Tim Redmond

Doug Chan, PG&E’s man at City Hall

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By Tim Redmond

Matt Smith, the SF Weekly columnist, did a little investigative reporting last week and discovered that Doug Chan, candidate for supervisor from District 4, does, indeed, live in the district, has a messy house and hasa neighbor who complains about him hogging the laundry room. But after what appears to have been a brief conversation (summarized in a couple of paragraphs), Smith concludes that Chan is really a hell of a guy, and would be a fine supervisor. (He main claim to fame, according to Smith, is that he thinks “ideology is killing San Francisco.”) What an ass.

Smith’s bang-up investigation, however, missed a little fact that’s easily accessible to anyone who checks some state and local public records. Chan is an attorney for Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

In fact, California Public Utilities Commission records show that Chan’s law firm, Chan, Doi and Leal, has received more than $200,000 in legal fees from the utility in the past two years. Chan himself, as a partner, has pocketed at least $10,000 of that money, according to his economic interest statements.

It’s hard to figure out what Chan has done for PG&E — he clearly doesn’t do utilities law (or much else that fits PG&E’s needs, according to his own website.)

Should the city elect a candidate who has derived a substantial amount of his personal income from one of the greatest lawbreakers in town, a company the city is fighting now over public power in Bayview Hunters Point and will be fighting bitterly over citywide public power in the next few years?

Matt?

Macy’s loses

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By Tim Redmond

Sometimes you settle a lawsuit, and sometimes you roll the dice and fight.

Back in 2001, the San Francisco supervisors voted to cough up some $80 million in cash to pay off a group of big corporations that claimed the city’s business tax was unconstitutional. It was a close call — the city attorney warned that if the city fought and lost, the potential liability could have reached $500 million.

There were a few crazy dissenters — Matt Gonzalez and me, and not a whole lot of others — who said, in effect, let’s take the chance: These assholes wanted to soak the city for a bunch of money at a time when corporate America was rolling in the dough, thanks in part to Bush Administration tax cuts at the federal level. Fuck ’em — we’ll see you in court.

But cooler heads prevailed, and the city settled with all but one of the 52 companies. One holdout — Macy’s (the greedy pricks) — decided not to accept the settlement and to push the case and squeeze every drop possible out of the taxpayers. Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled in Macy’s favor, awarding the company $13 million. It looked as if the supes had done the smart thing settling with everyone else.

And then yesterday, the Court of Appeal overturned Macy’s award, saying that the $13 million refund was excessive. The giant retailer — where I will never again shop, by the way — gets only pocket change, a few hundred grand.

Of course, the court didn’t re-instate the tax; this was only a small part of the case. But still, Macy’s lost, big. Makes me wonder what might have happened if we’d never settled with any of the Filthy 52.

Macy’s loses

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By Tim Redmond

Sometimes you settle a lawsuit, and sometimes you roll the dice and fight.

Back in 2001, the San Francisco supervisors voted to cough up some $80 million in cash to pay off a group of big corporations that claimed the city’s business tax was unconstitutional. It was a close call — the city attorney warned that if the city fought and lost, the potential liability could have reached $500 million.

There were a few crazy dissenters — Matt Gonzalez and me, and not a whole lot of others — who said, in effect, let’s take the chance: These assholes wanted to soak the city for a bunch of money at a time when corporate America was rolling in the dough, thanks in part to Bush Administration tax cuts at the federal level. Fuck ’em — we’ll see you in court.

But cooler heads prevailed, and the city settled with all but one of the 52 companies. One holdout — Macy’s (the greedy pricks) — decided not to accept the settlement and to push the case and squeeze every drop possible out of the taxpayers. Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer ruled in Macy’s favor, awarding the company $13 million. It looked as if the supes had done the smart thing settling with everyone else.

And then yesterday, the Court of Appeal overtuned Macy’s award, saying that the $13 million refund was excessive. The giant retailer — where I will never again shop, by the way — gets only pocket change, a few hundred grand.

Of course, the court didn’t re-instate the tax; this was only a small part of the case. But still, Macy’s lost, big. Makes me wonder what might have happened if we’d never settled with any of the Filthy 52.

