Tim Redmond

OMG this is horrifying

-
22

By Tim Redmond

Jesus, this is about as bad as it gets: The Chron now has a blog by two Getty brothers writing about what it’s like to be rich:

By the way: there are slews of people richer than we are, just in this neighborhood. We’re more famous for being rich than we really are rich. But we have enough to belong to the leisure class, meaning we get to spend very little of our time doing anything we don’t feel like, and we have means to sample, if not to gorge on, pleasures that most people, sad to say, won’t likely ever share in — things like yacht trips and safaris, ludicrously expensive wine, and private jet travel. You can be richer than we are, but you can’t live a whole lot better without mere ostentation

And:

You can easily make far better hot dogs at home than they give you in the luxury boxes.

I mean, I’m stunned. I don’t even know where to start.

Why homicides are down

-
7

By Tim Redmond

I’ve always been fascinated by this trend: The number of near-fatal shootings in San Francisco greatly exceeds the number of homicides, and while the mayor trumpets the falling murder rate, the number of people shot in the city isn’t dropping at all.

What’s happening? Well, I’m with Sup. Ross Mirkarimi:

San Francisco General Hospital’s trauma unit, one of the best in the country and where virtually all gunshot victims in The City are treated, also deserves some credit, Mirkarimi said.

“They are an unsung hero in this case,” he said.

Let’s face it: The reason only 20 people are dead from homidices in San Francisco so far this year is in part because the folks at the SF General Trauma Center are stitching a lot of shooting victims back together and keeping them alive. In a lot of places in the world (and sad to say, in a lot of places in the US) the number of people who dies after getting shot would be considerably higher.

And I wonder: At some point, will all these cuts to the public health budget start to impact the Trauma Center? And at that point, will the homicide rate go up — not because of more shootings but because we can’t afford as a city to save as many lives?

Grim thought, but sadly appropriate.

Prison report: Dumping on the counties

-
3

By Just A Guy


Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. You can read his last piece, and links to previous ones, here. He will try to respond to all commments, but since communicating from prison is tricky, it may take a while.

How is it that California is going to try and address the prison overcrowding issue and budget shortfall by making crimes that were felonies misdemeanors? Isn’t this rather like borrowing from Pete to pay Paul?

An article in the Wall Street Journal goes over this idea.

Just because the state isn’t, technically, paying for the inmates housed in county jails doesn’t mean that the people of the state aren’t paying for it. I certainly see that a long-term solution is to reduce crimes and lower the prison population through more progressive sentencing laws, and de-criminalizing some things, AND providing rehabilitation. But I just don’t get how this plan is going to help with the current problem of California’s budget deficit or the huge overcrowding problem.

The bottom line, according to representatives from counties across the state, is that our local jails are already at, or near capacity, and that all that is going to happen is a large portion of the prison population (20,000) will shift to county jails. This will, ultimately, cause an increase in crime.

Where’s Gavin?

-
1

By Tim Redmond

So here’s a good one. After Newsom attacked the supervisors in this morning’s Chron, Board President David Chiu and Budget Committee Chair John Avalos decided to pay the mayor a visit. “We wanted to show that we’re open about talking, negotiating on the budget,” Chiu told us. “So we walked into his office to see if he would meet with us.”

Uh, small problem there: “We were told the mayor was out of town.”

Will the Assembly repeal the corporate tax breaks?

-
0

By Tim Redmond

I talked to Assemblymember Tom Ammiano today, and he’s upbeat about the role his house may play in the budget process. He thinks the governor’s threat to shut down the state is just “scare tactics to make the Legislature look bad” and that the Assembly isn’t prepared to accept a “cuts only” budget. “We’re not going to roll over,” he said.

Among other things, he said, the $2.5 billion in tax giveaways to big corporations cpuld be repealed with a simply majority. So the Democratic leadership ought to be making that a priority, and talking it up in the media — would people rather see their state parks close and teachers be fired — or see a tiny number of giant businesses get more tax breaks?

