Hall Monitor

Pot, kettle: On May 13 the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution urging the San Francisco Unified School District to comply with the city's Sunshine Ordinance, which includes strict standards requiring government meetings and records to be open to the public. (Because it is technically a state agency, the SFUSD is not automatically bound by the law.)

There's no question that the SFUSD could be more forthcoming with information. But the fact that this resolution came from Sup. Leland Yee is nonetheless hard to swallow. It's part of Yee's relentless campaign against the district, the centerpiece of which is a nascent proposal that city government take over the SFUSD and chop it in half. And Yee has been quite secretive about the details of that plan: although the supervisor has invited some newspapers to attend press briefings, he has meanwhile refused to answer even basic questions from other journalists.

We first asked Yee's office for details on his proposals May 2. We submitted a written request May 6 and made repeated attempts to follow up by phone. Yee only agreed to fax us information May 17, after we told him we were writing this item. And then he sent only a one-page press release dated May 8.

Because Yee refused to speak with us by phone, we were unable to ask if he really thinks he's the right person to be pushing the SFUSD to broaden public access to information. (Tali Woodward)

Dancing in the streets: Sup. Mark Leno is becoming the local version of Ted Kennedy, who has an almost supernatural ability to craft compromises between people with the most disparate interests.

On May 13, Leno unveiled his plan, years in the making, to make the city safer for entertainment by creating an entertainment commission – and both the San Francisco Late Night Coalition and the San Francisco Police Department are championing it.

"It would be a one-stop shop for anyone who needs permits for any event," Leno told us.

Leno became interested in entertainment issues in 1999. Police crackdowns at nightclubs all over town had infuriated musicians, club owners, and patrons, at the same time as neighborhood complaints about noise had reached a boiling point. And the furor hasn't ended (see "Dance Hall Daze," page 11).

Intended for the November ballot, Leno's charter amendment would establish a new seven-member panel charged with drafting policies to help the entertainment business thrive while maintaining relations with neighborhood activists. The commission would also take over event permitting from the SFPD, which would continue enforcing laws at dance clubs and large public events. (Woodward)

Lock up more kids, get more money: San Francisco's Juvenile Probation Department is planning to build a new juvenile hall – with more beds than anyone thinks it needs. That's because the state refused to help fund a smaller project.

Knowing that larger facilities tend to get filled even when crime is down, several youth groups convinced Sup. Gerardo Sandoval to ask the Department of Public Works if the city could forgo the state funds and build a hall with fewer beds. The state money would be lost, but presumably the smaller facility would also be cheaper.

The DPW recently released its cost estimates – and sunk the youth groups' hopes. The figures suggest that cost has shockingly little to do with the number of beds. A 72-bed hall would cost $40.5 million, according to the report, while a 150-bed hall could be built for just $42.8 million. Building the larger facility would, of course, also bring in $15 million from the state.

The youth groups have agreed to stop fighting the bigger hall, but they refuse to stop pushing for juvenile justice reform. In between all the city hearings, maybe they can explain to the state government just how messed up its funding rules are. (Woodward)

Negotiating power: Board of Supervisors president Tom Ammiano kicked off a series of meetings May 17 to take input from a few groups on the language of his public power charter amendment. Ammiano said he has invited interested parties to meet to write a measure that appeals to a broad constituency.

Representatives attended from community groups including San Franciscans for Public Power, the Labor Task Force for Public Power, Greenaction, the California Public Interest Research Group, the San Francisco Labor Council, Public Citizen, the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, the Utility Reform Network, and the Sierra Club. Some of these groups did not support Ammiano's public power measure last fall.

Sup. Sophie Maxwell and representatives from the City Attorney's Office, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission also attended.

The meetings, which will occur throughout the next several weeks, will be followed by a public hearing on the measure in front of a Board of Supervisors committee. Copies of the current version of Ammiano's proposal can be obtained by contacting the board clerk at (415) 554-5184. To tell Ammiano what you think should be in a public power charter amendment, contact him at (415) 554-5144 or Tom_Ammiano@ci.sf .ca.us. (Rachel Brahinsky)

Homeless honesty: Finally, someone has the nerve to tell it like it is. In a strongly worded performance audit of the city's homeless services released May 15, Controller Ed Harrington blamed shifting political interests for stymieing efforts to reduce homelessness. "The City has no shared vision of what results it is trying to achieve, and the issue is so politically charged that its officials and administrators cannot agree on what the City is trying to do," the audit states. It suggests strengthening the Local Homeless Coordinating Board, which includes service providers, city officials, and homeless people as members.