Bryan Cohen Archives — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Freedom of Information: Virtual meeting

March 11, 2008

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Forget smoke-filled rooms and paper shredders — today’s government officials can elude public scrutiny from the comfort of their own e-mail accounts, conducting virtual meetings to do the public’s business.

To curb such activity, provisions in both the Brown Act (the state law governing open meetings) and the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance have been interpreted as prohibiting the use of electronic communication between members of policy bodies. But not everyone has been heeding the rules, particularly in this hyperconnected age.

The TechConnect Task Force, a now disbanded advisory body charged by Mayor Gavin Newsom with creating a plan to bridge the city’s digital divide with free wireless Internet service, frequently used an e-mail listserv to conduct its business.

"Since these things were publicly posted right away, I should think there would be a transparency that advocates would like," said Emy Tseng, a member of the task force. "It was useful in the way e-mails and listservs are useful to anyone."

However, many contend the task force was engaging in activities prohibited under the city’s Sunshine Ordinance, even if the intent was to provide greater public access to the group’s work. Tseng, who claims to have never been informed by the City Attorney’s Office that the group might have been in violation of Sunshine laws, expressed the frustrations of many throughout the city who must comply with open-meeting policies.

"If you don’t use e-mail in this day and age, what can you do?" she asked. The answer, according to state and local laws, is to conduct public business in a public meeting, with the agenda posted in advance and where anyone can attend.

State and city public-disclosure laws apply to all "policy bodies," which can include nearly every government-sanctioned board, commission, or task force. Some members of these bodies have been suspected of vioutf8g open-meeting and public-disclosure laws through the use of online communication.

Seriatim meetings are presumably the most common illegal activity occurring under both open-information laws, although they are the hardest to detect. A seriatim meeting occurs when one member of a policy body privately contacts another, who then contacts another, in a chain of communication that eventually constitutes a quorum of the group.

An e-mail that is forwarded along to enough individuals, or a round of mass e-mails, would constitute a seriatim meeting, according to attorneys who spoke with the Guardian. While e-mail forwarding is a common practice for any office worker, some are just an unassuming click away from breaking the law.

"I would absolutely make it clear that anybody subject to the Brown Act or Sunshine [should] not communicate through e-mail," said Thomas Burke, a San Francisco-based attorney who specializes in media and Internet law and has represented the Guardian. "This could go on for years because people are not in the loop."

The Brown Act, passed in 1953 by the California Legislature, expressly bans a legislative body from using "technological devices" in order to communicate about topics relevant to the work of that body.

"The Brown Act itself forbids the majority of ‘technological devices’ — which is essentially anything you could imagine," said Terry Francke, director of Californians Aware, who also drafted amendments to the act in the early ’90s. Under the Brown Act, a committee member can be slapped with a misdemeanor for the intent to withhold information from the public or conduct prohibited meetings.

Many of the same issues are also addressed in the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance, filling in more restrictions and open information requirements. Ironically, the TechConnect Task Force was charged with creating universal access to online discussions like theirs, although few legal experts think even that would nullify the requirement for open, public meetings in a physical – rather than virtual – setting.

According to a report released by the San Francisco TechConnect Task Force, 32 percent of Americans do not have access to the Internet. In San Francisco, certain populations are even worse off compared to national averages — for instance, women and the elderly.

"You have to consider if people are going to have equal access to meetings," Burke told the Guardian. "There is still a digital divide. As a public entity they have to be sensitive to this."

Recently, members of the city’s Peak Oil Task Force inquired with the City Attorney’s office about using Yahoo! Groups or a blog to increase efficiency on the all volunteer committee. Attorneys advised the group to stay away from Internet communication, as it can easily lead to prohibited seriatim meetings. Jeanne Rosenmeier, who is the chairperson of the task force, now spends more committee time trying to determine alternative ways to engage the public.

"It is certainly something that should be rewritten, to deal with modern technology so it corresponds with today’s reality," Rosenmeier told the Guardian. "If we have a public e-mail listserv that anyone can sign on to, that seems transparent; or if we have a blog, that’s pretty transparent."

In other cities that do not have sunshine ordinances, teleconferencing may be used legally under the Brown Act to conduct meetings. In Los Angeles, for instance, some boards and commissions teleconference when members would need to drive a few hours just to meet. There is some speculation that the language of the Brown Act could be augmented under this provision to allow for online communication, but there are no major groups pursuing the amendment.

In 2001, former California Attorney General Bill Lockyer wrote an opinion declaring the use of e-mail between policy-body members as an infraction of the Brown Act, even if the e-mails were made publicly available. "Members of the public who do not have Internet access would be unable to monitor the deliberations as they occur," the opinion states. "All debate concerning an agenda item could well be over before members of the public could [participate]."