Calitics points out that the CalTaxReform folks have identified $10 billion in new revenue measure that all appear to have majority support in the polls.

So let’s hope the top Democrats call Arnold’s bluff, and offer some real alterntives.

Obama and DOMA — Ok, this is fucked

-
6

By Tim Redmond

President Obama says he wants to see the Defense of Marriage Act repealed. So why is his Justice Department defending that ridiculous law in court — and in the process, making all kinds of needless disparaging statements about gay people? Ick.

“I am,” Assemblymember Tom Ammiano told us today, “very, very disappointed.”

Me too.

The administration says that DOJ has to defend federal laws that are on the books, but that’s nonsense — the attorney general could decline to defend an indefensible law — and could also make the arguments without invoking incest.

The Chron misquotes Campos

-
5

By Tim Redmond

Sup. David Campos, who has been not only a solid progressive vote but a strong leader on city budget issues, is getting slammed today for his comments about white men — comments that were misquoted and taken out of context by the Chronicle.

Campos and Sups. Chris Daly and John Avalos have been pushing back — hard — against the bad priorities and brutal cuts in Mayor Gavin Newsom’s budget.

In fact, in a stunning political move that sets the tone for what will be a contentious budget debate, the supervisors Budget Committee yesterday sought to shift some $80 million from law-enforcement to social services. The move came during debate on what’s usually a routine issue — approving an interim budget to keep the city going for a few weeks, between the time the supervisors start discussing the budget and the time they finally approve it.

On a 3-2 vote, the committee declined to sign off on the mayor’s interim plan and instead set very different priorities. That won’t have any immediate impact (Newsom won’t have to cut police and fire spending in July) but it sent a message that this board isn’t going to simply tinker with the budget. There’s going to be a complete overhaul.

In the process, Campos blasted Newsom’s claim that the budget was nearly “pefect,” saying that “It’s a perfect budget only if you’re a wealthy, straight white man from Pacific Heights.” That’s possibly a bit of hyperbole, but it’s generally accurate — the budget is fine if you don’t want to pay more taxes and you don’t need the sort of city services that working-class and poor people rely on.

But the Chron got the quote completely wrong. In the edition that hit the streets this morning, Marisa Lagos quoted Campos as saying the budget was perfect “if you’re a straight, white male.” That, obviously, made the comment far more inflammatory — there are, as Campos well knows, plenty of poor people who are straight, white and male. “I’ve been getting hate emails, nasty calls, people calling me a racist,” Campos told us.

BeyondChron busted the Chron this morning for getting the quote wrong, and it’s corrected now in the online version. Campos isn’t backing down: “I stand by what I said. We are devastating services for poor people and people of color,” he said.

So the budget battle begins, with a bang. Good for Campos, Avalos and David Chiu, who voted to shift the budget priorities; they realize, as does anyone who goes beyond political soundbites and stops to think about it, that cutting health and human services leads to more crime, and that paying more for cops isn’t the only — or even the best — way to keep the public safe.

Prison report will return

-
0

By Tim Redmond

Just A Guy, our prison correspondent, has a court date and won’t be writing today’s column, but he’ll be back shortly.

The Catholics and the Nazis

-
2

By Tim Redmond

The radical right wing of the Catholic Church really has no business using the image of Nazi Germany to discredit critics. The history books (and the doctrine of glass houses) suggest a few problems with that game.

But the Thomas More Law Center, which represents the Catholic League (that group of wingos who don’t like the Folsom Street Fair) is up in arms over the fact that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has concluded that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors “>had the right to criticize Church positions.

And the openly anti-gay bigots dared to say this:

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Law Center remarked, “It is not a stretch to compare the San Francisco Board’s actions to that of the Nazi Germany policy of Gleichschaltung: vilifying Jews as an auxiliary to and laying the groundwork for more repressive policies, including the final solution of extermination. The policy of San Francisco is one of totalitarian intolerance of Christians of all denominations who oppose homosexual conduct. My concern is that if this ruling is allowed to stand, it will further embolden anti-Christian attacks.

