Steven T. Jones

Black Ops

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By Steven T. Jones
Re-reading the article I linked to in my last post reminded me to remind y’all about an event from earlier this year that goes to the heart of Rob Black’s close ties to downtown developers and why he can’t be trusted. In the incident described in this article, Black was the Alioto-Pier board aide who worked with those five developer attorneys to craft legislation designed to kill the downtown parking limitations sought by livable city advocates and Planning Director Dean Macris, all at the demand of Don Fisher, the Republican who founded the Gap and uses his money to bankroll SFSOS and the attacks on Chris Daly. My article doesn’t mention Black by name, but I have the e-mails in which he discusses the legislation and its wording with these developer attorneys. And if you want to hear Rob Black fumble to address the issue, listen to his endorsement interview here.

Daly Tube

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By Steven T. Jones
There’s a fascinating mix of videos about Sup. Chris Daly on You Tube these days. You can hear Chris speak or people speak about him, or you can watch political ads with stark contrasts between the Daly lovers and haters. The ads for him are funny and whimsical, the ones hitting him are dark, scary, misleading, and in one case, racist. They say Daly “never passed a single law to combat crime,” even though he chaired the committees that passed two budgets filled with crime-fighting measures, as well as placing the crime-fighting Proposition A on the June ballot, which narrowly failed because it was opposed by Mayor Gavin Newsom, opponent Rob Black, and the pro-Black Police Officers Association (which was loathe to spend $10 million on violence prevention programs instead of just more cops and overtime, which is the Newsom/Black strategy). But the funniest accusation is how Daly is now in the pocket of downtown interests, with one video showing Daly morphing into former Mayor Willie Brown, who Daly has a storied history of fighting on behalf of the anti-downtown forces. Yes, it’s true that Daly has gotten some developer money in this election, but that’s only because he’s made himself the go-to person for facilitating projects by developers who are willing to provide the maximum community benefits and affordable housing payments — which is what progressives demand of developers. Even downtown interests like SPUR have said this is true (the whole story is here). The bottom line: Black and his downtown buddies (from mentor Jim Sutton to SFSOS to BOMA) know D6 voters want someone to stand up to downtown, so they’re throwing a bunch of smoke and misinformation up in the air to confuse the issue. Don’t be fooled…but enjoy the show.

Fox sucks…and so does getting arrested

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By Laura Beth McCaul and Steven T. Jones
Justin Barker saw an opportunity on Halloween to denounce Fox News, but ended up in jail overnight for his effort. He was in the Castro just after 10:30 p.m. when he saw local Fox affiliate KTVU-Channel 2 reporter Amber Lee doing a live shot. He stepped behind her and yelled “Fox News is bullshit, Fox News sucks” on live television before the broadcast cut away to some B-roll footage. Suddenly, Barker found himself in trouble. “I go to walk away and three policeman come up and knock me to my knees and I get handcuffed,” said Barker, who’s been charged with battery and resisting arrest. As KTVU news director Ed Chapuis told us, “At 10:30 during a live shot, he jumped in front of our camera and practically pushed our reporter to the ground.” But Barker said he didn’t touch the Lee, is non-violent, and was simply trying to exercise his free speech rights. In fact, he says he heard the police ask Lee if he touched her and she answered “I don’t know.” The footage that aired was inconclusive, but Lee appeared composed and unmolested when the shot returned to her about 30 seconds later. Chapuis said the station will push for prosecution, telling us, “How do you know the intent of someone who step up to disrupt your live shot?” In this case, the intent seemed clear: to denounce Fox News, a network that does, indeed, in all its Orwellian “fair and balanced” glory, suck.

A shameful Halloween

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By Steven T. Jones
First of all, let me state my biases: my sweetie is Alix Rosenthal, who is running against Sup. Bevan Dufty, the architect of the city’s approach to Halloween in the Castro last night. But given what I saw and experienced last night, I feel an obligation to share a few observations with Guardian readers.
As you may have heard, there were several shootings that occurred just after the police tried to shut down the event at 10:30, an earlier than usual finish time pushed by Dufty, but a point at which the crowd seemed to be peaking in numbers. Contrary to city claims and some media reports, the police were not searching most people for weapons or alcohol as they entered the event, at least not anyone in our large group during the three times we entered the event from outside. There were certainly a ton of cops out there this year, but most of them were just standing around in groups of a dozen or more, not doing anything. I saw very few officers circulating in the crowd. Two cops on motorcycles who were doing something around 10 were rudely telling people to clear the streets and go onto the sidewalks, where other cops working sidewalk exits told us to go back into the street. That was emblematic of the obvious mismanagement that caused frustrations all night long, including streets that dead-ended and had people walking in circles in frustration.
But the point in the evening that left me feeling profoundly ashamed of this city was at 11 when a team of water trucks and street sweepers rolled in to clear the streets, accomplishing by force what the repeated announcements that “the party is over” failed to do. Why exactly were we hosing down hundreds of thousands of visitors to San Francisco? Do we really want to show an intolerant, authoritarian face to the world just as people are trying to join us in celebrating a holiday that most of us love? Judging from the reactions I saw around me among the basically well-behaved crowd, we have sullied and lowered ourselves as a city by treating people badly and with intolerance. And we spent a ton of money do it, money that could have been put toward managing the event like New Orleans manages Mardi Gras or New York manages New Year’s Eve. I love this city, but today, I’m not proud of it.

