Brittany Baguio Archives — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Arnold’s budget casts most vulnerable as The Expendables

Sasha Cuttler

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August 18, 2010

As California’s Budget Conference Committee moves forward with negotiations for the 2010 budget, Assembly member Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) is promoting her movie, “Faces Behind the Governor’s Cuts,” to different Bay Area venues in an effort to send a message to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that his proposed cuts on services ignore the needs of the poor, parents who use child care facilities, and the elderly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA3UieZCYj0

Skinner had her first screening of the movie just days after the blockbuster premiere of “The Expendables,” which includes a Schwarzenegger cameo. Yet instead of high packed action featuring a slew of legendary actions stars, Skinner presents a one minute short featuring interviews with home care workers, a single mother, a teacher, and an elder day care provider – all of whom would be severely impacted by the Schwarzenegger’s budget proposals.

The Budget Conference Committee released its balanced budget on August 4, rejecting Schwarzenegger’s cuts on jobs, senior care, and closure of child care centers – exactly the issues that the stars of Skinner’s film address. The committee suggested ways of raising revenue in lieu of cuts on vital services, such as closing the oil drilling loophole and delaying new corporate tax breaks. Despite the Committee settling on a budget with $14 billion in spending reductions and $4 billion in new revenue, Schwarzenegger still wants more cuts.

Yet Skinner says that Schwarzenegger’s plan would cost more than 430,000 private sector, local government and school jobs. The committee’s budget protects these jobs and creates thousands of new jobs from a $300 million private sector jobs fund.

“Unemployment is not the path to economic recovery,” Skinner told the Guardian. “There’s a way to craft a budget that protects people and jobs and it’s going to require a little revenue. There’s no way to do an all cuts budget – at this point in time – that doesn’t bring harm.”

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear didn’t see Skinner’s movie, but responded to Skinner’s concerns, telling us, “We understand Assemblywoman Skinner supports a massive tax increase to protect public employee pensions and the status quo for unions. We simply disagree.”

But looking beyond tensions between Schwarzenegger’s camp and the budget committee are the people these budget decisions affect – parents who work full time and use state-subsidized care for their children and the in-home attendants who the elderly rely on for care.

Daniel McGrath is an in-home supportive services (IHSS) caregiver who takes regular trips to Sacramento to speak out about the issue. “Life and death should never be on the table,” McGrath told us. “These disabled, elderly, and sick community members – our grandparents, brothers, sisters, cousins – are the most vulnerable in our society and the fact that they have to fight for themselves is ridiculous.”

McGrath accompanies his clients, Mark Beckwith, to Sacramento despite a health condition that only allows Beckwith to move his fingers. Beckwith comes to Sacramento to send the message that “the IHSS program saves the state so much money. In institutions like nursing homes, it costs five times as more.”

In addition to cuts to elderly care, Schwarzenegger’s budget plan cuts eliminates child care programs – a blow to parents who work full time and cannot afford to pay for market rate child care and will have no choice but to quit their jobs to take care of their children full time.

Michelle Alvarez, an administrative assistant at UC Berkeley, said in a written statement, “I don’t think my family would have been able to survive with out the help of BUSD preschools and after school programs. The state childcare has allowed me to have a stable job here at UC Berkeley for the past 8 years. Without the state childcare, it would be hard for not just my family, but other low income families to keep our jobs or go to school and care for our kids.”

As the budget committee and Schwarzenegger continue to duke out their differences, the fate of these people lingers in the distance. But Skinner poses a question for Schwarzenegger to think about: “For the governor, it appears that the numbers math is easy, but what about the human math – the impact on people, their livelihood, their jobs, and the ability to live independently?”

Schoolyard bully

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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August 3, 2010

6

news@sfbg.com

The San Francisco Unified District is facing scrutiny over its decision to move a charter high school into Horace Mann Middle School for the 2010-11 school year. Parents and teachers at Horace Mann and even members of the Board of Education were not informed of this decision until it was finalized last month, sparking questions about how this decision could have been made without communicating to all the parties involved.

This is the third time in recent years that the district has moved charter schools into public school facilities without notifying employees and parents before a decision is reached. In 2008, the district decided to relocate Excelsior Middle School to International Studies Academy High School, notifying parents of the move just months before the school year started. The charter school City Arts and Technology took over Excelsior’s site and was notified of the move a month before Excelsior parents.

In another case from 2008, district officials made a decision to co-locate Denman Middle School with Leadership High Charter School, again without informing the community of its decision until it was finalized. Now the charter school Metro Arts and Technology High School is moving from Burton High School in the Bayview District to Horace Mann in the Mission.