The whole episode is kind of silly — the supervisors simply called on William (“Darth”) Levada to back off on his position that guy familes shouldn’t be allowed to adopt kids. (Which is, by the way, about the most anti-Christian position imaginable.)

The Catholics (who are happy to get tax exemptions, put biblical messages in public places, allow prayer in public schools, cheat the city out of transfer taxes and park in the middle of the Goddamn street) say the resolution was a violation of the separation of church and state.

As they say in New York, yagattabekiddin.

State budget secrets: $2.5 billion in tax giveaways

-
0

By Megan Rawlins

There’s no building-sized rock in Sacramento hiding 264 tons of cash – the approximate weight of the state’s budget deficit measured in $100 bills. But groups like the California Budget Project and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have published reports arguing there are smaller rocks, $100-million rocks, $1-billion rocks that can save services for some of the state’s most vulnerable populations.

In fact, according to a report CPB released June 3, the state Legislature quietly added three new corporate tax breaks in the last round of budget cuts — and just closing those loopholes could save the state up to $2.5 billion a year. The tax-law changes provide multi-million dollar tax breaks to a small nadful of the state’s largest corporations.

“Why,” Jean Ross, executive director of CBP, asked, “is the state giving away money?”

Editor’s Notes

-
0

Tredmond@sfbg.com

The long, long battle to get civilian oversight for the BART police is coming to a head, and the BART Board could be voting soon on a proposal. To nobody’s surprise, the battle lines pit the community activists, the progressives on the BART Board, and police-review experts against the BART police and general manager.

In essence, the cops and the GM want to be sure that the police chief or the general manager (who hires and fires the chief) have the final say over any police discipline. The community wants either the BART Board or an independent citizen commission to have the final say.

It’s a crucial issue, as we’ve seen over and over again in San Francisco. Police chiefs don’t tend to be terribly good about taking disciplinary action against the troops; they all started in the rank and file themselves, and they’re close with the others on the "Thin Blue Line," and when one of their own is criticized, they circle the wagons. Most chiefs don’t want any sort of civilian review that undermines their authority.

BART is leaning toward creating an independent police auditor, which could work — but only if the auditor (who would report to the BART Board) has the authority to go over the chief’s head. If the auditor finds evidence of misconduct and the chief won’t file charges, or the chief finds misconduct and imposes discipline so mild it’s pointless, the auditor has to be able to appeal. And the best forum for that appeal is a citizen commission.

At the June 8 meeting of BART’s police policy subcommittee, the two representatives of the police union flat out refused to go along with that idea. So did General Manager Dorothy Dugger, who has never been very supportive of police reform. But a 5-4 majority of the committee, including board members Tom Radulovich and Lynette Sweet, seems in favor of model that at least has the outlines of positive reform.

And if the BART Board — which is not the most progressive institution on the planet (and not the hardest-working or most effective, either) decides to go with the cops on this one, Assembly Member Tom Ammiano will have all the evidence he needs to pass a bill in Sacramento forcing BART to do this right. *

Village Voice Media sues East Bay Express owners

-
2

By Tim Redmond

The newspaper chain that owns SF Weekly is suing the independent owners of the East Bay Express for $500,000 in a case that, ironically, shows how the big media outfit is trying to duck its own debts.

The lawsuit comes out of the 2007 deal under which Steve Buel, Hal Brody and a few other investors bought the Express from Village Voice Media, the national alternative press chain that owns the Weekly and 14 other papers.

As part of the deal, the local owners put up an undisclosed amount in cash and agreed to pay VVM $500,000 two years later. Buel, the longtime editor of the Express, and Brody, who formerly owned a weekly in Kansas City, had to guarantee the half-million-dollar note with their personal assets.