Exposing SFSOS

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By Tim Redmond

Very nice piece by Daniela Kirshenbaum in the latest Fog City Journal, detailing some of thenasty history of SFSOS, the group that’s pushing big for Rob Black for supervisor in District Six. Among her other interesting points: Wade Randlett of SFSOS (which loves to push for lax restrictions on condo conversions and TICs) is a founder and major stockholder of E-Loan, a company that’s pushing TIC mortgages.

On drinking

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By Tim Redmond

There are all kinds of sordid (maybe sad is the better word) things you can say about the 39-year-old mayor dating a 20-year-old. But frankly, I’m not going to get all agitated about whether she has been drinking.

I was drinking when I was 20. Actually, I was drinking when I was 17. I those days, in New York State, the law was 18, and not tightly enforced. And guess what: Nothing terrible happened to me. In fact, I’d argue that the sort of binge drinking we see on college campuses now is directly related to the foolish 21-year-old age rule. When I was in school, it was perfectly normal to go to a local bar and have a beer — not 15 beers, just one or two. Now that a single damn beer is contraband, kids have more incentive to overdo it when it’s available, and less chance to develop a mature relationship with booze.

You can get married, go in the Army and get killed, buy a house … just about anything at 18. Except legally buy a beer. Pretty stupid.

On parenting

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By Tim Redmond

It’s no surprise, I guess, that Jon Carroll has the most intelligent commentary on the whole Pete Wilson fiasco. His point:

“Every adventure in parenting is trial and error, generally performed by people totally unqualified for the task. I think of myself at 23, which is how old I was when my first daughter was born, and I think: Would I entrust an infant to this man? Absolutely not.”

Me, I think of myself at 41, when my son was born, and I ask the same questions. I ask them almost every day. And yet, as the always-encouraging Carroll points out:

“Here’s the thing: My wife and my older daughter both grew up into strong, well-mannered adults. Not perfect humans, but not felons or oil company executives either. The experiment worked; most of the experiments work. It is my belief that a lot of who the kid is and who she’s going to be is already there, in her nature. The best thing parents can do is provide food, shelter and a safe environment. Love your kids, teach your kids, play with your kids — and you’re doing it right. The kid will be who the kid will be; the fun part is finding out who she is.”

So much for Pete Wilson.

The Dufty baby boom

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By Tim Redmond

The press conference denouncing Pete Wilson went pretty well, and got surprisingly good and positive coverage. Strange bit, though: Dufty, the guy this was all about, didn’t show up — and in fact, wrote an email to the radio talk-show host saying he hopes he doesn’t lose his job.

Which may seem to show Dufty has class and is above the fray and all — but it made his allies, who stood there on the steps of City Hall to denounce homophbia and support him and his family — kinda look like idiots.

Nathan Nayman on the outs?

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By Tim Redmond

The Committe on JOBS chief may be facing the axe, according to “rumors-a-swirling” reported by Luke Thomas in Fog City Journal. The problem: Nayman is too confrontational, and the downtown forces are sick of getting nothing done.

Dufty’s a conservative

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By Tim Redmond

Well, not exactly — but a fascinating and incredibly detailed analysis of Dufty’s voting record, put together by Michael Poremeba in BeyondChron, indicates that he’s far more conservative than his district.

And while I’m on ol’ BC: I’ve had a lot of differences with Randy Shaw in the past year, but I must say, Paul Hogarth’s coverage of Prop. 90 has been excellent.

Now if only the big papers in the state would start doing stories like this.

The D6 sleaze reaches high tide

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By Tim Redmond

For starters, don’t the over-funded losers who are attacking Sup. Chris Daly have anything better to do than keep on circulating the same old image?

This comes from one of six — count ’em, six — expensive attack mailers aimed at ousting Daly, one of the city’s most progressive and hard-working supervisors.

Before I get into the ugly politics, let me give a bit of background on the photo.

Pete Wilson’s bizarre homophobia

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By Tim Redmond

This one’s out of right field: Pete Wilson, who has a radio show on KGO, announced yesterday afternoon that Sup. Bevan Dufty and his old friend Rebecca Goldfader, should never have had a child. His argument: Since Dufty is gay and Goldfader is a lesbian, their co-parenting arrangement somehow isn’t as good as a “traditional” family in which the two parents are sleeping together. (I mean, having sex; if Dufty and Godlfader are like any other parents of a newborn, neither of them is sleeping much at all and when they do they’re playing musical beds — the baby’s here, the baby’s there, one of us is with him, or both of us, and nobody knows who’s going to wake up where.)