Governor Hummer

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› steve@sfbg.com
If there is a single symbol of American wastefulness, military fetishism, and willful ignorance about what it means to be heating up the planet at the end of the age of oil, it is the Hummer. And if there is one American who is most closely associated with the Hummer, it is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
So why, in a state whose voters consistently rank environmentalism as one of their most important concerns, is Governor Hummer considered such a lock for reelection? And why haven’t the mainstream media made more of Schwarzenegger’s stubborn refusal to give up the four Hummers he still owns?
For that matter, why is the press overlooking his opposition to Proposition 87 (which would tax oil companies to support research of alternative fuels) and tacit support of Proposition 90 (which would make environmental protection far more costly for governments), both positions on close races that are at odds with environmental groups? Is he really that good an actor?
The visceral response that Hummers elicit from true environmentalists is perhaps best captured on the Web site www.fuh2.com, which has posted thousands of pictures of people flipping off Hummers, what it refers to as “the official Hummer H2 salute.”
The H2 is the slightly less offensive version of the original Hummer, a 10,000-pound monster adapted from the Humvee military vehicle that gets about 10 miles per gallon. The high cost and negative stigma attached to the original Hummer eventually caused sales to lag, and General Motors stopped making them earlier this year.
Schwarzenegger was the first private citizen to own a Hummer, back in 1992, reportedly encouraged American Motors (which GM later bought) to produce them for civilian use, and at one time owned at least seven of them.
Environmentalists have been chiding Schwarzenegger for years to set a good example and get rid of his Hummers, but he has only thrown them a couple of bones: he had GM develop one hydrogen-powered Hummer (at a cost of millions of dollars) and has publicly mused about converting one of his four Hummers to biodiesel, a project he hasn’t yet begun.
At one point Schwarzenegger was rumored to have given up his Hummers. But Schwarzenegger spokesperson Darrell Ng told the Guardian the governor still owns four Hummers, which are now in storage while he drives state vehicles, and that he has no plans to get rid of them. Environmentalists say it is a missed opportunity at a critical juncture in the world’s relationship with oil.
“He could say, ‘I was part of the commercialization of these vehicles, and it was a mistake,’” Bill Allayaud, state legislative director for the Sierra Club, told us. “He could have a press conference and have one of his Hummers crushed or blown up, say these were the products of another era, and it would be a very important symbolic gesture.”
We talked to Allayaud just after Schwarzenegger was elected three years ago, and he was “cautiously optimistic” that the governor would protect the environment. Initially, Allayaud was disappointed: “He vetoed a lot of good bills in those first few years.”
Now, after the governor signed landmark legislation to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions and a few other bills that the Sierra Club supported and made a couple of good appointments to regulatory agencies, Allayaud said, “I feel like we’re right back where we were in 2003, like he might be OK … but what do we get in the second term? It’s anybody’s guess.”
After all, every environmental bill Schwarzenegger signed was someone else’s idea, Allayaud said, and many had to be significantly weakened to gain his support. Schwarzenegger also enraged environmentalists and some lawmakers two weeks after signing the global warming measure by issuing an executive order that seemed to weaken its enforcement provisions.
Schwarzenegger starts to sound like an environmentalist only around election time, his critics say, indicating where he really stands. And so does his choice of vehicles.
“It’s a window into the real Schwarzenegger,” Dan Newman, the spokesperson for challenger Phil Angelides, told us. “It exposes the governor as a complete and utter fraud. Someone with seven Hummers pretending to be an environmentalist is akin to Attila the Hun claiming to be a pacifist.”
Others say “the real Schwarzenegger” is reflected in his positions on Props. 87 and 90.
“It’s a neck and neck race, and the oil companies are pouring unprecedented sums against us, $80 million so far [a figure that had risen to more than $90 million by press time],” said Yusef Robb, communications director for the Yes on 87 campaign. As for Governor Hummer, Robb was critical but diplomatic (noting that Schwarzenegger wasn’t actively campaigning against 87), telling us, “Personally, we think it’s an unfortunate choice of vehicles.”
The Schwarzenegger campaign says he would like to see oil companies pay for alternative energy development, but the measure violates his “no new taxes” pledge.
“The governor is opposed to tax increases. Personally, he opposes the initiative, but he strongly supports its goals,” Schwarzenegger campaign spokesperson Julie Soderlund said.
Apparently, such vague statements of support for good environmental policies are enough for the many daily newspapers that have endorsed him, including the San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner. But Chronicle staffers did ask about the Hummers at his endorsement interview, and the paper was apparently satisfied with his answer: “As far as my Hummers are concerned, they are very safely stored in some warehouse garage. I have not had an opportunity to drive them, but I don’t think they are polluting the air or ocean sitting in the garage.”
Allayaud said he prefers to focus on indicators with more direct impact, such as the fact that Schwarzenegger’s best annual rating by the California League of Conservation Voters (the 58 percent he received last year; this year he got a 50 percent) was worse than former Gov. Gray Davis’s worst annual rating (72 percent) — and on Schwarzenegger’s stance on Prop. 90.
“If this is close and we lose it,” Allayaud said of the measure, “it’ll be another thing that he didn’t do.” SFBG

Late breaking news: Just as this story was going to press, Schwarzenegger finally came out with a statement opposing Prop. 90, something he resisted doing until a week before election day when many absentee ballots have already been turned in.