The sales agreement was a bit complicated. VVM owned both the SF Weekly and the Express, and the two papers had been selling joint ad buys to clients. So divorcing that partnership, and allowing the newly independed Express to compete effectively in the market, required some unusual terms. Among other things, VVM agreed not to use its position as the former owner of the Express, with full access to account records and sales contacts to poach Express clients.

However, Brody told us, the big chain started to violate that agreement almost immediately. “We have massive claims against them for violating those terms,” he said.

“The SF Weekly is not supposed to solicit our advertisers in Alameda and Contra Costa, and they’ve been doing it, over and over.”

PE credit for JROTC up tonight

-
11

Editors note: The San Francisco School Board will vote tonight on a convoluted plan to allow physical education credit for JROTC. Since the military-recruitment program doesn’t meet state standards for PE, the board is trying a runaround — students would get “independent study” gym credit if they sign up for JROTC.

Marc Norton, who has been in the forefront of the opposition to JROTC, sent us this commentary:

by Marc Norton

Right-wing Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders jumped into the JROTC end-game with an opinion piece on Sunday. In April, Saunders, who endorsed John McCain for President, opined that “In Obamaland… the left chants, ‘torture doesn’t work…’ But common sense tells you that techniques like sleep deprivation [and] waterboarding… work, at least some times.”

In her latest rant, Saunders recounts the pro-JROTC mythology at length, but her real play is to torture the truth with the claim that the California Board of Education has “said local school districts have the authority to offer PE [physical education] credits for JROTC.”

What the California Board of Education actually did was revise its Physical Education Framework to say that JROTC classes “may not” meet PE standards, instead of “do not” meet PE standards. But, “if a district desires to award physical education credit for courses such as JROTC, marching band, cheerleading, and drill, it is the responsibility of the district to determine how each particular course, as conducted in its district, supports a course of study for grades nine through twelve… and substantially meets the objectives and criteria” for state PE curriculum and credentialing requirements.

Those who have followed the JROTC story know that bipartisan efforts in the state Legislature have tightened up PE standards in recent years because of the crisis of physical fitness among our youth, particularly low-income youth and youth of color. That is why PE credit has been withdrawn from JROTC programs all over the state, including San Francisco.

In fact, a recent report from San Diego compared physical fitness records of students who took PE and those who did not. Fitnessgram results for JROTC students actually declined during the same period that results for students in PE increased. The Fitnessgram is the test students generally take in the 9th or 10th grade to show their progress in physical education.

Guardian wins four awards

-
3

Three Bay Guardian stories won awards from the Peninsula Press Club, it was announced June 6. The paper’s staff was also honored for general excellence.

“Dirty secrets under the big top,” an investigation into the Ringling Brothers circus by Steven T. Jones, won first place in the Business Story category. Jones was also honored with a second-place award for analysis for his story on the anti-war movement, “Resistance is futile — or is it?.”

The award for Best Editorial in the non-daily category went to Tim Redmond for a piece calling for an economic locavore policy.

The Guardian won third place in the General Excellence category for non-daily papers.

Prison report: What should government do?

-
3

By Just A Guy

The debate rages around the “early” releases of 19,000 non-violent/non-serious offenders and turning over to the custody of the Feds another 19,000 illegal immigrants, for a total of 38,000 releases. There have been myriad articles and opinion pieces written around this, but not too many represent our — that is, the inmates’ — side of the story, nor are many inmate voices being heard around this issue. So I happily volunteer mine.

There is an editorial in the Marysville Appeals-Democrat that I find very interesting and that I agree with to some degree, but there are areas in this editorial which need to be addressed because it seems as if editorials like this are legitimized and not thought through by the general reader.

The editorial claims that the state government has many purposes, one of the more legitimate purposes is to protect its people from criminals. It states, “Government has no inherent duty to medicate, educate, nurture or provide recreation for its citizens. But it is legitimately charged with protecting their rights to life, liberty and property.”