According to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, there have been no complaints filed concerning prohibited online meetings, however there have been public information disclosures of private e-mail messages over the years. Recently, a group of deputy city attorneys were required to turn over an e-mail correspondence when a member of the public filed a complaint.

While Peter Scheer, director of the California First Amendment Coalition, understands the frustration of government officials who must abide by the cumbersome laws, he thinks the tradeoff is well worth it.

"The whole rest of society uses the power of e-mail and the only business that can’t use it is government, because they’re subject to the Brown Act," Scheer told the Guardian. "But we made the tradeoff already in efficiency versus accountability, to force all meetings and information to be open to the press and public."

Muni’s makeover

March 5, 2008

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GREEN CITY San Francisco’s streets are some of the most congested in the nation, our gasoline prices are reaching record highs, and parking is both scarce and expensive (particularly given the rising cost of parking tickets). But most drivers still haven’t been willing to switch to public transit, something that Muni officials hope to change with the help of a highly anticipated study that’s just been released.

The Transit Effectiveness Program (TEP) is a systemic proposal to make Muni faster and more attractive, mostly by focusing resources on the busiest routes. The study kicks off what could be a transformative year for the Municipal Transportation Agency, which got another $26 million annually through the passage of Proposition A in November 2007 and has been struggling for years to meet its on-time performance goals and win back lost riders.

It has been over two decades since Muni had its last major overhaul. The TEP boasts "hundreds of changes" in the works, from larger buses to route additions. The current draft of the proposal reflects 18 months of data collection on rider trends and community input. Officials found residents citywide were most concerned with reliability in the system.

"We have some schedules that are up to 10 minutes short of how long the line actually takes," said Julie Kirschbaum, program manager of the TEP. "We also need to reduce the number of breakdowns. We need more mechanics."

Data also showed 75 percent of Muni passengers board in the system’s 15 busiest corridors, which include the 49 Mission/Van Ness, 38 Geary, and 30 Stockton routes. TEP calls for increasing service on these corridors by 14 percent and cutting wait times to five minutes or less.

The study also proposed new routes to better reflect changing growth patterns and travel needs. For the first time, a bus would directly connect Potrero Hill with downtown. A new "downtown circulator" would loop Market Street on Columbus, Polk, and Folsom streets, replacing the 19 Polk and 12 Folsom. Some proposals would increase service between neighborhoods in the western and southern parts of the city as well as create better connections to BART and Caltrain for those who commute to or from the city.

University students and employees could also benefit from the TEP, as increased service to destinations such as San Francisco State University and University of San Francisco were high priorities for the project team. In order to maximize resources, some routes could be scaled back or removed, potentially making the walk to the bus stop a few blocks longer for some city residents. For example, in the Mission District, there is a proposal to fold the existing routes on Folsom and Bryant into a faster, higher-capacity route on Harrison. A proposal to end the 56 Rutland route would leave Visitation Valley even more isolated.

Once the TEP’s environmental impact report is complete sometime next year, there will be public hearings before the MTA board decides which recommendations to adopt. The Board of Supervisors could ultimately vote to overrule controversial route changes.

The TEP is one of many high profile green initiatives Mayor Gavin Newsom has rolled out, from a solar panel initiative he introduced with Assessor Phil Ting to the controversial appointment of Wade Crowfoot as the director of climate protection initiatives, whose salary is paid with MTA funds.

"The best thing we can do is get people out of single occupancy vehicles…. This mode shift is my primary goal," Crowfoot said at a Feb. 27 public information workshop, one of many planned throughout the coming months to educate and receive feedback from residents on the TEP.

Yet like many of Newsom’s splashier initiatives, the plan lacks clear funding sources and commitments. "There’s a whole capital piece to the TEP that’s been missing the whole time," Tom Radulovich, executive director of Livable City and a member of the TEP’s policy advisory board, told us. "Without this capital element, TEP won’t happen."

Many of the proposals could be covered by reallocating operational costs, yet some expensive projects remain without a clear source of financing. Despite the price tag, Radulovich said ambitious investments now could more than pay for themselves in the long run: "If you’re smart about how you spend money, you can use capital money to save money in operating costs down the line."

Beyond beds

February 26, 2008

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What do army barracks, prisons, hospitals, and dog pounds have in common? They all have minimum and legally enforceable standards of care, something absent in San Francisco’s homeless shelters. Legislation to fix that problem now appears to be shaping up as the latest political skirmish pitting fiscally conservative Mayor Gavin Newsom against progressives on the Board of Supervisors.

The Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee met Feb. 20 to hear testimony and discuss proposed legislation that seeks to impose basic requirements on city-funded shelters, improve complaint procedures, and allow fines for noncompliance (see "Setting Standards," 1/30/07).

Prior to the hearing, dozens of activists, city officials, and homeless people rallied on the steps of City Hall in support of the legislation, holding colorfully painted signs with references to some of the proposed requirements, including "nutritious meals," "clean sheets," and "8-hour-a-day sleep."

Marlon Mendieta, program director at the Dolores Street shelter, took to the podium to make his case for supporting the legislation: "It may seem strange that a service provider would be here to support legislation that will cost money and more time and more work — it’s easy though. It’s an issue of human rights."

The scene was just as lively inside as demonstrators and officials packed the board’s chambers. The committee — composed of Sups. Aaron Peskin, Bevan Dufty, and Tom Ammiano (sponsor of the ordinance) — took testimony, almost all of it urging the committee to pass the legislation on to the full Board of Supervisors for approval.

Dariush Kayhan, who has been on the job for six weeks as the mayor’s appointed homeless policy director, gave the only testimony urging the committee not to pass the legislation.

"This is the part where we have some concerns, the fiscal part," Kayhan said. "Give us more time, maybe we can plow some of these items — the ones we can agree on — into the existing contracts," he said, referring to the contracts awarded to nonprofit organizations who manage the city’s shelters.

While the city’s contracts with shelter providers do spell out many standards, a recent Guardian investigation (see "Shelter Shuffle," 2/12/08) and work by the Shelter Monitoring Committee, which developed the recommendations embodied in Ammiano’s legislation, found they are often ignored with no consequences. The Guardian also found that people are being turned away from the shelters every night despite vacancies.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, in a letter to supervisors obtained by the Guardian, voiced his concern with the fiscal impact of the legislation, citing a $2.4 million price tag, the high end of costs developed by the Budget Analyst’s Office, which said the legislation could cost $1.7 million or even less. Advocates of the legislation are confident they can bring its price down.

The $2.4 million estimate assumes a new security guard will be hired at each shelter to meet safety requirements. The legislation does not specifically mandate new personnel and many argue increased staff training and facility improvements could provide cheaper alternatives.

The Shelter Monitoring Committee, composed of mayoral and board appointees, estimates the cost will be closer to $1 million, which amounts to less than half of 1 percent of the city’s total projected deficit of $225 million.

"This is an investment in a population that has not been invested in in a long time," committee chair Quintin Mecke said at the hearing. "I don’t think there is any reason to wait to make sure people have access to toilet paper, have access to clean conditions, have access to ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] -compatible beds."

At Ammiano’s request, the committee decided to postpone the vote for two more weeks to try to work out differences with the Mayor’s Office, and set the next hearing for March 5. If the supervisors proceed without Newsom’s support and he ends up vetoing the legislation, it would take the vote of eight supervisors to override and implement the standards anyway.

Newsom and the board have been at odds over homelessness and other budget priorities. Buster’s Place, the city’s only 24-hour drop-in shelter, is now caught in the middle of the political tug-of-war between budget cuts and shelter improvements. There is a provision within the standards of care legislation that mandates a 24-hour emergency drop-in center. At the time it was drafted, Buster’s Place filled this requirement.

However, due to the timing of the midyear budget cuts ordered by Newsom, the Department of Public Health cut off funding for Buster’s, effectively closing the center at the end of March (see "No Shelter from the Budget Storm," 2/20/08). It is now unclear how the requirement will be met if the legislation passes.

"We’re tired of having centers like Buster’s Place on the chopping block," Mecke told the Guardian. "It’s ludicrous to keep going in this cycle over and over again." Buster’s was slated to close six months ago but was rescued by a Board of Supervisors’ budget add-back, and a year before that, McMillan’s (another 24-hour center) was forced shut its doors.

The ordinance seems to challenge Newsom’s recent efforts to whittle back shelter services. It would allocate more funds to a department Newsom is trying to cut and assure the existence of an emergency 24-hour center, a clear departure from Newsom’s recent announcement that he wants to ultimately "get San Francisco out of the shelter business."

The most controversial requirement within the standards of care legislation seems to be its enforcement mechanism, calling for fines of $2,500 levied against the nonprofit service providers for noncompliance. While Kayhan voiced reservations about creating new staff positions to carry out enforcement, the SMC has insisted the fines are crucial and will only be used as a last resort.