San Francisco Board of Education member Jill Wynns didn’t know about Metro’s move until parents brought up the issue at the June meeting. She said it’s hard to let the community know about impending decisions because balancing community involvement and trying to avoid “public hysteria” is a difficult task. “Our commitment is to involve the community, but they are not allowed to make the decisions,” Wynns told the Guardian. “We want them to know, but the decision is not up to them.”

Still, Horace Mann teachers said that the district’s habit of not notifying the community of its decisions isn’t fair, especially since Metro parents knew about the move months before they did. “The process is really disrespectful to the parents and it’s happening consistently to the disempowered,” a Horace Mann teacher who asked not to be named for fear of retribution, told us. “This is happening to schools with high amounts of people of color and low socioeconomic statuses.”

Envision Schools, the Oakland-based organization managing two charter schools in San Francisco, including Metro, wrote a letter to Superintendent Carlos Garcia on Oct. 15 requesting to move Metro to another facility, citing lack of natural light in its classrooms, lack of offices and spaces for administration, inadequate science labs, and lack of an identifiable school front entrance. Metro is protected under Proposition 39, a law voters approved in 2000 mandating that school districts must accommodate charter schools with facilities comparable to those used by other students.

Wynns said part of the problem is that Prop. 39 gives charter schools too much power. “The regulations are all biased in favor of the charter schools, and the charter schools rights are paramount,” Wynns told us. “We had Metro in a facility that, in my opinion, was more Prop. 39 compliant than the facility they will be going to now. And now we are going to crowd them in a middle school.”

Board members who criticize the deal say that the district didn’t follow district policy in this case. Wynns said that while some members of the board were under the impression that Metro was staying at Burton or that Horace Mann was only a consideration, district officials had already made the decision that Metro was moving to Horace Mann without notifying the board — a violation of board policy.

In an April 1 memo, the district finalized the offer for Horace Mann and then took the offer back and offered the Burton site in an April 30 memo. Metro lawyer Paul Minney responded in a May 11 memo, demanding co-location at Horace Mann and threatening legal action. The district responded by reinstating its initial offer of Horace Mann in a May 28 memo.

“Districts have a legal obligation to provide all charter schools with appropriate space to run a quality educational program. Consideration has to be given to determine if a designated school site is able to share facilities without having a significant impact on either school’s day to day operations,” district spokesperson Gentle Blythe told the Guardian. “In the case of Mann and Metro, the decision to co-locate was a matter of pending litigation and the ideal process was usurped by legal constraints.”

Board member Rachel Norton said that much of the miscommunication was the result of informal conversations between Envision Schools CEO Bob Lenz, Superintendent Garcia, and Horace Mann Principal Mark Sanchez about the impending move. In an e-mail dated March 11, Lenz contacted Garcia about their upcoming March 17 meeting and stated that Sanchez thought a partnership between Metro and Horace Mann would be “revolutionary.” According to board policy, negotiations are made between Director of Charter Schools Mary Richards and the head of the affected charter school. Although these informal conversations aren’t a violation of board policy, Norton said that these conversations created miscommunication.

Lenz wouldn’t comment on Norton’s remarks, but said, “It’s most important to look at how the district and Envision Schools could be good partners together. Rather than look back, we look forward to participating in a transparent process with the district going forward with the Prop. 39 process.”

According to Horace Mann teachers, Garcia and Sanchez claimed they were not aware that they had agreed to a final, binding offer, although correspondences suggested otherwise. E-mails dated March 30 included final offer copies of facilities for Metro to Garcia and Sanchez, who did not return our calls seeking comment by press time.

“I’m not quite sure who knew what, when,” Norton said. “I think it’s pretty clear that people were notified about the final offer that went out. Whether or not they saw that notification is another question. I’m certainly not accusing anyone of lying, but I think that there were just two levels of understanding because it wasn’t a clear process.”

“Its hard to believe that as previous president of the school board, Mark [Sanchez] did not know that this was a final offer,” a Horace Mann teacher said. “This has put a huge strain on the relationship with the staff and the principal.”

Despite tensions within Horace Mann staff, newly appointed Metro Principal Nick Kappelhof said he’s looking forward to the next school year. “I view this as an opportunity to partner in ways that’s not common in other co-locations,” Kappelhof told us. “Our philosophies are aligned and we’re excited to learn from them. I see it as a rich opportunity between staff and a great community.”

Metro has a one-year lease with Horace Mann and will occupy eight classrooms in the sixth-grade annex building and five rooms in the main building. Although many parents have fears about these middle school and high school students interacting, staff members at Horace Mann and Metro plan on organizing different bell schedules and designating separate areas for the two groups.

As the school year draws nearer, Horace Mann staff hopes for ways to get past this messy situation. “I hope Envision doesn’t feel the need to retaliate against the public school system, and that they think twice before they threaten a lawsuit because it’s easy and it’s the first thing they go to,” a Horace Mann teacher told us. “I hope there are lessons learned on both sides about how to do this successfully in the future. I think it can be a positive experience — co-location doesn’t have to be hard.”