Is it just me or is the writer being a bit contradictory? To say that it’s government’s inherent duty to protect our right to life, but not an inherent duty to “medicate” is to say it’s only government’s inherent duty to use force to protect life and not medicine. Basically this writer is saying that government’s only duty is to keep people from hurting each other and taking one another’s property — that it’s not governmental responsibility to make sure someone who can’t afford life-saving medicine receives that medicine even if it’s protecting that life.

I am no proponent of big government and think that government is far too deeply inserted into our lives and everything we do, but to make a statement like that just bothers me. Someone will read it, not think about it beyond the first layer and next thing you know that statement has become a component of their belief system and they’re protesting in front of abortion clinics during the day and by night they’re protesting the anti-death penalty protesters.
The editorial also states:

“Whether criminals should be released before completing their sentences, or into federal custody to be deported, should not be determined by finances.”

Huh?

How can the writer possibly say this in the same editorial that says:

“Nevertheless, the state has run California’s prison system badly, with little regard for costs imposed on those supposedly being served, but with great concern for those paid to do the job.”

Wine-by-the-glass battle: half full, half empty

-
1

By Cécile Lepage

As expected, the Planning Commission granted the national franchise WineStyles a conditional use permit June 4 to add a wine bar to its premises on West Portal.

But the panel limited the hours and size of the bar beyond what the planning staff had recommended. (To stream the video of the hearing, click on item 8.)

WineStyles lined up impressive community support. Not only did the outfit’s backers submit 458 signatures and 58 letters in their favor, but 15 aficionados actually came in person to City Hall to rave about the wine store owners’ friendliness and their role in the community.

But the commissioners were also sympathetic to argument by supporters of a locally owned wine bar, Que Syrah, who fear that the big chain will drive the locals out of business.

Although the CEO of the Winestyles chain, Robert Spuck, told the New York Times in 2007 that blurring the line between a bar and a retail store was part of the company’s mission, the local WineStyles attorney, Tuija Catalano, argued that the establishment wants to remain primarily a liquor store. So the commissioners decided that sales of wine by the glass will have to cease at 8 p.m. daily instead of 10 p.m. The number of seats will be limited to 8 instead of 15.

Both WineStyles owner James Robinson and Que Syrah owner Stephanie McCardell declined to comment.

Newsom’s winning the budget spin

-
3

By Tim Redmond

The mayor is winning the spin battle over the city budget. The Chron’s first-day story tells the tale:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom unveiled a $6.6 billion budget Monday for the 2009-10 fiscal year that he said “does a lot of extraordinary things” including bridging a half-billion-dollar deficit without raising taxes or laying off police officers, firefighters or teachers.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s as close to perfect, under the circumstances, as we could make it,” he said. “We did this without the devastation some had predicted.”

The Chron editorial the next day parrots the Newsom line:

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom acknowledges the obvious about next year’s budget: “It’s not perfect.” But his spending plan bridges a nearly half-billion dollar gap that existed three months ago and leaves basic services and schools in good shape.

Actually, that’s completely untrue — the devastation is going to be pretty serious. And basic services won’t be in good shape, they’ll be shredded.

But the progressives on the Board of Supervisors haven’t made that case yet — and it’s time to get started.

If we wait until the budget hearings, in a couple of weeks, the board will be on the defensive. It’s taken everyone a couple of days to figure out what’s in and out of the budget, but we know enough to understand the impacts — and we know enought to be able to argue that without some serious new revenue, the city’s going to be in horrible shape.

The mayor has, of course, dumped the budget off and fled for a fundraiser in New York . The leaders of the progressive wing on the board ought to be planning a press conference — soon — to tell the other side of the story, and they ought to be presenting an alternative fact sheet showing what Newsom really has in mind for the city.

The supervisors typically change just a tiny fraction of the budget, but this year’s going to be different. It will be — it almost has to be — a major battle over public priorities. And if the mayor sets the agenda and controls the public debate, the outcome won’t be pretty.

Prison report: The bogus politics of early release

-
13

By Just A Guy

Editors Note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports run Mondays and Thursdays. He tries to respond to all comments and answer all questions, but communicating from prison can be difficult, so be patient. You can read his last column, and links to previous columns, here.

