By Steven T. Jones

Even as his yearlong effort to unify San Francisco progressives under the umbrella of the new San Francisco Peoples' Organization (SFPO) culminates in a founding convention on June 11, Sup. Chris Daly admits lefty unity is at somewhat of a low point.

"Yeah," he told the Bay Guardian ruefully, "the timing could have been better."

There have always been divisions in this fractious city's liberal-progressive camp, but simmering feuds have exploded into high-profile battles in recent weeks as Daly and Sup. Jake McGoldrick openly snipe at each other during Board of Supervisors meetings, a clash that started another proxy battle between labor organizer Robert Haaland and housing activist Randy Shaw on their respective Web sites.

Meanwhile, progressives aligned with Green attorney Matt Gonzalez – whose mayoral campaign sparked the progressive resurgence that led to the SFPO but alienated some of the supporters of Sup. Tom Ammiano, who was already in the race – have been criticized by the Milk Club's Greg Shaw in the pages of the Bay Guardian for not being attentive enough to the issues of queers or people of color (the latest chapter in this saga plays out in this week's Opinion piece, by the SFPO's Marlena Sonn).

All of this came just as Mayor Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2005-06 budget, which will be hashed out by the five-member Budget and Finance Committee, on which McGoldrick serves as the swing vote between Daly and Ammiano on the left and the more conservative supervisors Sean Elsbernd and Fiona Ma.

"It's a harbinger of bad things to come," Daly said of the committee mix, who blasts McGoldrick as no longer being in the progressive camp, citing his colleague's budget votes, support for Newsom's homeless agenda, and buddying up to downtown political consultants who threw a fundraiser for him in April to help clear his campaign debt.

McGoldrick counters that it's Daly's ego and inability to adapt to being in power – rather than being an outsider activist – that is hurting the left, not McGoldrick's voting record, which he said is solidly progressive-populist and is being misrepresented over just a few votes on which there were honest differences of opinion.

"I don't understand what motivates the personalized attack mode, but it's counterproductive," said McGoldrick, who, with Daly, was part of the left-leaning board majority elected in 2000. "The most important thing is not to give volatile ammunition to the downtown forces who want to destroy district elections."

Daly ally Randy Shaw, director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic and editor of the Beyond Chron Web site, blasted McGoldrick in print as unsupportive of progressive priorities and formally asked Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin to oust him from the budget committee. The campaign drew a backlash from Haaland on the Left in SF Web site.

"I have a hard time with Randy, who was on the take from Joe [O'Donoghue, the Residential Builders Association head who provided seed money for Beyond Chron], talking about who's progressive," Haaland told us. "I don't have a lot of patience for a progressive purity test from someone who fails that test.... It just seems like Jake is the person of the day to crucify, and I'm not having it."

Contacted by the Bay Guardian, Shaw didn't respond directly to Haaland's comment, but maintained his criticism of McGoldrick, citing the supervisor's support for the midyear budget cuts that Newsom proposed after the tax measures failed last fall, rather than an alternative proposal by Daly.

Haaland said McGoldrick "has always been pro-labor and pro-public health." He also defended McGoldrick's recent vote to reduce parking fines, money that Daly, Sup. Ross Mirkarimi, and the activists at the Coalition for Transit Justice said should have been used to offset Muni fee increases and service reductions. "From a working-class perspective," Haaland said, "it could be argued that these fines hurt poor workers who need cars for their jobs."

Haaland and some other prominent progressives have said they don't want anything to do with the SFPO, which will hold its daylong organizing session at St. Mary's Cathedral June 11, starting at 8:30 a.m. Yet Bruce Livingston, executive director of Senior Action Network and an SFPO organizer, said that more than 30 organizations and 400 individuals have already pledged their support.

"These are short-term disputes that really don't have long term implications for us," Livingston said. "It takes an extremely long time to pull an organization together, but once we do it will be a powerful force."

While the current conflicts might pose challenges, Daly said the current climate "means we need a strong progressive organization to hold people accountable."

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