But Wynns and Norton fear Metro will pressure the district to let the charter school remain at the site, whether or not students and parents there now think it’s a good fit. “I will be very surprised if their Prop. 39 request [for facilities following this school year] will not say Horace Mann — and I believe [it] will,” Wynns said of Metro.

“I want us to do everything in our power to protect ourselves against that happening [Metro extending its stay at Horace Mann],” Norton said. “I don’t know precisely what that would be, but I think we have to take steps to make it clear that the site is unavailable for them next year.”

With an uncertain future, Horace Mann will open its doors to Metro this month, becoming either another example of a growing partnership or another public facility fallen prey to charter school takeover, depending on one’s perspective.

Cab drivers sue over medallion sales

Zelda Bronstein

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July 27, 2010

9

Five cab drivers have filed a lawsuit against the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, arguing that the agency’s sale of taxi permits should legally be considered a tax and that the agency’s so-called Taxi Medallion Sales Pilot Program is invalid without the approval of two-thirds of the voters.

The pilot program was put in place in part to help close the city’s $483 million dollar deficit.

San Francisco taxi drivers need permits, called medallions, to place a vehicle in operation as a cab. Medallion owners can lease the permits to other drivers when they’re not in the car. But it isn’t that easy to get a medallion; only a limited number are available.

Before the Pilot Program was initiated on February 26, taxi drivers who met eligibility requirements to receive a medallion (including a full-time driving requirement) had to put their names on a waiting list. The mediallions cost nothing but a modest processing fee — but the average wait time was 15 years and there were 3,200 names on the waiting list before MTA closed it in December of last year.

The pilot program changes who gets priority in receiving a medallion. Essentially, the city’s going to begin selling them off — not necessarily to the people on the top of the list but to people who can afford the set price of $250,000. As many as 60 medallions will be sold, with 20 percent of the revenuegoing to the city, 15 percent to the MTA and five percent to a fund for driver welfare.

Drivers at the top of the list will get first shot at coming up with a down payment of $12,500, but if they don’t have the cash, others will get a chance.

The lawsuit, Willaim D. Pallas vs. SFMTA and City and County of San Francisco, states that the pilot program should be abolished on the grounds that the revenue from medallion sales far exceeds the operating costs of the program – and is thus considered a tax – and that this “tax” should have been approved by voters before the program was even implemented.

“The persons with money, which aren’t most cab drivers, will dominate the cab industry if this program continues,” plaintiff attorney George Surmaitis told the Guardian, “And the people who have put in the work and sweat to obtain a better life will just stay where they are on the waiting list.”

Deputy City Attorney Wayne Snodgrass didn’t return calls by press time.

According to the MTA pilot program proposal document, the program has its benefits of allowing its drivers who are 70 years or older to retire and sell their medallions, thus increasing public safety.

Surmaitis isn’t convinced. “It’s a response to the budget cuts and it’s an attempt to raise money very quickly without considering the impact on individuals,” he said.

The pilot program impacts individuals such as plaintiff Gerson Garcia, who has been a cab driver for 19 years and has been on the wait list for more than 10 years. “We’ve been waiting for like 10 to 15 years to follow the system they have implemented and now they want to change it because the city needs money,” Garcia told us, “I used to be the manager of taxi dispatch at the San Francisco Airport. I gave up that job in 2008 and became a full-time taxi driver because I wanted to qualify for the medallion.”

The other four plaintiffs in the lawsuit have been taxi drivers for 16 to 29 years and have been on the wait list an average of 13 years, with most of them turning down other job opportunities and hoping that the extra income from receiving a medallion would help them in retirement. None of these taxi drivers can afford to pay for a medallion and years of waiting will come to naught if the Pilot Program continues.

The city filed its answer to the lawsuit on July 21, denying the allegations. The plaintiffs in the case plan to have a writ asking the court to put a halt on the sale of medallions sometime before medallion sales are scheduled to start on August 3.

Ungodly deeds

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 6, 2010

0

news@sfbg.com

The Catholic Church claims to value charity and justice, but recent local conflicts over cutting off child care for low-income families and refusing to pay millions of dollars in taxes to cash-strapped San Francisco city government — as well as the ongoing priest pedophilia cover-up cases — cast doubt over the church’s commitment to those in need.

The San Francisco Catholic Archdiocese has said it will close the Children’s Village Development Center in August, displacing 110 children enrolled in the program and leaving 100 families — a third of them low-income — scrambling for hard-to-find childcare providers.

The Archdiocese also sold other surrounding properties because it could not afford to retrofit its buildings for earthquakes, selling them to developers Chris Harney and Tom Murphy. Both the church and the developers rejected efforts by Children’s Village parents, who formed the nonprofit Supporting Early Experience and Development (SEED), to temporarily lease the building.