"In 2004, the supervisors [created the] Shelter Monitoring Committee because contract compliance was not working," Mecke said. "If there are policies in theory, they should be legalized and should become mandates and be enforced."

Barbra Wismer, the medical director of Tom Waddell’s clinic, which frequently serves homeless men and women, urged attendees at the budget meeting to put politics aside and remember the importance of shelter standards, not just for the current homeless population, but for all San Francisco residents.

"If there was a natural disaster like an earthquake, or a fiscal disaster like increased foreclosures, and 1 to 2 percent of people — 14,000 in San Francisco — had to be put in emergency shelters," Wismer said, "we do not have any standards to protect them."

No shelter from the budget storm

February 19, 2008

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Arriving at the steps of Buster’s Place on a cold night is a familiar, comforting act for many of the city’s chronic homeless people. Or rather, it was until recently, when a sign was posted informing clients the facility will be closing its doors for the first time in almost a year.

Buster’s Place, the only centrally located 24-hour drop-in center in San Francisco, is on the chopping block to meet the demands of one of the city’s most drastic midyear budget cuts in recent history. The $1 million cut (roughly the one-year operating cost of Buster’s) is only a piece of the $9.25 million the city’s Department of Human Services must trim from its annual spending.

Buster’s has logged more than 34,000 visits from an estimated 700 clients in the past year. The center serves all walks of life, from lonely elders to those who cannot manage the complex shelter reservation system to newcomers who don’t know where to turn. While staff and resources are limited, Buster’s provides easy access to essential facilities like showers, bathrooms, and laundry rooms. It’s the stop of last resort, as I learned during my recent undercover investigation (see "Shelter Shuffle," 2/13/07, and "Search for Shelter," on the Guardian‘s SF blog).

"There’s a need for this place," Louis Ramon, who is the only case manager working at Buster’s and has been at the center since it opened, told the Guardian. "This is where the too sick, the too paranoid, the too mentally ill come who cannot be housed. Nobody is working with these clients — the really hardcore ones."

Jennifer Friedenbach, the executive director for the Coalition on Homelessness, has been a leading advocate for 24-hour homeless centers and is pressuring city hall to reinstate funds to carry Buster’s through the end of the year.

"It’s frustrating when the mayor makes random and arbitrary decisions without consulting relevant community-based organizations or the homeless themselves," Friedenbach told us. "This is another attempt by the mayor to put a nail in the coffin of overnight shelters."

In a Feb. 14 press conference Mayor Gavin Newsom held with Dariush Kayhan, his newly appointed homeless czar, Newsom discussed plans to redesign the city’s shelter system, as well as the midyear budget cuts. "We’ve got a lot of resources that are being spent, but they could be spent more wisely by coordinating strategies," he said.

"With respect to 24-7 access, we’re going to have that with the [Mobile Assistance Patrol] vans, to ensure that people still have that. People can, in rare instances, come to the shelters directly if they’re in a dire emergency and access a bed if needed," Kayhan said. "And we also want to engage those folks because we don’t think sitting in chairs, around the clock, at night — and especially since a lot of those folks are seniors and disabled — that’s not a proper place to be."

Less than five months after it opened last year, Buster’s was slated to close during the regular fiscal-year budgeting last June. Homeless advocates came to Buster’s rescue and had the Board of Supervisors reinstate most of the funding for the center.

However, many homeless advocates and Department of Public Health officials are less optimistic about this round of budget reductions. For one thing, midyear cuts are generally more reactionary, made with little public deliberation, and made because the deficit is bigger than expected.

"This year is much different because the amount of money we need to cut is much more severe," said David Nakanishi, coordinator for community programs at the DPH and responsible for spearheading the planning of Buster’s Place. "Last year Buster’s was the only cut being made to homeless programs, so the community could rally around that one issue. The fiscal situation is much more dire this year. The supervisors will probably not reinstate the money."

Sup. Chris Daly, whose District 6 includes Buster’s Place, isn’t optimistic. "I will fight, but I won’t be successful," he told us, referring to his reduced power on the board after being removed as chair of the Budget Committee last year. "The cut list resembles very closely the list of board priorities from last year. The board cannot compel the mayor to spend."

Over the past year, Buster’s Place has had an uncertain future. The center was created after the temporary closing of the McMillan Drop-in Center, the city’s previous 24-hour drop-in center, at 39 Fell Street. Homeless-rights advocates campaigned for the creation of a 24-hour facility until Daly lobbied the DPH to keep an all-night drop-in center open. The city then contracted the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics to open Buster’s.

However, since the DPH established the center on a short timetable, it did not follow standard procedures for awarding the contract. The DPH is now going through a request-for-proposals process for a 24-hour drop-in center. Of course, if the midyear cuts are approved, this process will stop.