What is it with these politicians and the public and early releases of prisoners and the hysteria surrounding all of it? I just don’t get it.

Now, maybe I’m not the most objective fellow about the whole thing, but I would like to think that I’m pragmatic to some extent. And while I believe myself to be relatively intelligent, and even sensible, at times I start to question my own sanity because I see the choices California is making as insane — yet the state is making them anyway. If I were making those same choices I would be thrown in jail … shit, I’m already here. Doh!

Like, wow, if my elderly Alzheimer’s-ridden family member lived with me and I just stopped feeding, bathing, and taking care of him or her I would be arrested and charged with felony neglect, elderly abuse or some such thing. Why should it be any different if the state of California does that same thing?

In the case of an individual, protective services would come out, check out the home, make a report, give recommendations and all sorts of bureaucratic bullshit would happen as paperwork flowed and rubber stamps pressed down on forms written in incomprehensible legalese that Johnny Fucking Cochran wouldn’t be able to decode without an Enigma machine and an army of junior lawyers bringing up the rear as support services.

And that brings me to Support Services. In prison, Support Services are programs that often employ the lower-security inmates at lower-security institutions, who support the maintenance and running of higher-security prisons where all the really “bad” guys are. Oh, Support Services also supports various elements of the California government like the California Department of Forestry, where a bunch of us hardened criminals fight California’s fires. The majority of people in lower-security institutions and in fire camps run by CDF are non-violent/non-serious offenders, a good portion of whom have less than a year left on their sentences — and therefore, will be eligible for early release according to Arnold’s plan to commute the sentences of non-violent/non-serious offenders with less than a year left.

Is this really our only choice?

-
22

By Tim Redmond

603newsom.jpg 603brown.jpg

Now that Antonio Villaraigosa appears not to be running for governor, the most populous state in the nation, the world’s eighth-largest economy, is headed for a very ugly choice. The Democratic Party has exactly two prominent candidates to run California — Jerry Brown, who has become a conservative with his no-new-taxes pledge and his tough-on-crime stuff, and Gavin Newsom, who has been a pretty awful mayor of San Francisco.

Is this the best that the state can do?

It might be — and here’s the problem. In a state this big, with more than 36 million people, a race for governor is all about image. It’s about television ads and media hype — and most people don’t pay attention to the details. Brown is ahead in the polls almost entirely because of name recognition; he’s the attorney general, has been govenor before, his dad was governor, he’s run for president — people have heard of him. Liberal Democrats who are older and remember when he was the dynamic young, progressive leader think back fondly to those days. Democrats who are more moderate look at his hard-ass love-developers-and-cops tenure as mayor of Oakland. Nobody has any idea how he would fix the state’s economy; I don’t think he knows himself.

Newsom is catching up, and will make this a close race, because he’s the new young face — and because he’s got a team of consultants and producers who are experts at creating false images. He’ll run as the “green mayor,” although he’s opposed the most important environmental measures in the city. He’ll run as a sensible leader who balanced a budget with no borrowing or taxes (although he’s doing it by destroying the local safety net). What most voters won’t see is the arrogant, petulant guy who has surrounded himself with fawning accolytes and nasty hit men. They won’t see a person who is way over his head in his current job, and has no business moving on to a much bigger one.

And that’s what we’ve got.

I wasn’t kidding last week when we talked about splitting up the state. It sounds like a radical idea, but think about it: If we were electing a governor of the coastal counties between Sonoma and Los Angeles, Jerry Brown wouldn’t even be a factor — and a lot of smart, experienced progressives would have a shot at the job. We wouldn’t be facing this ugly choice of finding someone either bland or conservative enough to appeal to the Central Valley. The voting population would be much smaller, and thus the vast sums of money that candidates have to raise would be significantly reduced.

We might even get a good governor.

