frustrated by Green Party infighting and the party’s inability to present any real political alternative.
“We had some strong things happening locally, but I didn’t see any action on the state or national level,” Olague said. “They have integrity and they work hard, but is that enough to stay in a party that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere?”
But many loyal Greens dispute the assertion that their party is on the rocks. “I think the party is going pretty well. It’s always an uphill battle building an alternative party,” said Erika McDonald, spokesperson for the Green Party of San Francisco, noting that the party plans to put the money it saved on its former Howard Street headquarters space into more organizing and outreach. “The biggest problem is money.”
Green Party activist Eric Brooks agrees. “We held onto that office for year and year and didn’t spend the money on party building, like we should have done a long time ago,” he said. “That’s the plan now, to do some crucial party organizing.”
Mirkarimi recalls the early party-building days when he and other “Ironing Board Cowboys” would canvas the city on Muni with voter registration forms and ironing boards to recruit new members, activities that fell away as the party achieved electoral successes and got involved with policy work.
“It distracted us from the basics,” Mirkarimi said. Now the Green Party has to again show that it’s capable of that kind of field work in support of a broad array of campaigns and candidates: “If I want to grow, there has to be a companion strategy that will lift all boats. All of those who have left the Green Party say they still support its values and wish it future success. And the feeling is mostly mutual, although some Greens grumble about how their party is now being hurt by the departure of its biggest names.
“I don’t begrudge an ambitious politician leaving the Green Party,” said Dave Snyder, a member of the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway, and Transportation District Board of Directors, and one of the few remaining Greens in local government.
But Snyder said he won’t abandon the Green Party, which he said best represents his political values. “To join a party means you subscribe to its ideals. But you can’t separate its ideals from its actions. Based on its actions, there’s no way I could be a member of the Democratic Party,” Snyder said.
Current Greens say many of President Obama’s actions — particularly his support for Wall Street, a health reform effort that leaves insurance companies in control, and the escalation of the war in Afghanistan — vindicate their position and illustrate why the Green Party is still relevant.
“The disillusionment with Obama is a very good opportunity for us,” McDonald said, voicing hope they Green can begin to capture more DTS voters and perhaps even a few Democrats. And Brooks said, “The Obama wake-up call should tell Greens that they should stick with the party.”
Snyder also said now is the time for Greens to more assertively make the case for progressive organizing: “The Democrats can’t live up to the hopes that people put on them.”
Even Peskin agrees that Obama’s candidacy was one of several factors that hurt the Green Party. “The liberal to progressive support for the Obama presidency deflated the Greens locally and beyond. In terms of organizing, they didn’t have the organizational support and a handful of folks alienated newcomers.”
In fact, when Mirkarmi and the other Green pioneers were trying to get the party qualified as a legal political party in California — no small task — Democratic Party leaders acted as if the Greens were the end of the world, or at least the end of Democratic control of the state Legislature and the California Congressional delegation. They went to great lengths to block the young party’s efforts.
It turns out that the Greens haven’t harmed the Democrats much at all; Democrats have even larger majorities at every legislative level today.
What has happened is that the Obama campaign, and the progressive inroads into the local party, have made the Greens less relevant. In a sense, it’s a reflection of exactly what Green leaders said years ago: if the Democrats were more progressive, there would be less need for a third party.
But Mirkarimi and other Greens who endorsed Obama see this moment differently, and they don’t share the hope that people disappointed with Obama are going to naturally gravitate toward the Greens. Rizzo and Kim fear these voters, deprived of the hope they once had, will instead just check out of politics. “They need to reorganize for a new time and new reality,” Rizzo said of the Greens.
Part of that new reality involves working with candidates like Obama and trying to pull them to the left through grassroots organizing. Mirkarimi stands by his decision to endorse Obama, for which the Green Party disinvited him to speak at its annual national convention, even though he was one of his party’s founders and top elected officials.
“After a while, we have to take responsibility to try to green the Democrats instead of just throwing barbs at them,” Mirkarimi said. “Our critique of Obama now would be much more effective if we had supported him.”
Yet that’s a claim of some dispute within the Green Party, a party that has often torn itself apart with differences over strategy and ideology, as it did in 2006 when many party activists vocally opposed the gubernatorial campaign of former Socialist Peter Camejo. And old comrades Mirkarimi and Gonzalez still don’t agree on the best Obama strategy, even in retrospect.
But they and other former Greens remain hopeful that the country can expand its political dialogue, and they say they are committed to continuing to work toward that goal. “I think there will be some new third party effort that emerges,” Gonzalez said. “It can’t be enough to not be President Bush. People want to see the implementation of a larger vision.”