Left in SFhas the details, and a link to the show. Here’s what the station is saying about it, which is almost too strange to comprehend:

The Village Voice gets lamer

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By Tim Redmond
Well, I’m a bit late on this, but Gawker had a great little item on how lame the Voice has become under its new management.

EDITOR’S NOTES

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› tredmond@sfbg.com
I get a little nervous when I hear prominent Democratic leaders talking about how important it is to elect John Garamendi lieutenant governor. Republican Tom McClintock, his ugly-right Republican foe, is such bad news that he must be stopped; the checkbooks need to come out and the boots need to hit the ground.
I don’t disagree on one level — but the prospect of a bad lieutenant governor isn’t by any means the scariest thing that could happen in November. In fact, the prospect of another four years of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the scariest thing. That designation is reserved for Proposition 90.
And the situation with Prop. 90 is pretty damn scary.
This is a measure that would effectively end the ability of state and local government to regulate business. It would prevent any new law reguutf8g rents or condo conversion. It would halt most new zoning (and would allow developers to build almost anything they want in Southeast San Francisco). It’s awful, awful, awful.
And right now, it’s way ahead in the polls.
There’s a reason for that: the right-wing backers have carefully hidden the worst of the measure behind language about halting the abuses of eminent domain. If you ask California voters whether the government should be able to seize someone’s house to hand it over to a private developer who wants to build a Wal-Mart, 90 percent of them will say no. And if we hit Nov. 7 and the majority of the electorate thinks of this proposition as a way to protect homeowners, it’s going to pass.
The No on 90 message is a bit more complicated. That’s the problem with this sort of Trojan horse initiative — it’s hard to explain why it’s bad in a 30-second sound bite. But it’s possible: every single public safety group in the state (cops, firefighters, etc.) is against it, as is every major environmental group and some of the big taxpayer-rights groups, who say it will cost the public a fortune and lead to bogus lawsuits.
Explain it right and the voters will get it — but in California, that’s a very expensive proposition.
The airwaves are choked with political TV ads right now. Schwarzenegger and Phil Angelides are beating each other up, the tobacco companies and the health industry are battling over the cigarette tax (Proposition 86), the oil companies and environmentalists are going at it over Proposition 87 — and needless to say, with all the numerical alphabet soup, the public’s attention is a bit scattered.
Without a really big splash in the next few weeks, it will be hard for No on 90 to be heard above the din.
The campaign isn’t by any means floundering. The two main No on 90 committees have raised more than $3 million and have about half of that still in the bank. But $1.5 million isn’t going to be enough to make the case in a huge state where TV time is really expensive.
Most of the money right now comes from political action committees controlled by the League of California Cities, the State Association of Counties, and a few well-heeled businesses. But everyone needs to step up here; all these Democrats who have big stashes of money (Carole Migden, John Burton, etc.) need to get on the stick before we run out of time. SFBG

Editors notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com
There’s something scary happening in Bayview–Hunters Point, and it’s not the redevelopment bulldozers.
For some reason that I find hard to understand, community leaders like Willie Ratcliff and Marie Harrison, who are opposed to the Redevelopment Agency’s plan for that neighborhood, have signed on with a frightening gang of radical right-wing property rights advocates. The result: Harrison was standing at an antiredevelopment rally last week urging voters to support Proposition 90, almost certainly the worst piece of legislation to face California voters since Proposition 13 devastated local government in 1978.
Prop. 90 would indeed limit the ability of government agencies to seize private land for other private projects. That’s why the redevelopment foes like it. But it goes much, much further. Under Prop. 90, no local government could do anything — anything — that might reduce the value of private land without paying the owner compensation. That means no new tenant protection laws (which could cost a landlord money). No more zoning laws that reduce the maximum development potential of a lot (of course, that means no zoning controls against luxury condos that would displace local business and residents in Bayview). No new environmental or workplace safety laws.
It also places a swift and powerful kick to the midsection of any effort to seize Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s local grid and create a real public power system; under Prop. 90’s rules, that would be prohibitively expensive.
I talked to Harrison about this, and she told me she “didn’t read the law that way.” But this isn’t just a matter of opinion; it’s clear fact, and everyone with any sense realizes it.
It gets worse: I was at a New College event Sept. 29 when Renee Saucedo, the immigrant rights lawyer, asked everyone to vote yes on 90. She told me she trusted Ratcliff and Harrison.
Prop. 90 is almost unimaginably bad. If its supporters can make inroads in San Francisco, I’m very afraid. SFBG