In the meantime, we have to do better than this. Is there nobody else out there, no real change candidate who might actually be able to take on the serious problems facing California?

Gavin Newsom’s furlough

-
1

By Tim Redmond

Okay, I know this is silly and it’s not much money, but: Since the mayor is cutting the work weeks of some city employees, maybe he ought to help out by taking his own furloughs. The mayor is out of town all the time these days, running for governor instead of running the city. How about he agrees to stop collecting pay for all the days he’s on the campaign trail?

Seems fair.

Editor’s Notes

-
0

› Tredmond@sfbg.com

The absolute most stunning statement of how messed up the state of California is emerged last week from the state director of finance, explaining why the proposed budget cuts fall so heavily on services for the poor. Let me quote directly from The New York Times:

"Government doesn’t provide services to rich people," Mike Genest, the state’s finance director, said on a conference call with reporters on Friday. "It doesn’t even really provide services to the middle class.

"You have to cut where the money is," he added.

Um … government doesn’t provide services to rich people? What about, say, the roads they drive on, and the airports they fly in and out of? What about the vast sums the state spends putting out fires that threaten wealthy enclaves in Southern California? What about the public education system, which trains workers for businesses? What about the entire criminal justice system, which exists to a significant extent to prevent poor people from taking rich people’s money?

Do you think Sergey Brin and Larry Page would have become Google billionaires if the Internet — developed and paid for by the government — didn’t exist?

No. Federal, state, and local governments all spend money on services for the rich. And by and large, those services don’t get cut when budgets are busted, and by and large, the rich don’t pay their fair share for the services they get — and by and large, nobody in politics talks about that when these nasty decisions get made.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Let’s just remember that as 900,000 kids lose their health insurance and California becomes, in the words of Mayor Gavin Newsom, the first state in the industrialized world to have no welfare system at all. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Cutting services for the poor, as opposed to cutting things rich people want and need, or making them pay a tiny bit more to keep society stable, is a political choice.

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees just put out a fascinating document looking at alternatives to the governor’s cuts — including a bunch of things that can be done without the two-thirds vote required to raise taxes. There are, for example, about $2.5 billion worth of useless and wasteful tax loopholes identified by AFSCME that could be closed (hurting the rich, helping the rest of us). That would save a lot of health and welfare programs.

San Francisco has choices, too. Downtown parking fees hit wealthier people; Muni fare hikes are a tax on the poor. A congestion management fee on downtown would overwhelmingly hit wealthier commuters; cuts in public health overwhelmingly hit the poor. The Tenderloin’s Community Justice Center hurts low-income people (and helps rich tourists and the hotels scare away the homeless).

The thing that kills me is that some of us have been saying over and over — for years and years — that the city needs to develop a better tax system (which will require a public vote) to minimize these cyclical crises. And some of us have been pointing out that a public power system would generate several hundred million a year (and that private power is sucking $600 million a year out of the local economy).

Do we have to keep blundering from disaster to disaster? For how long?

*

Newsom’s no-tax budget

-
1

By Tim Redmond

Steve Jones will be reporting in tomorrow’s paper about the details of Newsom’s budget proposal, and it’s going to take a few days to figure out exactly what’s in and what’s out of the budget, but the mayor has already made one point, and it’s infuriating:

He proudly announced that the budget is balanced with no borrowing and no new taxes.

Sounds like something that George W. Bush would have said.

And here’s the problem: When Newsom was negotiating the latest round of givebacks with the unions, he promised to work toward a revenue measure in November. And if he were serious about that, he could have included that projected revenue in this budget — avoiding some of the most painful cuts.

So what’s up? Is Newsom going back on the deal with SEIU — or is he just assuming that any revenue measure he puts on the ballot will fail?

Here’s what the mayor’s press secretary, Nathan Ballard, has to say:

After SEIU rejected the sensible deal that had been reached with the Mayor,
the revenue-measure talks unraveled, and so the Mayor could not in good
faith include projected revenue from a hypothetical measure in his proposed
budget.