Bayview’s perspective

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› steve@sfbg.com
Consider the perspective of Marie Harrison and her political allies in Bayview — including the owners and writers at the San Francisco Bay View newspaper — whose support for Proposition 90 has put them at odds with the progressive political community.
Harrison, who is running for supervisor against incumbent Sophie Maxwell, lives on Quesada Avenue just off Third Street, in a diverse neighborhood bustling with vitality. Residents have transformed the wide median on her street into a gorgeous community garden. Almost all the houses are owner-occupied and well maintained.
“Blight” is not a word that most people would use to describe this neighborhood. Yet that is the word city officials have used to justify their decision earlier this year to turn this neighborhood and the rest of Bayview–Hunters Point into the biggest redevelopment area in city history over the strident objections of Harrison and others.
Redevelopment is a process that collects annual property tax increases into a fund that the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency uses to subsidize favored development projects, usually working with big developers and often bundling properties together for them to use, seizing the land by eminent domain if need be.
“The Redevelopment Agency is like a monster,” Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai, a physician who covers the environment for the Bay View, told the Guardian while sitting in Harrison’s house.
For Harrison and others who moved to this neighborhood after being forced out of the Fillmore by another redevelopment effort that began in the ’60s, redevelopment means one thing: displacement of existing residents, or “repeopling,” a disturbing term that Harrison said she found in some Redevelopment Agency literature. They see it as simply a land grab by greedy developers working in cahoots with Mayor Gavin Newsom and the political establishment.
“Yeah, we’d like to see our community built up and look nice. But does that mean I don’t get to live here?” said Harrison, who, like many Bayview residents, owns her home but struggles to get by: she works, and her husband has two jobs, but they still live month to month.
It is that fear that caused Harrison to support Prop. 90 even after editors at the Guardian and other progressive voices tried to convince her that the state measure’s damaging aspects far outweigh its protections against eminent domain.
While Harrison admitted, “I see some things in Prop. 90 that scare the shit out of me,” she said, “desperation has set in.
“They’ve taken all hope. I see that I have to protect my community. Somebody has to remove the fear…. In this community, [Prop. 90 is] a hope and a chance.”
Where Maxwell and city leaders who favor redevelopment see progress, Harrison and others see an insidious conspiracy to take control of Bayview away from the people who live there.
And the narrative that city government is out to get Bayview has recently been reinforced by other actions: Newsom’s announcement that he wants to use Bayview–Hunters Point as a staging ground for the 2016 Olympics; expanded plans for upscale housing development around Candlestick Park; City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s rejection of a seemingly successful referendum drive challenging the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan and the refusal of the Board of Supervisors to allow a vote on the matter; city staffers issuing regular citations to Bayview property owners to make improvements or risk fines; the Housing Authority’s failure to properly maintain the projects it manages; Herrera’s decision this month to seek civil injunctions preventing the free association of purported members of the Oakdale Mob; and the Redevelopment Agency’s Oct. 17 decision to let Lennar Corp. out of its pledge to build rental units on Parcel A of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.
Add it all up, and it becomes understandable why many Bayview residents buy into the vision that Bay View publisher Willie Ratcliff has repeatedly put on the front page of his newspaper: “the bulldozers are at our borders,” just waiting to turn Bayview into one more white yuppie enclave and make a handful of politically connected developers rich in the process.
Officials strenuously deny this is true, arguing that this redevelopment project is all about helping the area by building more affordable housing, infrastructure, and open space and noting how the plan strictly forbids the seizure of residential property by eminent domain.
“The agency has that historical baggage, but we haven’t done anything like that in many years,” Marcia Rosen, director of the Redevelopment Agency, told us.
That hasn’t allayed fears in Bayview or among its allies outside the community, most notably Brian Murphy O’Flynn, whose North Beach property was seized by the city in 2003 to be turned into a park.
“I thought, ‘These people are getting steamrolled,’” O’Flynn told us. “The people there are going to be displaced…. It comes down to money. [Powerful people] want that neighborhood. It’s right on the water, and it’s going to make some people rich.”
Nonetheless, O’Flynn has concerns about the other impacts of Prop. 90, so much so that he has parted ways with his Bayview allies on the measure and refused requests by Prop. 90 advocates to join the campaign.
“I have no position on 90,” O’Flynn said. “But I understand how it came about.” SFBG