During a night at Buster’s, visitors can count on a few things: hard plastic chairs, restless sleep (if any), and good conversation with familiar faces. While Buster’s provides 24-hour shelter, it also serves as an important social hub for the homeless community. Elisa Frank, who handles shelter reservations through the city’s CHANGES system at the 150 Otis Street administrative office, sends up to 60 people per night to wait for beds at Buster’s.

"Buster’s is a community for a lot of people. They want supervision so they’re not just on the street doing dirt. Some people even have houses. Some who are in [single-room occupancies] and even some who just live alone come to Buster’s just for company," she told us.

One 31-year-old homeless client at Buster’s told us he has been in and out of shelters and illegal housing for most of his life. He has been staying at Buster’s occasionally over the past year and hopes to get his own apartment.

"When I don’t have a place to stay, I get suicidal," he told the Guardian on a chilly night outside Buster’s. "More people are going to die on the street if this place closes."

Climate change teach-in

February 5, 2008

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GREEN CITY For Van Jones, going green is not just about buying a Prius, putting a solar panel on a vacation home, or purchasing groceries at Whole Foods, which he calls Whole Paycheck. It’s also about training former gangsters in green-collar jobs, equitably distributing toxic waste sites, and bringing organic produce into urban ghettos.

According to the Oakland activist, who cofounded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (see "Redefining Radicalism," 9/19/06), there is a serious social injustice on the horizon, and the fight against it may just be the next great political movement in the United States.

Speaking Jan. 30 at San Francisco State University’s teach-in on climate change, Jones called on students to be the next great generation by recognizing that the environmental crisis presents the biggest opportunity for poor people and minorities since the New Deal. Today it seems such grandiose statements calling an entire generation to action tend to lack an inspired audience. However, no one could deny Jones was onto something big after the packed crowd in Jack Adams Hall erupted in an ovation after his challenge to students to make history by addressing poverty and the environment together.

Green pathways out of poverty was just one topic discussed during the SFSU segment of "Focus the Nation" — billed as the nation’s largest-ever teach-in, with more than 1,500 schools and universities participating. The nationally coordinated event aimed to create one day of focused discussion on global warming solutions for the US. Throughout the day expert panels at SFSU discussed green efforts in their respective fields with an underlying message of public involvement.

Keynote speaker Michael Glantz of the National Center for Atmospheric Research jumped on the generational bandwagon, predicting the 21st century would be remembered as the climate century. However, Glantz stressed public pressure would be crucial, as lessons learned about the environment are generally not used during policy making. He cited detailed studies conducted in the early 1970s of melting arctic sea ice due to anthropogenic causes.

When asked how he would reply to arguments that humans aren’t causing climate change, Glantz noted the success of the environmental movement in marginalizing these beliefs: "I don’t think we need to spend time now dealing with the skeptics when Exxon and Shell are worried about global warming."

Faculty from the SFSU geography and geosciences departments presented new trends in climate change data and modeling, focusing on predictions for California. The panel reported the state’s average temperature is on the rise. Even with the best estimates for halting global warming, the Sierra Mountains are expected to lose 40 percent of their snowpack over the next 100 years. Agricultural production and quality in the Central Valley are also expected to decline, as some plants will not get the chill period they need.

Geography professor Andrew Oliphant worked with students to create a carbon footprint calculator for attendees to use throughout the day. Oliphant said the calculator was tailor-made specifically for the event so attendees could analyze their daily habits.

Students were also present throughout the event to answer questions on an informative poster display. The posters depicted breakdowns of greenhouse gases, rising sea levels in the Bay Area, and the formation of acid rain.

Erin Rodgers, an environmental advocate with the California Union of Concerned Scientists, discussed green policies at the state level. Rodgers focused on California’s groundbreaking initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a cut of about 30 percent from current levels.

Experts have established detailed plans on how to reach the target reduction, with a large focus on transportation, although the California Air Resources Board has yet to embrace a comprehensive plan that will get anywhere close to the goals it is charged with meeting.

Cal Broomhead, climate programs manager at the San Francisco Department of the Environment, spoke on local green efforts. He praised the city for keeping the same levels of greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 and its continued use of the "Fab 3" composting and recycling program.

Broomhead also stressed the importance of furthering environmental education efforts: "Through education we can get people to adopt pro-green technologies and behaviors. Once you have the last remaining stragglers, then you can require them to participate through law."

Comments, ideas, and submissions for Green City, the Guardian‘s weekly environmental column, can be sent to news@sfbg.com.