All along we’ve said that a revenue measure would have to include support
from a broad coalition of San Franciscans, and nobody from the business
community — an essential part of any such coalition — is going to support
a revenue measure unless SEIU has already agreed to shoulder its fair share
of the city’s budget burden.

However, once SEIU votes to approve the new deal with the Mayor’s office,
it’s a whole new ball game. At that point we can convene a new series of
talks and attempt to come up with revenue measures that a broad coalition
can support. Once that happens, the budget could be adjusted accordingly.

Okay, sure — blame it on the SEIU members. But that’s not the point. First of all, it’s pretty likely the union membership will approve the latest contract offer, and Newsom knows that. More important, this isn’t about SEIU v. Newsom. It’s about the city, and the health of San Francisco and its residents. And a mayor who was serious about preserving essential services wouldn’t be waiting until the last minute, and planning to “adjust the budget” after front-line workers are laid off, programs are cut, nonprofits shut down etc. before he started talking seriously about new revenue sources.

God rides the bus

-
4

By Tim Redmond

601jesus.jpg
Or maybe he takes his bike — but he doesn’t park in the median

Sarah Phelan interviewed Nat Ford, the head of Muni, for her story on the Muni budget that will appear in Wednesday’s Guardian. I have to offer a sneak preview of one of his comments.

Confirming that the agency dropped a $9 million a year proposal to extend meter hours citywide after receiving input from merchants, Ford said, “We’ll clearly have to revisit parking. We’ll be looking at how to administer extended meter hours and how that impacts churches if we do it Sundays. But we are sitting here with a structural deficit that’s been going on for decades. We need to figure out the revenue streams we need to enhance the system.”

Wait, wait, wait.

The impact on churches?

Mr. Ford, let me clue you in on something. In San Francisco, particularly in the Mission, nobody every parks at a meter to go to church on Sunday. They park in the middle of the goddam street.

This is illegal. There are no permits required. The cops just look the other way.

And, as I pointed out when I last wrote about it:

Nobody else gets to do this.

If you go to see the (secular) Mime Troupe in Dolores Park and you stick your car in the middle of the street, you get a ticket. If you drink at a (secular) bar or eat at a (secular) restaurant and you leave your car in the Valencia Street median, you get cited. You can’t double park while you run in for a (secular) cup of coffee at Muddy Waters.

You can’t even do it when you go to yoga, which for a lot of people is a spiritual experience.

You want some money, Nat? Make the damn churches pay a fee for the damn free parking they get. I’m sorry: If you don’t want to pay for parking, you can ride the bus to church. Or walk. Or ride your bike. That’s what Jesus would do. Right?

The rich don’t use public services

-
11

By Tim Redmond

That’s what Gov. Schwarzenegger’s finance director told the New York Times:

Nearly all of the billions of dollars in cuts the administration has proposed would affect programs for poor Californians, although prisons and schools would take hits, as well.

“Government doesn’t provide services to rich people,” Mike Genest, the state’s finance director, said on a conference call with reporters on Friday. “It doesn’t even really provide services to the middle class.” He added: “You have to cut where the money is.”

But that’s just wrong.

California spends a ton of money protecting rich people’s homes from fires. California spends billions on law-enforcement and prisons, much of that money going to ensure that poor prople can’t take money from rich people. Who do you think state highways serve? (Mostly the middle-class.) Who gets to live safer, more secure lives because desperatly mentally ill people aren’t wandering the streets?

Does the public school system and the state college and university system not train workers for the state’s wealthiest corporations?

And what about all of the excessive tax breaks that go to big businesses? Tax breaks are money that comes out of the government’s pocket. Tax breaks are handouts, just like welfare payments are handouts. Except that the tax breaks tend to be much bigger.

When you add up all the benefits that state government provides for the wealthy — and you look at how modest the tax payments from the wealthy are in this state — you get a sense of why we’re in this budget mess.

1...727374...116Page 73 of 116

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org