PG&E’s extreme makeover

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› steve@sfbg.com
Mayor Gavin Newsom called a meeting with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. president Thomas King in July to let the utility chief know that the city intended to pursue public power projects on Treasure Island and Hunters Point.
“It was just to tell him that we’re going to do it,” Newsom spokesperson Peter Ragone said of the meeting. “The mayor thought it was a gentlemanly thing to do.”
King used the occasion to start an aggressive new offensive — and to preview PG&E’s latest political strategy.
In an Aug. 10 letter to Newsom, King promised not to fight the city’s plans in court and pledged to develop a better relationship with the city.
“We know that it was in this spirit of cooperation that you approached us last month, and we want to foster this spirit and forge an even stronger partnership in efforts to protect our environment in the years ahead. That’s why I wanted to respond to your questions and suggestions — and to share with you some ideas of my own,” King wrote, listing one of those ideas as helping the city develop energy from tidal power at the mouth of the bay, which Newsom had recently announced a desire to pursue.
The day after PG&E wrote the letter, Newsom and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) head Susan Leal announced the city’s intention to supply public power, mostly from clean solar and hydroelectric sources, to the redevelopment project on Parcel A of the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, where the politically connected Lennar Corp. (which is also part of the team with the rights to build on Treasure Island) has the contract to build 1,600 new homes.
“What we want to provide is a green community at a rate that meets or beats PG&E,” Leal told the Guardian, noting the history of environmental injustices that have been heaped on the southeast part of town. “We’re very excited about what’s going on at Hunters Point. . . . It’s important that the city do the right thing for that community.”
And just as PG&E was pledging cooperation, it aggressively set out to undermine the city’s plans with competing bids and continued its fiercely adversarial posture in another half-dozen realms in which it must work with the city, battles that have cost San Franciscans millions of dollars.
“This is a competitive world and this is fair game, don’t you think?” PG&E spokesperson Darlene Chiu — who used to be Newsom’s deputy press secretary — told us of company efforts to subvert the public power projects.
Last month PG&E also hired away SFPUC commission secretary Mary Jung, who had been privy to closed-session discussions about various city strategies for dealing with PG&E. Jung, who did not return a call for comment, was required to sign a confidentiality agreement and threatened with criminal charges if she spills city secrets, although city officials acknowledge that would be difficult to prove.
PG&E has also launched a high-profile public relations offensive designed to repackage the utility as a clean and green crusader against global warming and a supporter of community programs such as the mayor’s pet project, SF Connect, to which it contributed $25,000 last month.
“The company has a long and continuing history of fighting against the city rather than working with the city on issues involving municipal power, improved reliability, connecting city facilities, and protecting ratepayers,” Matt Dorsey, a spokesperson for City Attorney Dennis Herrera, told us. “If PG&E wants to demonstrate its good corporate citizenship, it can start by changing the nature of its relationship with the city.”
BIG BUCKS
If anyone from the Bay Area needs a reminder about the big money, bare-knuckle approach PG&E uses when its interests are threatened, they need only look up the road to what’s happening in Sacramento and Yolo counties.
PG&E has so far spent more than $10 million fighting Propositions H and I in Yolo County and Measure L in Sacramento County, which together would allow the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) to annex more than 70,000 customers in Davis and surrounding communities.
The PG&E effort has saturated mailboxes and the airwaves with messages that inflate the cost of taking over its transmission lines, imply threats of a drawn-out legal battle, and make bold claims of its being an environmentally friendly utility (for example, including nuclear power in its calculations of how “green” PG&E is).
“They’re trying to spread fear and confusion,” Davis-based public power advocate Dan Berman told us. “A new thing comes out every day. But we keep citing the message of lower rates and better service.”
In fact, SMUD has rates that are about 30 percent lower than PG&E’s and a power portfolio that includes significantly more energy from renewable sources than PG&E uses. Even King’s claim that PG&E is “the leading solar utility in the county, having hooked up more than 12,000 solar-generating customers” is misleading. The number is large because PG&E has the largest customer base in the country, but the solar rebates were state mandated and SMUD inspired and come from ratepayer surcharges.
Still, PG&E justifies its aggressive campaign in Yolo County in terms of warding off a hostile takeover of its customers. For residents there and new customers in San Francisco that the SFPUC wants to serve, PG&E’s Chiu repeats the mantra that “we have an obligation to provide services.”
Yet critics of the company say the campaign is about more than just holding on to those customers. Right now more than a dozen California communities are pushing for public power, most involving community choice aggregation (CCA) — which allows cities to buy power on behalf of citizens, potentially bypassing PG&E.
“That’s one of the reasons they’re pulling out all the stops in Davis, because if this goes through, it will embolden other communities,” Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters told us.
San Francisco was an early city to pursue CCA, but plans to implement it have moved slowly, and now other communities — including Marin County and the cities of Oakland and Berkeley — are even further along.
“San Francisco is way behind in community choice,” George said. “The mayor is giving PG&E a lot of time to put out its claims to be green in order to fight this.”
Part of that push involves a slick 16-page mailer sent out in August by “The New PG&E” outlining “a proposal for an unprecedented and far-reaching partnership with the city of San Francisco to create the cleanest and greenest city in the nation.”
Sup. Ross Mirkarimi — a longtime public power advocate — is skeptical. “I welcome it, but I don’t buy it,” he said. “Their desire to work with us is typically predicated on the receding of our efforts to pursue public power.”
In fact, King seemed to say as much in his letter to Newsom when he wrote, “We see the investment of time, money and political capital in the public power fight as a distraction from the real need — providing clean, reliable and safe power to San Francisco.”
Chiu denied that there is a quid pro quo here, saying, “It is our intent to help San Francisco become clean and green, whether or not it comes with the city’s blessing.”
Yet Leal said the company seems more interested in stopping public power than going green. Rather than trying to undermine the city’s plans for the area, she questioned, “Why don’t they have the rest of Hunters Point, which are already their customers, be a green community?”
COMPETING WITH PG&E
Lennar is expected to announce in the next week or two whether it will go with public power or PG&E at Hunters Point. “No final decision has been made at this point,” Lennar spokesperson Jason Barnett told us.
Yet it didn’t have to be this way. Lennar’s redevelopment project is being subsidized with public funds that could have been conditioned on public power. Even as late as Oct. 17, when the San Francisco Redevelopment Board agreed to change Lennar’s contract to let the company out of building rental units, public power could have been part of the trade-off. Agency chief Marcia Rosen did not return Guardian calls asking why the public agency didn’t take advantage of this leverage.
For her part, Leal said, “I’m not afraid of competition.” It was a point echoed by Ragone, who said Newsom believes the city shouldn’t be afraid to compete with PG&E on Hunters Point or Treasure Island or to stop a PG&E bid to help develop clean tidal power.
But Mirkarimi doesn’t necessary agree. “Why do they have that right?” he asked, arguing the city shouldn’t let PG&E take control of new energy resources or customers who should be served by public power. “The tentacles of PG&E haven’t receded any less at City Hall and we should always be on our guard.”
Leal and Ragone each acknowledged that competing with PG&E isn’t always a fair fight. After all, in addition to having the resources of nearly 10 million customers paying some of the highest rates in the country, PG&E is also alleged in a lawsuit by the city to have absconded with $4.6 billion in ratepayer money during its 2002 bankruptcy, in what Herrera called “an elaborate corporate shell game.” On Oct. 2, the US Supreme Court denied review of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal ruling favoring the city, sending the case back to the trial court to determine just how much PG&E owes ratepayers.
That is just one of several ongoing legal actions between the city and PG&E, including conflicts over the city’s right to power municipal buildings, PG&E’s hindrance of city efforts to create more solar sites, and battles over the interconnection agreement that sets various charges that the city must pay to use PG&E lines.
MONEY IN ACTION
A good example of PG&E tactics occurred during the July 26 meeting of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which is overseeing work on the Bay Bridge. As part of that work, a power cable going to Treasure Island needed to be moved, but the Treasure Island Development Authority didn’t have the $3.4 million to do it.
So PG&E executive Kevin Dasso showed up at the MTC meeting with a check made out for that amount, offering to pay for the new cable and thus control the power line through which the SFPUC intends to provide public power to the 10,000 residents who will ultimately live on the island.
“This deal with Treasure Island was really egregious. They came in like a game show host and held up a check to try to stop this baby step toward public power on Treasure Island,” said Sup. Tom Ammiano, who also sits on the MTC board. “It shows PG&E is not asleep at the wheel by any means, and anybody who’s elected is going to need to stay vigilant.”
Ammiano was able to persuade the MTC to loan TIDA the money and preserve the city’s public power option. PG&E officials are blunt about their intentions. Chiu said, “We both want to provide power to Treasure Island.” So officials note the importance of being vigilant when it comes to PG&E.
“There will be other meetings where PG&E will wave around $3.4 million checks,” Leal said. “And at some of those meetings, we won’t be there to stop them.”
So public power advocates are concerned that public officials are letting PG&E rehabilitate its public image. Newsom has recently shared the stage with PG&E executives at a green building conference in San Francisco and the Treasure Island ceremony where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the landmark global warming measure that PG&E long opposed before ultimately supporting. Ragone said neither these events nor PG&E’s contribution to SF Connect nor his direct dealings with King indicate any softening of Newsom’s support for public power.
“We’re going to do what’s in the best interests of the city of San Francisco,” Ragone said. “This is the first mayor to support public power, and that hasn’t changed at all.” SFBG
To see the letter from King to Newsom and other documents related to this story, go to www.sfbg.com.