Youth and Dan Kelly

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By Tim Redmond

Peter Lauterborn, former member of the San Francisco Youth Commission, weighs in on the School Board race at BeyondChron. His message: It’s time for Dan Kelly to go.

More on Prop. 90

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By Tim Redmond

Interesting item in the Califonria Progress Report about the unsually broad coalition that’s come together to oppose prop. 90 — and the very narrow well-funded interests behind it.

You can find out more about this hideous measure here.

Really scary

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By Tim Redmond

I had a really scary moment tonight.

it started well — I was moderating a discussion on immigration politics at New College, featuring Justin Akers Chacon, who has written a new book called “Nobody is Illegal.” Renee Saucedo, a longtime advocate for immigrants and day laborers, was on the panel, too, and we had a great discussion — until the very end, when Saucedo starting talking about how she was trying to build coalitions between immigrants and African Americans in Bayview Hunters Point, organizing around opposition in that neighborhood the the redevelopment plan.

And out of nowhere, she urged everyone to vote yes on Proposition 90.

For the record, Prop. 90 is almost indescribably horrible. It’s a radical right wing property-rights measure that would instantly halt any new environmental laws, any new rent-control laws, any new workplace safety laws, any new zoning laws, any limits on evictions or condo coversions … it would effectively stop government regulation of private property in California.

So why was Saucedo, a smart lawyer and strong progressive, supporting it? Because Willie Ratcliff, the publisher of the San Francisco Bay View, and Marie Harrison, a candidate for supervisor from District 10, are so dead-set against redevevelopment that they’ve signed on with the worst of the right-wing nuts in the state to endorse a measure that claims to be limiting eminent domain but is so much, much more.

I’ve discussd this with Harrison; she totally doesn’t get it. Neither, for now, does Renee Saucedo. I understand their fear of redevelopment seizing people’s homes — and I understand Saucedo’s desire to build ties with and follow the lead of African American community leaders. But get a clue, my friends. This is embarassing.

If people like Renee Saucedo are getting duped into supporting the worst law to come along in California since Prop. 13, we’re in serious trouble.

No more Will and Willie

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By Tim Redmond
I showed up Thursday morning of the Clear Channel studios on Townsend Street to appear on KQKE’s morning talk show, Keepin’ it Real with WIll and Willie, featuring comedian Will Durst and former Mayor Willie Brown, and the producer met me at the door with some sad news: The show had been cancelled, summarily. Two more days on the air. As of Monday morning, the Will and Willie show would be gone.

I’m told the show had a decent (if not stellar) listener base, and was making money. But not enough money — the way Clear Channel sees things, it’s entirely about the bottom line. So the locally produced show that actually took on local issues will be replaced with The Stephanie Miller Show, a syndicated program out of L.A. I’m sure the show is great, and funny and everything else that a lot of Air American programming is — but it’s not about San Francisco. It’s not local.

Once upon a time — and it wasn’t really all that long ago — local radio stations had at least some responsibility to cover local news and issues. Now the Quake, like the rest of the local Clear Channel line up, will have no real local anything, except traffic.

I never thought I’d say this, but we’ll miss you, Willie Brown.