Our weekly picks

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WEDNESDAY 10th

DANCE

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater


Today, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is as much Judith Jamison’s company as it was Ailey’s. Having reluctantly taken on the company’s artistic directorship after Ailey’s death, Jamison has led the troupe for the last 20 years with remarkable perspicacity and skill. Jamison may not be a great choreographer, but she is a great company director and dance visionary. This anniversary season sports three Bay Area premieres. Borrowing the title from Jamison’s autobiography, Ronald K. Brown, something of a visionary himself, set his new Dancing Spirit in her honor. Company dancer-choreographer Matthew Rushing’s Uptown looks to the Harlem Renaissance for inspiration. Finally, Jamison contributes Among Us (Private Spaces: Public Places), a series of vignettes set to a jazz score by Eric Lewis. (Rita Felciano)

8 p.m. (through Sat/13), $36–$62

Zellerbach Hall

UC Berkeley campus, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperformances.org

THURSDAY 11th

VISUAL ART

Pepe Moreno


Exploring the life of one of the most iconic characters in the history of comic books, the new "Batman: Yesterday and Tomorrow" exhibit at the Cartoon Art Museum spotlights Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter-ego, starting from his creation by artist Bob Kane and running through his many transformations over the years. Groundbreaking artist Pepe Moreno will be on hand tonight to discuss his revolutionary 1990 graphic novel Batman: Digital Justice, which was written and illustrated using computer hardware and software — one of the first such endeavors undertaken in the comics world. (Sean McCourt)

7 p.m., $5 donation requested

Cartoon Art Museum

655 Mission, SF

(415) 227-8666

www.cartoonart.org

EVENT

Thirsty Bear Beer Tasting


I’m hardly the first person to hop on the eat-everything-organic bandwagon. But when you live in San Francisco, it’s only a matter of time before you start shopping at farmers markets in hopes of finding the perfect toxin-free mango or avocado. Now you can add "organic beer connoisseur" to your list of titles by attending Thirsty Bear’s free organic beer tasting and workshop. You’ll learn all there is to know about sustainable brewing techniques, and get to sample some of the tastiest beers immediate area has to offer. (Elise-Marie Brown)

12-1:30 p.m., free

Green Zebra Environmental Action Center

50 Post, SF

(415) 346.2361

www.thegreenzebra.org

MUSIC

A Sunny Day in Glasgow


A Sunny Day in Glasgow wants you to rethink shoegaze. The Philadelphia trio layers their instruments in a manner that resembles a 21st-century Cocteau Twins, but their wall of sound is never as heavy, aiming instead for a sunny pop atmosphere you wouldn’t expect from the genre. Sometimes the accompanying vocals by Annie Fredrickson and Josh Meakim are maddeningly hard to make out beneath the waves of sound, but then they emerge clearly at just the right moment, like a breath of fresh air. Last year’s sophomore album Ashes Grammar (Mis Ojos Discos) was a sprawling mega-mix of moods, with songs bleeding into songs willy-nilly, and it’s safe to figure that their live show would reflect such a singular aural experience. If the critical reactions to Ashes Grammar are any indication, chances are good A Sunny Day in Glasgow won’t be performing in spaces as tiny as the Hemlock for long. (Peter Galvin)

With the Gold Medalists and Apopka Darkroom

9 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

EVENT/MUSIC

Free Party for Experience Hendrix Tour


Inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s significant contributions to the music world, his father formed Experience Hendrix, a series of tribute concerts. Debuting in 1995 at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival, the show has been on the road ever since. The tour comes to the Warfield tonight with a lineup that includes Band of Gypsys’ original bassist Billy Cox, along with Joe Satriani, Kenny Wayne Shephard, Eric Johnson, Susan Tedeschi, and Jonny Lang. Before the show, Hard Rock Café hosts a party with a raffle for tickets and transportation to the show. (Lilan Kane)

4 p.m., free

Hard Rock Café

Pier 39, SF

(415) 956-2013

www.hardrock.com/sanfrancisco

FRIDAY 12th

MUSIC

The Temper Trap


Although these guys were featured in (500) Days of Summer, don’t let that fool you into thinking they’re strictly light and whimsical. Just reminiscing on the first time I saw them gets me giddy inside. Drumsticks flew everywhere, and Dougy Madagi whaled uncontrollably in the mic as the crowd absorbed every drop of their soaring energy. Let’s just say these guys know how to put on a serious show. Now the Melbourne, Australia rockers are making their second trip here as headliners. (Brown)

9 p.m., $22.50

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

(415) 346-6000

wwwvenation.com

COMEDY

Dave Attell


You wanna know why you’ve never seen television commercials for Jägermeister? Dave Attell knows a few good reasons. Attell is perhaps best known to mainstream audiences for his stint hosting Comedy Central’s Insomniac, a hilarious late-night, booze-fueled TV program where he explored what to do in various cities while on tour. This weekend the sometimes abrasive but always gut-bustingly funny comedian brings his high-proof standup to the city for the weekend, covering a variety of topics, including the aforementioned elixir and its propensity for instigating debauchery. (McCourt)

8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. (also Sat/13) , $35.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

DANCE

ODC/Dance


How many modern dance companies do you know with two in-house choreographers? These ensembles usually swim an eclectic rep or feature the work of a single artist. ODC/Dance is very much the exception because of KT Nelson and Brenda Way, two dance-makers who couldn’t be more different in terms of style, artistic temperament, musicality, and sources of inspiration. Every season offers at least one new piece from each. This year, Way is working with composer/performer Pamela Z on Waving Not Drowning (A Guide to Elegance), a response to a 1963 manual on etiquette. Nelson turns to Mozart’s glorious Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor for Labor of Love, in which she explores what she calls "committed adult love" — the stresses and joys experienced by couples in relationships. (Felciano)