D6 Links

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By Steven T. Jones
For some good background links on Jim Sutton, SFSOS, Rob Black, and their attacks on Chris Daly, click here, here, here, here, here, and here.

A tissue for Newsom

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By Steven T. Jones
Kudos for the Chron’s Cecelia Vega for debunking Mayor Gavin Newsom’s pity-party television interview, in which he said he may not run for reelection. Vega punches her story home with some great phrases like “20-year-old Republican girlfriend” and “Washington-size dose of political posturing,” but the real gems come from Bruce Cain and Gerardo Sandoval. Check ’em out. But I once again have to find fault with Vega and other Chron writers continuing to prop up Wade Randlett as if he’s some kind of party insider or astute political observer, rather than the discredited right wing bagman that he is. But for the Chron, this is still mighty fine work.
As for Newsom, suck it out or get out! Geez, talk about letting your sense of overentitlement show. If you want a carefree life of chasing tail in the Marina or playing the rich socialite, go to it. Your job is way too important for you to be as checked out and self-indulgent as you have been lately anyway. Sure, it’s a tough job, but there are lots of competent progressives in this city who would love to trade places with you, even with all the abuse that entails. Call Ross Mirkarimi, I’m sure he’d welcome the news that you’re stepping down and supporting him. Actually, come to think of it, maybe that is the way to go. It is a very tough job that’s only bound to get tougher, and you’re a young man who should be out there enjoying life. Get out while you can, my friend. You don’t need this shit.

Reforming democracy

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By Steven T. Jones
Wtih ranked choice voting up and working well in San Francisco, four other communities around the country are poised to approve it in the upcoming election. In addition to Prop. O in Oakland, ranked choice is on the ballot in Davis, Minneapolis, and Pierce County, Washington.
“I see these four elections as key. If we can sweep them, that’s a tipping point,” activist and former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic said last night at a Prop. O fundraiser in the law office of Matt Gonzalez, who championed the San Francisco measure while serving on the Board of Supervisors.
Novoselic got involved in politics back in his Nirvana days, fighting to overturn a Seattle law that prevented people under 18 from attending concerts.
“Along the way, I got enthusiastic about democracy and participation,” he said. But even among those working on his campaigns, many felt their votes for candidates didn’t count. Reading SF-based democracy reform leader Steven Hill’s book, “Fixing Elections,” he learned about the concept of the “surplus voter” whose preference for a candidate other than the Democrat or Republican is essentially discarded. With ranked choice, voters can cast a ballot for their favorite candidate and also for the lesser of two evils, thus allowing minor parties to gain support. As such, Novoselic called democracy reform “the Holy Grail of the Green Party.”
Hill said he is cheered by the current situation. “It’s starting to happen, but these things take time. It’s a big country, but we’re making progress.”

Arnold lovers

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By Steven T. Jones
It was disappointing — but not entirely unexpected — to see the Chronicle endorse Arnold Schwarzenegger today. After all, both the Chron and Arnold are, as they describe him “economically conservative, socially moderate” (and I’ll leave off their next label, “environmentally progressive,” which is complete bullshit in describing a guy who owns four Hummers and watered down every environmental bill he’s signed, including the much ballyhooed global warming measure).
Yet what I do find truly amazing in this endorsement is the Chron’s failure to mention, among the two areas in which they’ve differed from the governor, Arnold’s veto of legislation that would have legalized same-sex marriage. This was arguably the most important bill of Arnold’s tenure, one approved only thorugh the tenacity of our own Assembly member Mark Leno, one Arnold had previously pledge to support. This shameful and telling omission provides further evidence that the Chron is a paper of the suburbs and middle America, not this proudly progressive city.

Speaking it

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By Steven T. Jones
Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern was in San Francisco today to help christen SEIU Local 790’s new digs on Potrero Hill — and to give fiery voice to the prescription for national political reform that he outlines in his new book “A Country That Works: Getting America Back on Track” (all proceeds from which go to SEIU’s political struggles, so go buy one).
He also dropped a bit of a bombshell on the capacity crowd (which included such notables as Mark Leno, Tom Ammiano, Chris Daly, Sophie Maxwell, Dennis Herrera, Phil Ting, and Bob Twomey): 790 head Josie Mooney will be leaving town to work directly for Stern. “I’m so sorry you’re losing her, but it’s a gain for SEIU,” he said to a smattering of gasps. Actually, Mooney tells the Guardian that her departure has been in the works for awhile, but that she plans to stick around for at least a couple more months.
It will be a loss for SF, but to hear Stern outline his vision, Mooney could be a part of something with the potential to rescue the country from self-destruction.

Gavin’s girlfriend

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By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom is now dating someone almost half his age: Brittanie Mountz, a model and restaurant hostess who recently turned 20 years old. And you can catch her in action thanks to some video that the Chronicle shot are last month’s opening of the San Francisco Symphony. Warning: the must-see part when she and the Gav talk to the cameras comes toward the end, so you’ll need to sit through some seriously nauseating high-society BS first (particularly creme-de-la-gag Dede Wilsey…ick). Even Newsom mocks the ostentation of the event before handing the mike over to his new sweetie, who sounds like…
Actually, you can just judge for yourself.