Editor’s Notes

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› tredmond@sfbg.com
So much going on this week: the cops and the San Francisco Police Commission are heading for a battle over secrecy, the cops and the supervisors are headed for a battle over foot patrols — and Mayor Gavin Newsom is heading for a battle with homeless advocates over a new round of sweeps at Golden Gate Park. The mayor and the local gendarmes can’t win any of this without community support and would do far better to stop trying to fight these battles.
Then there’s redevelopment and the city attorney … and we might as well get started:
•The state Supreme Court ruled a couple of weeks ago that all police disciplinary records have to be kept secret. It’s an awful decision, and San Francisco needs to find a way around it if at all possible. Some police commissioners, starting with David Campos, want to do that, but City Attorney Dennis Herrera is interpreting the law very conservatively and not offering the commission a lot of options.
Why not make public all the charges against cops with the individual officers’ names redacted? At least the community would know that some cops are improperly shooting people, giving liquor to minors, beating up people of color, beating up their spouses … and at least we’d all have a way to demand some policy changes. Or why not tell bad cops facing disciplinary hearings that they can plea bargain for a lenient sentence — and waive their rights to privacy — or take their chance in a full commission trial, where they will face termination if they lose? Let’s think here, people: this is too important to just give up. San Franciscans aren’t going to accept a secret police state.
•The mayor and the police chief are still fighting against Sup. Ross Mirkarimi’s plan to put cops on foot in high-crime areas. That’s a loser, Mr. Mayor. Nobody thinks that your current plans are working.
•After visiting Central Park in New York City — which is run by and for a private group of rich people — Newsom has decided to clear all the homeless people out of Golden Gate Park. Let me offer a little reality here: people sleep in the park because they have no place else to go. You cut their welfare payments and let the price of housing skyrocket, this is what you get. Sweep them out and they won’t disappear: they’ll sleep on the streets in the Haight and the Sunset and the Richmond. There’s a great campaign issue.
Besides, Golden Gate Park, homeless and all, is generally a safe, pleasant place, with only minor crime problems. But kids are dying on the streets only a few hundred yards away in the Western Addition. We don’t have enough cops to walk the beat where they could save lives — but we have enough to roust the homeless?
•Herrera, who’s got his hands full of ugly messes this week, tossed a referendum on the Bayview Hunters Point Redevelopment Plan off the ballot because each of the petitions didn’t have the entire plan attached. For the record, the plan is 62 pages. If this is the standard — an entire plan has to be copied and printed with every single petition — then as a practical matter, nobody in California can ever do a referendum on a redevelopment project. I suspect that’s not what Hiram Johnson had mind. SFBG

The 2006 political candidates let loose with us

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(For our 2006 endorsements, click here.)

Guardian endorsement interviews are, well, unusual: We bring in candidates for office, set aside as much as an hour or more, and quiz them about local issues. Sometimes we argue; sometimes the candidates yell at us. Nobody pulls any punches. They are lively political debates, fascinating discussions of political policy – and high political theater.

For the first time this year, we’re posting digital versions of these interviews, so our readers can get front-row seats for all the action.

Participants include Editor and Publisher Bruce B. Brugmann, Executive Editor Tim Redmond, City Editor Steven T. Jones and reporters Sarah Phelan, G.W. Schulz and Amanda Witherell. If you’re confused about who’s speaking, here’s a handy guide: If the question is long and involved and about tax policy, it’s probably Tim. If it’s about an incumbent’s record or personal style, it’s probably Steve. George asks about criminal justice a lot; Sarah has a British accent. Everybody knows Bruce’s voice; you can’t miss it. Enjoy.

Sup. Sophie Maxwell
“Redevelopment in the Bay View is different.”
Listen to the Maxwell interview

Sup. Bevan Dufty
“I’m willing to piss people off on both sides of the [landlord-tenant] issue.”
Listen to the Dufty interview

Jaynry Mak, candidate for supervisor, District 4
“I would have to look at it.”
Listen to the Mak interview

Alix Rosenthal, candidate for supervisor, District 8
“We’re going to make it extremely expensive to build market-rate housing, in terms of the community benefits.”
Listen to the Rosenthal interview

Mauricio Vela, candidate for school board
“I probably would lean toward getting rid of [ROTC} … but it would be difficult.”
Listen to the Vela interview

Marie Harrison, candidate for supervisor, District 10
“The one thing I did learn from Willie Brown is that an MOU means I understand that you understand that I don’t have to do a damn thing on this paper.”
Listen to the Harrison interview