March 12/ 7 p.m. (through March 28), $15–$45

Novellus Theater

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-ARTS

www.odcdance.org

SATURDAY 13th

COMEDY

Martin Lawrence


Damn, Gina! Even if he’s fallen off your radar after donning the "Eddie Murphy fat suit" in Big Momma’s House (2000), you have fond memories of Martin Lawrence from such early comedic ventures as the TV series Martin, the host of HBO’s Def Comedy Jam or the tabloid field-day "Running Down Ventura Boulevard Yelling at Cars." In 2010, Lawrence is taking a break from film and returning to his roots with a stand-up tour, where his manic delivery really has room to breathe. Though he often finds himself an easy target, there is no doubt Lawrence is a huge star and these tickets are going to sell out — so get to steppin’! (Galvin)

8 p.m. (also Sun/14), $42.75–$77.50

Paramount Theatre

2025 Broadway, Oakl.

(510) 465-6400

www.paramounttheatre.com

MUSIC

E.C. Scott


E.C. Scott works a crowd, inciting laughter and tears. Atlantic Records’ cofounder Jerry Wexler praised her as "one honest-to-God soul singer." She’s become a major staple in the blues circuit in the Bay Area and beyond. Scott grew up singing in St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church in Oakland and cites gospel as a major influence. She’s shared the stage with Lou Rawls, Ray Charles, Patti Labelle, and John Lee Hooker, and in 1994, signed a multirecord deal with Blind Pig Records that resulted in a Downbeat award and W.C. Handy nomination for Soul/Blues Female Artist of the Year. (Lilan Kane)

8 p.m., $20

401 Mason, SF.

(415) 292-2583

www.biscuitsandblues.com

MUSIC

Youth Brigade


Formed by brothers Adam, Mark, and Shawn Stern in 1980, Youth Brigade made its mark on the early California punk scene with empowering anthems like "Fight to Unite" and DIY action. The trio started the Better Youth Organization to promote shows and put out records for themselves and their friends’ bands. Thirty years later, the group still plays with raw, rebellious energy and spirit. The sprawling new box set Let Them Know: The Story of Youth Brigade and BYO Records chronicles their efforts. (McCourt)

9 p.m., $18

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

SUNDAY 14th

MUSIC

Scarlett Fever


Local fans of punk, rockabilly, hot rods, burlesque, and more join together today for a very special cause — the annual "Scarlett Fever" show, an all-day benefit for Scarlett James, teenage daughter of Rosa and Bob James, who suffers from Rett syndrome, a childhood neurodevelopmental disorder that leads to the loss of many motor skills. The annual event helps pay for her care and raises money for research into the disorder. Her father is a veteran musician (playing in Del Bombers) and each year has enlisted the help of some stellar talent. Today’s event includes Big Sandy and the Fly Rite Boys, Three Bad Jacks, Stigma 13, Ghost Town Hangmen, plus live burlesque — courtesy of Hubba Hubba Revue — and raffles, including one for a new custom motorcycle. (McCourt)

1 p.m., $15

DNA Lounge

375 11th St., SF

(415) 626-1409

www.dnalounge.com

TUESDAY 16th

FILM

Remembering Playland at the Beach


If you haven’t yet met Laffing Sal, it’s time for you to take a trip to (dreaded) Fisherman’s Wharf and the (free) Musée Mécanique. As every self-respecting San Franciscan knows, Sal once presided over the Funhouse at Playland at the Beach, an amusement park along Ocean Beach that had its heyday in the 1910s and ’20s (but didn’t close until 1972). The most famous film to feature Sal’s terrifying cackle is 1948’s The Lady From Shanghai — but no doubt you’ll get an earful in Tom Wyrsch’s brand-new doc, Remembering Playland at the Beach, which is stuffed with archival footage, photographs, and interviews. Appropriately, the film debuts at the Balboa, just blocks from the former site of Playland’s famous midway. (Cheryl Eddy)

7 and 9:15 p.m., $6.50–$9

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

(415) 221-3117

www.balboamovies.com

FILM

Palestine Cinema: A Shorts Program


The Red Vic has partnered with the Arab Film Festival for a tempting "second look" at a series of short works by a new and international generation of Palestinian filmmakers, originally screened as part of AFF 2009. Topping the lineup is Riyad Deis’ Swesh Swesh, set during the Arab Revolt in Palestine in 1936–39, as a farming family reluctantly harbors a revolutionary fugitive and finds its traditional beliefs challenged in the resulting exchange. The one-night-only program also includes Lesh Sabreen by Bay Area–trained Muayad Alayan (and shot by SF filmmaker Christian Bruno). It focuses on a young couple trapped, literally, between the wall of Israeli occupation and their families’ own conservative mores. (Robert Avila)

7:15 and 9:15 p.m., $6-9

Red Vic Movie House

1727 Haight, SF

(415) 668-3994

www.redvicmoviehouse.com

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