Even wrong when right

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By Steven T. Jones
Even when the Chronicle gets it right, they get it wrong. Political writers Carla Marinucci and Tom Chorneau scored a great story by discovering that Amos Brown — the SF pastor and former supervisor — had been paid $16,000 by the Schwarzenegger campaign prior to deciding to endorse Herr Governor. It was disgraceful and should shred any credibility that Brown had left. But then they screwed up the story by alternately labeling Brown a “liberal” and a “progressive,” when he was neither. As a supervisor, Brown was conservative and a reliable vote for downtown, and since then, he’s been shilling for the Republican-funded SFSOS and selling out his flock to conservative nutball Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Marinucci and other Chron writers also regularly prop up disgraced SFSOS head Wade Randlett. It’s telling of the Chron’s worldview that they consider Brown to be left of center.
The paper also did some PR work for the Schwarzenegger this morning by writing about the party for Virgin Airlines, despite the lack of news. The company doesn’t yet have permission to operate and it seemed mostly about demonstrating Arnold’s bipartisan appeal by putting him next to Mayor Gavin Newsom, where they each claimed credit for “creating 1,700 jobs.” Too bad the actual total, as reported by Fog City Journal, is just 100 jobs. Oh well, can’t let those pesky facts get in the way of good politics.

Rallying point

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By Steven T. Jones
It’s good to be reminded sometimes that San Francisco is truly an oasis in a desert of fear and ignorance. Yesterday’s City Hall press conference on the terrible Court of Appeals ruling against same sex marriage was one of those moments, when we felt unified in our quest for justice and equality. Despite this disappointment on the way to the eventual California Supreme Court hearings, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said, “We are steadfast and couldn’t be prouder to be at the forefront of this battle.” And everyone felt it. Win or lose, we’re doing the right thing. “We’re making tremendous progress,” said Mayor Gavin Newsom, who didn’t mince words when describing the majority opinion that traditional marriage shouldn’t be updated by the courts: “They made a mistake.”
Both sounded notes of optimism. Said Newsom, “I’m confident we’re going to get there, but today was an emotional setback.” Yet Herrera noted that we need to be vigilant against the right wing forces that are trying to make judges fear doing what they must: “The threat to the independence of the judiciary by those screaming about judicial activism is a disgrace.”

No limits

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By Steven T. Jones
Well, the gloves have come off in the District 6 supervisorial race. The Ethics Commission has just announced that the voluntary spending caps have been lifted in that race, responding to complaints that the tens of thousands of dollars in hit pieces on Sup. Chris Daly have effectively blown the caps. Daly, Rob Black, and the other major candidates had agreed to limit their campaign expenditures to $83,000 or less, and both Black and Daly have already spent about half that, according to just filed campaign finance statements. Now that the caps are gone, Daly is free to spend the $95,000 he has in the bank, outstripping the $52,000 Black has on hand. Add those totals (which are far from complete with a month still to go) to the fat wads of cash that anti-Daly forces are still like to throw around and expect the fur to fly.

Back to Black

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By Steven T. Jones
These are busy days, so I suppose I’ll just have to dump out the District 6 dirt just a little at a time. That’s cool, considering tomorrow’s deadline for filing pre-election campaign statement will allow me to plow into the freshest compost for y’all. We’re also having a few technical difficulties in getting the audio from Rob Black’s endorsement interview with us online, but that problem should be solved in the next couple days. And it’s worth the wait to hear him squirm in his seat over tough and legitimate questions about how he’s been doing the bidding of the wrong people for awhile now. Stay tuned.
For now, let’s recap yesterday’s Black press conference (which was held in the City Hall Press Room, despite state laws against campaigning in government offices not open to the general public, and just as the Board of Supervisors meeting was starting down the hall).

Pot. Kettle. Black.

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By Steven T. Jones
District 6 supervisorial candidate Rob Black called a press conference this afternoon to accuse incumbent Sup. Chris Daly of “illegal campaigning.” The charges involve the letters that Daly and other supervisors send to their constituents. Frankly, I don’t have time right now to fully get into all the dimensions of this incident, which is rich with good color and hypocrisy. I’ll spin the full tale for y’all tomorrow. But for now, suffice it to say that the City Attorney’s Office — which Daly checked with before sending out the letters in batches of less than 200 each — doesn’t think this is illegal. That’s point one. Point two is that desperate candidates calling for a Fair Political Practices Commission investigation during the height of an election is trite, transparent, and downright cliche. But the third point is the most important. Black is a candidate that has benefitted mightly from a series of unethical, deceptive, expensive, and probably illegal attacks on Daly, many of which were orchestrated by Black’s mentor and former boss, campaign attorney Jim Sutton. These are attacks that Black has refused to fully condemn or disassociate himself from. So that’s what made today’s press conference not just ironic, but downright amusing. Check back tomorrow when I’ll have more, including good links to much of the above so you don’t just have to accept my perspective on the situation.

Google’s dog and pony show

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By Steven T. Jones
First, Mayor Gavin Newsom tapped his buddies at Google (in partnership with Earthlink) to build a citywide wireless system that would be free to city residents. It was a move that was done without full sunshine and it pissed off some information activists like Media Alliance, but the Department of Telecommunication and Information Services has since conducted a more open and diligent negotiations process with the companies. That caused Google to grouse to the Chron that the city was dragging its feet. So Sup. Jake McGoldrick decided maybe the city should be looking at doing a municipal wifi system instead, which he’s having the budget analyst study (if the board approves study this week) and report back on by the end of the year. That’s also when DTIS expects to have a final deal with Google/Earthlink — and when a consultant’s study on municipal broadband (that’s fiber rather than wifi) is due back. Well, with all this possibility swirling, Google and Earthlink have now announed a series of town hall meeting from now until the end of the year. Game on! Their press release follows:

Compassionate crackdown

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By Steven T. Jones
Mayor Gavin Newsom has been flailing this year, so apparently he’s going back to what’s worked politically for him before: cracking down on the homeless. This week, he ordered police and other city staffers to place notices around Golden Gate Park warning the homeless to move on or have their stuff confiscated. His flack Peter Ragone yesterday bristled when I used the word “crackdown” and insisted that this was simply a social service outreach. “We will not ask a person to leave the park without offering then a place to go,” he told me. But when I pointed out that the city doesn’t have nearly enough social service or shelter spots for the hundreds of homeless in the park — and that the posted notices seem to be more of a threat than an offer — he said that he’d have to check with Trent Rhorer (the architect of the mayor’s get-tough homeless policies) and get back to me. He never did. Yet homeless advocates and civil rights groups (including the ACLU and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights) sent the city a letter calling the crackdown illegal, unconstitutional, and counterproductive. (Download a copy of the letter here. Hit the back button to return to this blog entry.)