Starchild, candidate for supervisor, District 8, and Philip Berg, Libertarian candidate for Congress
“Nobody will invade Switzerland. Everyone has guns, M-16s and AK-47s and grenade launchers in their living rooms.”
Listen to the Starchild-Berg interview

Bruce Wolfe, candidate for community college board
“When you ask where the money is, you want a trail where the money is, the answer you get is it’s in a fungible account.”
Listen to the Wolfe interview

Kim-Shree Maufas, candidate for school board
“My kid was in JROTC …. I like the community, I liked the structure, I liked the commitment to family… I absolutely could not stand the military recruitment.”
Listen to part one of the Maufas interview
Listen to part two of the Maufas interview

Hydra Mendoza, candidate for school board
“There are some schools that are not serving our children.”
Listen to the Mendoza interview

Krissy Keefer, Green Party candidate for Congress
“I’m running against a ghost”
Listen to the Keefer interview

John Garamendi, candidate for lieutenant governor
“Phil Angeledes is wrong [about taxes] in the context of our time.”
Listen to the Garamendi interview

Dan Kelly, school board member
“I don’t think JROTC is a terrific program … it doesn’t teach leadership skills, it teaches follow-ship skills.”
Listen to the Kelly interview

Rob Black, candidate for supervisor, District 6
“Developers have fancy lawyers and they know how to get around things.”
Listen to the Black interview

The bogus terror plot

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By Tim Redmond

leave it to Wonkette to demonstrate why the terrorists who were going to blow up a plane with carry-on liquids were pretty bogus threats. At least one expert points out that it’s almost impossible to mix a bomb out of ordinary materials in an aircraft loo.

City attorney and the cops

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By Tim Redmond

City Attorney Dennis Herrera released his official opinion on how the Police Commisison has to respond the the utterly horrible California Supreme Court decision on secrecy in police discipline cases. I’m not happy.

I realize that the Supreme Court has spoken on this, and that the city attorney of San Francisco can’t just openly defy the Supremes. But there are some (small) openings in the ruling; among other things, it specifies that records in police discipline cases have to be closed, but pointedly does not address the issue of open hearings. Herrera’s opinion pretty much says there’s not a damn thing the Police Commission can do other than shut down all public access to information about cops who have behaved badly. I like and respect Herrera, but I have to side with Poice Commission vice president David Campos, who told me this afternoon that “if there’s even a small opening, we should try to pursue it.”

Jesus — not again

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By Tim Redmond

Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission are interested in pursuing tidal energy off the Godlen Gate. This is an excellent development, something that Matt Gonzalez pushed for when he was running for mayor. It’s a way to generate huge amounts of renewable energy for the city and apparently is cost-effective.

There’s only one flaw – and as far as I’m concerned, it’s fatal.

From the Chron story Sept 19:

“The city is in negotiations with a number of companies that could help run the turbines and cover the costs. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is among them, said Jared Blumenfeld, director of the city’s Department of the Environment. ”

Holy shit, here we go again.

PG&E, which stole the city’s renewable electric power 80 years ago when the dam at Hetch Hetchy Valley began generating electricity, now wants to steal the power of the Golden Gate tides, too.

Memo to the PUC and the Department of Environment: Any tidal energy project has to be built, run and controlled by the city, as part of a public-power system. If PG&E has even the tiniest bit of involvement in the deal, it will be shot down as corrupt and unacceptable. Don’t even think about it.

Will Herrera fight the cops?

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By Tim Redmond

The Police Commission held a long, long closed session tonight, and I’m sure they were discussing the big issue of the day — the California Supreme Court decision that the cops insist makes all cases of discipline against peace officers totally secret.

I have no idea how the behind-closed-doors discussion went — but I do know that Commission vice-president David Campos, who is acting as a courageous champion of public access here, told me several days ago that he was going to push his colleagues not to bow down to the police lobby. He wants to keep disciplinary hearings open, to the greatest extent possible. But that will require some courage from CIty Attorney Dennis Herrera, too — the kind of courage Herrera showed in backing the city’s decision to issue same-sex marriage licenses, in defiance of the established legal authorities. There’s a way to do the same thing here — to say that San Francisco will not simply give up on public scrutiny of police misconduct: Keep the hearings open, and force the cops to sue. Then fight them all the way, and try to make better law.

Dennis?

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