Dan Dillon, a representative for Harney and Murphy, told the Guardian that they decided to reject SEED’s leasing offer because they had already made a deal with a tenant who was willing to offer more money. Dillon wouldn’t identify the tenant, but he said the new tenant would use the building without major modifications, which might have triggered a need for city permits and a public hearing.

Catholic Charities CYO, an agency of the Archdiocese that oversees programs such as the Children’s Village program, closed the center because it wasn’t making money. The city gave about $1.5 million in grants and loans to support childcare for poor families at Children’s Village, with most of the money coming from the Low Income Investment Fund.

According to Catholic Charities’ official statement on the dispute, it tried to maintain the program by cutting slots for low income families in an effort to subsidize the program. There was still not enough money to fund the program. Catholic Charities representative Gabrielle Slanina told us that the tough economy and internal budget cuts hurt their ability to continue providing childcare at the site.

“The program hasn’t been financially sustainable over the years,” Slanina told us. “Sustainability just wasn’t turning around. But we tried to keep it going for as long as we could.”

Catholic Charities still plans to later build a new $1 million children development center three blocks away on the corner of 10th and Mission streets. But SEED members are left in the lurch for now, causing them to question the validity of Catholic Charities’ mission to “support, stabilize, and strengthen families.”

Dee Dee Workman, a consultant helping SEED, was disappointed with the Archdiocese’s bottom-line approach to helping local families. “They have not attempted to secure slots with these families,” Workman told us. “They don’t care about these kids. It’s just about the money, and it’s immoral.”

SEED member Sabrina Qutb, who has a three-year-old son enrolled in Children’s Village, said she sees the new center as a waste of money. “I do not believe the city should continue to fund Catholic Charities child care programs,” Qutb told us. “Who’s to say they won’t drop 10th and Mission in a few years and waste even more of the city’s money?”

Many child care programs have waiting lists up to two years in a city where there are more than twice as many children under 13 with working parents as there are licensed child care slots, according to a study prepared for the city by the California Child Care Resources and Referral Network. Child care slots for infants are among the fewest, making up only 6 percent of the 17,894 child care center slots in the city. Preschool children ages two to five years old occupy 63 percent of the child care slots.

SEED member Kathryn Shantz put her two-year-old daughter on a waiting list for another child care facility immediately after the announcement of Children’s Village closure. “I’m 104 on the waiting list for the Yerba Buena Child Development Center,” Shantz said. “I’ve been on the wait-list for a year, and they basically told me that there’s no way I’m getting in.”

Meanwhile, while the city supported the church’s child care program, the church is still stiffing the city on its tax bill. On April 16, the Archdiocese filed a suit in the San Francisco Superior Court against Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting. The suit challenges a Transfer Tax Review Board ruling last November which held that the Archdiocese owed the city $14.4 million after transferring 232 parcels of property among three Archdiocese corporations in 2008 without paying the required transfer taxes attached to those vacant lots, parking lots, apartments, commercial buildings, parishes, and schools. This is the second-largest transfer tax bill in San Francisco history.

Repeated calls to the Archdiocese of San Francisco were not returned. In a press release, the Archdiocese said that it “maintains that to impose transfer taxes, penalties, and interest on a religious organization in connection with an internal restructuring involving no exchange or receipt of money from which to pay any tax is inequitable and threatens to confiscate substantial church assets that are devoted to religious purposes.”

The next court date for this case is scheduled for Sept. 17. This recent lawsuit and the sale of Archdiocese properties come at a time when the church is facing the possibility of paying out big settlements in cases involving sexual abuse by priests.

Survivor Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) Northern California Regional Office representative Joey Piscitelli said that if victims weren’t so afraid to report their abuse, the Archdiocese would owe its victims even more money. “Ninety-eight percent of victims never report the abuse, and the average person reports the abuse 25 years after the incident,” Piscitelli said. “The church brags that the clergy didn’t do it because they were never convicted, yet they’re paying billions of dollars in lawsuits.”

With the Catholic Church now facing scrutiny on so many fronts, it seems that a day of reckoning could be in its future. On June 29, the Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal by the Vatican for immunity in a highly publicized pedophilia suit, clearing the way for the 2002 lawsuit to advance.

The plaintiff, under the name of John V. Doe, alleged that he was abused in 1965 by Father Andrew Ronan in Portland, Ore. Ronan died in 1992. The Vatican tried to kill the lawsuit by stating that it was protected under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, a federal law that prevents foreign states from lawsuits.

The appeals court determined that there was an exception to the law, stating that Ronan was an employee of the Vatican and he was working under Oregon law. No one has ever won a lawsuit against the Vatican for sexual abuse allegations made by the clergy. This Supreme Court decision opens the door for future lawsuits against the Holy See.