And it isn’t just happening in Golden Gate Park. As we’ve been hearing and the Chron reported today, city cops are also apparently rousting the poor and homeless from around the newly opened Westfield Mall. And this stuff certainly isn’t new, but more like the MO of this administration: act like you care deeply about the homeless while quieting forcing them from the city.
Compassion there too? When will Newsom, Ragone, and the rest of this disingenuous administration realize that their actions speak far louder than their words?

Battle for Bayview

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› steve@sfbg.com
It’s been a week since City Attorney Dennis Herrera invalidated the seemingly successful referendum drive challenging the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan, and everyone involved is still wondering what’s next.
Can the biggest redevelopment plan in city history just move forward as if more than 33,000 city residents hadn’t signed petitions asking to vote on it? Legally, that’s where the situation now stands. But even Herrera told the Guardian that the legal question he answered is separate from the policy and political questions.
Should the Board of Supervisors hold a hearing to discuss the controversial issues raised by redevelopment and this referendum? Should it consider repealing the plan and allowing a ballot vote, as some supervisors want?
And if each referendum petition must include a thick stack of all related documents, as Herrera’s opinion indicates, won’t that make it prohibitively expensive for a community group to ever challenge such a complex piece of legislation? Have the citizens in effect lost the constitutional right to force a referendum on a redevelopment plan?
“I can’t speak to what the practical effect will be. I can just tell you what the state of the law is,” Herrera told us, noting that referendum case law clearly indicates that the petitioners should have carried the 62-page redevelopment plan and all supporting documents, not simply the ordinance that approved it.
A “TERRIBLE” DECISION
Four supervisors — Chris Daly, Tom Ammiano, Gerardo Sandoval, and Ross Mirkarimi — voted against the plan in May. All have expressed concern about Herrera’s decision, but none have yet called for a hearing.
“Whether you agree or disagree with this opinion on the validity of the redevelopment referendum, it raises some grave concerns that this process — a democratic, grassroots process — was overturned,” Mirkarimi told us. Daly called the decision “terrible.”
Yet given that they need the support of at least two more supervisors to reconsider the plan, Mirkarimi conceded that the next step will probably have to come from a lawsuit by the petitioners, a move referendum coalition leaders Willie Ratcliff and Brian O’Flynn say they intend to pursue if political pressure fails.
“It’s unclear what the next steps are to dislodge this from the legal shackles that knocked it down,” Mirkarimi said. “Something doesn’t smell right, and it’s difficult to trace the odor completely without the courts getting involved.”
But Ratcliff hasn’t given up on forcing a political solution, which he is pushing through his coalition and the San Francisco Bay View newspaper he publishes. The paper last week ran a story on the decision under the hyperbolic headline “City Hall declares war on Bayview Hunters Point.”
“We’re talking to lawyers, but to us the last resort is going to court. We feel we can pull it off politically,” Ratcliff told us. “What this did really was unite this community. If the city will pull this kind of thing, how are we going to have any faith in this plan? We’re going to flex our power…. People are ready to fight now.”
One gauge of Ratcliff’s support in the community will come on the afternoon of Sept. 27, when he will lead a march and rally on the issue. The event is tied to the 40th anniversary of the so-called Hunters Point Uprising, when a teenager was shot by police and the resulting community backlash was violently quelled using National Guard tanks and police sharpshooters.
“With the 40th anniversary of the Hunters Point Uprising of Sept. 27, 1966, only days away, this sounds like a declaration of war against the same people who protested then and are protesting still against police brutality and for jobs, economic equity and the right to develop our own community and control our own destiny,” Ratcliff wrote in a front page editorial.
Ratcliff told us, “We’re going to have a big march out there to show the city that we oppose this plan.”
THE PLAN IS IN EFFECT
Herrera’s opinion on the referendum was requested by Mayor Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, Board of Supervisors president Aaron Peskin, and Sup. Sophie Maxwell.
Redevelopment Agency director Marcia Rosen told the Guardian that fears of redevelopment stem from how badly it was handled in the Western Addition in the 1960s, but that the agency and the political climate of the city have changed. She said the agency is approaching Bayview–Hunters Point in an incremental, community-based fashion. She said the plan should go forward and will eventually prove the fears are unfounded.
“The plan was adopted by the board and signed into law by the mayor, and there is no further action needed, so the plan is in effect,” she told us.
Maxwell and Peskin each said they’re inclined to just let the redevelopment plan go into effect, although Peskin said, “I’m not going to stop any supervisor from having a hearing on any subject.”
“It’s important to understand that this plan is a living document, so there will be changes and people talking to each other,” Maxwell told us. “It’s certainly not the end of anything.”
She told the Guardian that the referendum campaign used paid signature gatherers, money from a developer from outside the area, and distorted claims about eminent domain and other aspects of the plan — misrepresentations that signers could have checked if the plan was readily available as legally required.
“The democratic process has to be taken seriously, and democracy is not easy,” Maxwell told us. “The decision was about preserving the democratic process, and people need to have facts at their disposal. There has to be a process and there has to be a standard.”
That’s certainly true — and O’Flynn is a contractor who lives in the Marina. But it’s hard to imagine how carrying around thick stacks of paper filled with complex land-use plans would have made a difference. Most signers would never have stopped to take several hours to read it all.
John Matsusaka, president of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California School of Law, said that referendum case law has been built around a few courts validating actions by civic officials to strike down citizen movements.
“The sad fact is it looked like elected officials are trying to keep measures off the ballot and looking for ways to support that,” Matsusaka told the Guardian. “Preventing the people from voting is really not going to bring harmony to the community.” SFBG
The Defend Bayview Hunters Point Coalition’s Sept. 27 march begins at 3:30 p.m. at the Walgreens at 5800 Third St. and Williams and continues up Third Street to Palou Street, where there will be a press conference and rally at 4:30 p.m.

New voice in town

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By Steven T. Jones
Ace photographer and all around good guy Luke Thomas — who had a nasty falling out with his business partner at the San Francisco Sentinel, Pat Murphy (I’ll have more details on that for y’all very soon) — today debuted his new website, Fog City Journal, which has the look and feel of the old site, but with a bit more journalistic integrity. Meanwhile, Pat’s site (recently returned from being down during his battle with Luke) looks like a shadow of its former self, running business community press releases and leading with a gratuitious breast shot from LoveFest. It reminds me of what some tavern owner friends of mine used to say, that the mark of a dying bar is when it starts holding wet T-shirt contests. But there’s no reason to dwell on the negative. Welcome to the fray, Luke.

Maybe Pelosi is the real devil

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By Steven T. Jones
Like many Americans concerned about this country’s imperial ways, I was thrilled to hear Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez denounce U.S. President George Bush during a speech to the United Nations General Assembly. It was biting, funny, insightful, and right on target. The cowardly Democrats are unwilling to really go after our truly dangerous leader, so it was refreshing to hear someone use an official lectern in this country to tell it like it is. And besides, despite the ridiculous denunciations of Chavez that have followed, Bush has been just as harsh with Chavez and other world leaders without being so roundly denounced for his lack of decorum and diplomacy.
But I was once again embarassed by our congressional representative, Nancy Pelosi, for joining the rhetorical lynch mob, and for the utterly ridiculous reduction of a head of state and the leader of the Latin American left to an “everyday thug.” As we approach the mid-term elections, Democrats should be demonstrating than they’re something other that the cowardly and unimaginative “me too” syncophants that much of the country suspects them of being. I’m beginning to fear that under Pelosi, the Democrats will never be anything more than has-beens and back-benchers, content to fiddle for spare change while the empire burns. It’s sad.

Redefining radicalism

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› news@sfbg.com The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has a 10-year history — which it marked Sept. 14 with an anniversary gala in Oakland — of aggressive opposition to police abuse, racism, economic injustice, and the get-tough policies that have created record-high incarceration rates. Those problems have only gotten worse over the last decade, despite some significant successes by the group in both Oakland and San Francisco. But these days, founder and director Van Jones sounds more like a hopeful optimist than an angry radical. “When we first got started, our politics were more about opposition than proposition,” Jones told the Guardian. “We were more clear what we were against than what we were for.” An organization once prone to shutting down the halls of power with sit-ins is now working on prison reform legislation, doing antiviolence public education campaigns, and promoting the potential for a green economy to revitalize West Oakland and other low-income communities. “Now, I’m in a place where I want to see the prisoners and the prison guards both come home and get some healing,” Jones said. Some of that transformation comes from Jones’s evolving critique of progressive political tactics, which he has come to see as ineffective. “Our generation would be better if we had a little less New Left and a little more New Deal.” But the change was also triggered by a personal epiphany of sorts following his unsuccessful effort to stop the passage in 2000 of Proposition 21, which sent more minors into the adult correctional system. “I went into a major depression and I almost quit being an activist,” Jones, an attorney who turns 38 this month, told us. “It was a very personal journey, but it had a big impact on the Ella Baker Center.” The change has made allies of former enemies, like radio station KMEL, which was vilified for selling out the Bay Area hip-hop culture after Clear Channel Communications purchased the station, but which is now helping the Ella Baker Center spread its antiviolence message. The center has also attracted a new breed of employees to its ranks of 24 full-time staffers, people like communications director Ben Wyskida, who moved here from his Philadelphia communications firm last October. As he told us, “What drew me to the Ella Baker Center was this message of hope.” Jones has a critique of the problems and those in power that is as radical as ever, noting that authoritarians have taken power and essentially dismantled our democratic institutions. But he’s moved from diagnosis to prescription, telling us, “I think the ‘fuck Bush’ conversation is over.” His new approach hasn’t always gone over well with his would-be allies. Environmental groups including Greenaction boycotted Mayor Gavin Newsom’s photo-op posturing during World Environment Day last year, and they were critical of Jones for validating the event and using their absence to grab the media spotlight for his green economy initiatives. But Jones tells us he doesn’t get rattled by criticism that he’s playing nice with the powerful because he remains committed to helping the underclass. “The most important thing is to know who you’re for and know your history.” And if the group’s 10th anniversary black-tie celebration in the Oakland Rotunda was any indication, the Ella Baker Center has more support now than at any other time in its history. The guest list for the event was a veritable who’s who of every major political, grassroots, and environmental organization on the West Coast. Guests included Code Pink cofounder Jodie Evans, Mother Jones publisher Jay Harris, and actor-activist Danny Glover. “Radical means root — that’s what we have always been addressing,” Jones told us at the event. “We used to spend a lot of time pointing out the hurt in the community. Now we connect the points of hope.” To Jones, hope means tying the need to save the planet from global warming to the need for economic development in Oakland. “Let’s make it into job opportunities for poor people and build a green economy strong enough to lift us out of poverty. That’s hope. We want to take people out of the prison cells, into solar cells.” Jones’s allies see him as a silver-tongued visionary, a lighting rod who can bridge movements with apparently differing agendas. Activist Julia Butterfly Hill, a longtime friend and political ally of Jones, told us at the event, “Van shows he cares and he’s human, and he puts himself out there on the line. That’s why you saw this coming together. This is the voice, this is the conversation that the planet is literally dying for, and I really mean sick and dying for.” The evening, a spirited celebration of hope and achievement, gave influential friends a chance to size up where the group has been and where it’s headed. As Harris of Mother Jones told us, “Van is a big thinker. He really engages people’s imaginations in terms of what could be. There’s one way, which is to fight against the system. Van’s way is to reimagine the system.” There to bless the event, Glover warmly heaped his own praise on Jones by comparing him to the Civil Rights Movement worker who is the organization’s namesake. “When I think of Ella Baker and what she stood for, Van carries on that work, and I think that’s vital. We envision ourselves through the women and men that set a certain standard. Van sets a certain standard.” SFBG www.ellabakercenter.org

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