Want a decades-old Oakland bakery uncomfortably linked to a litany of alleged violent and sexual felony criminal charges? It’s yours for just $900,000.

Oh yeah, it’s been shut down by the health department, too.

A trustee for Your Black Muslim Bakery’s Chapter 7 federal bankruptcy has hired a real-estate broker for the seemingly impossible task of selling the business, according to court records filed in Oakland last week. We made a trip to the court’s public terminals in downtown Oakland for a look at where the case stood.

The attempted sale includes Your Bakery’s main 5839 San Pablo Avenue location in Oakland, raided by a swarm of police last month, in addition to a duplex at 1083 59th St. Records show they will attempt to sell it “as is,” baggage and all.

But court records don’t indicate whether the trustee will try to also sell two other bakery locations slapped with minor health-code violations last year, including one for not properly cleaning and sanitizing food contact surfaces. (Follow this link to view descriptions of alleged health-code violations leveled at three total bakery locations over the last several months.)

By Tim Redmond

The grand experiment in electricity deregulation appears to be in collapse around the country, according to the New York Times. Oddly enough -- or perhaps not oddly enough -- the one state that still seems to be sticking with this disastrous program is California.

I was a bit startled to see the supplement called "Spaces" fall out of my SF Weekly today; it's a slick, 16-page fluffer for the real estate industry, complete with an ad for Vanguard Properties on the cover.

Even by the standards of shameless ad supplements, this is pretty low; selling the cover of anything to an advertiser is considered pretty shoddy form. I suspect (still waiting for confirmation from the Weekly folks) that the editorial department over there had nothing to do with this, but it does contain some stories (one marked "advertorial," two others not marked at all) -- and boy, are they a piece of work.

My favorite is called "Lifestyles of the Young and Wealthy: Is SoMa San Francisco's neighborhood du jour?" The piece, by Chelsea Sime (who is not an SF Weekly staff writer) is all about a realtor named Michael Novia who lives in Sausalito but "knows first-hand how unique -- and lucrative -- the SoMa neighborhood has become."

Novia's proud that SoMa has come such a long way, and promises: "Five to 10 years from now, SoMa will be a little Manhattan."

How lovely. What a great perspective for an alternative weekly to be promoting.

Oh, and by the way: If you go to the supplement's website, as published, (sfweeklyspaces.com) not only is there nothing there, but it appears that SF Weekly doesn't even own it.

Migden, Leno: Who's killing the bills?

By Tim Redmond
It’s been a wild few days in Sacramento.

On Thursday afternoon, the state Senate narrowly passed a terrible campaign finance bill that could strictly limit the ability of local governments to control political money. Although Common Cause and the League of Women Voters opposed it (as did San Francisco’s Ethics Commission director, John St. Croix) it had the support of the Democratic Party and had sailed through the Assembly, 77-0. On the Senate floor, Carole Midgen and Sheila Keuhl both made strong speeches against it – and almost, almost convinced enough of their colleagues to vote it down. Instead, it squeaked through 27-9 (needing two-thirds).

Migden at least tried. Good for her. Leland Yee voted the right way. But the arm-twisting by the party was too much.

And frankly, the opponents of the bill weren't exactly on their game: There was no opposition when the bill went through the Assembly, and when it came to the Senate floor, the good guys were noticably absent.

Meanwhile, Randy Shaw reports on BeyondChron that Migden is making sure some of Assemblymember Mark Leno’s key bills never get a vote on the Senate floor. The reason: Migden (and her ally, state Senate President Don Perata) don’t want Leno to have any legislative success to brag about next spring when he challenges Migden in the Democratic primary.

See, one of Migden’s central arguments is that she’s an effective legislator. Sure, she cuts deals, she compromises – but in the end, she gets things done. And pointing out that none of Leno’s bills for 2007 actually became law would be a powerful campaign theme.

Among the Leno bills held hostage: A measure that would limit toxic chemicals in household furniture (AB 709) and AB 1590, which would allow San Franciscans to vote to raise local car taxes to provide revenue for city services.

Migden’s office insists that Shaw has it wrong: Tracy Fairchild, communications director, told me: “The root cause of Assemblyman Leno's problems lies not with Senator Migden but rather with the entire Senate, whose bills met with unusually harsh treatment last week in the Assembly Appropriations Committee which he chairs. Rather than tell that truth, Mr. Leno has chosen to disparage Sen. Migden's reputation by blaming all his problems on her and that is simply not the case.”

But Leno has another take: “Eight of the nine bills by Carole Migden that came to my committee [Appropriations] made it out, and I will make sure that every one of her Senate bills will leave the Assembly floor.” Only five of Leno’s 13 bills went forward, even though the ones that were bottled up had little real opposition.
The one Midgen bill that Leno didn’t let out of committee, interestingly, was SB 11, which would have extended domestic partnership rights to unmarried opposite-sex couples. Leno says the $33 million price tag doomed it, but I think the real problem was that, while I supported the bill and think it’s a fine idea, there wasn’t any real visible upwelling of support for it.

Overall, the Assembly Appropriations Committee let 74 percent of Senate bills out; only 63 percent of Assembly bills made it out of the corresponding Senate committee.

Part of what’s going on here may be the natural tension between the houses, but I think that Perata is sending a message to Leno and his colleagues: Don’t you dare take on an incumbent senator, or your bills will be held hostage.

I suspect that if Migden doesn’t like this message (and she shouldn’t) she could tell Perata to back off, and Leno’s bills would move forward.

I've been listening to Gen Petraeus go on and on and on, and it's stunning: He keeps talking about Iran and Al Qaeda. I'm having a very bad flashback here .... The whole message seems to be, things are getting better, the surge is working, and now we need to "defeat AL Qaeda" and (gasp) deal with Iran.

When he talked about the threat of Iran, one woman stood up in the chamber and shouted "That's a lie." She was quickly removed.

But here we go again ... and all I can wonder is, this time around, will the Democrats shake off their fear of criticizing a Man in a Uniform and stand up to this nonsense?

Here's a pretty good summary timeline I particularly love Ambassador Ryan Crocker's discussion of "post-kinetic environments" -- which are places that have been leveled by the U.S. military and thus are no longer threats.

The essence of what General David Petraeus said today is that the Bush Administration has no plans to end the war. Sure, the headlines talk about withdrawing 30,000 troops -- but that will just get force levels back to what they were before the "surge." In fact, all the talk about Al Qaeda and Iran has a spooky resonance -- and it's not just a reminder of the lies that got us here in the first place. I remember Richard Nixon talking about how well the war in Vietnam was going as he invaded Cambodia, then Laos, and drove the nation deeper and deeper into the muck.

Let's face it: This administration is talking war without end in the middle east, and the Democratic candidates for president need to stop with their safe and cautious attitude and give us a reason to vote for them.

We've now been able to independently confirm what the Chronicle reported a couple hours ago: Mayor Gavin Newsom has asked for the resignation of all the city's department heads, senior staff, and appointees to city boards and commissions, although Newsom reportedly told them he will only accept some of them. But the mayor's office and press secretary Nathan Ballard has not returned our calls or e-mails to make sense of this or get details, despite the fact that the department heads who were told of this request in this morning's weekly meeting were asked to refer all press inquiries to Ballard.

It's all very strange and unsettling, and it appears that many of the people being asked to resign can just say no. The City Attorney's Office issued this opinion in 2004 outlining how appointees may be removed, and most are allowed to finish their terms unless the mayor wants to level official misconduct charges against them, which he's not even been willing to do with disgraced Sup. Ed Jew.

Meet the new boss, John Rahaim

In theory, the San Francisco city Planning Commission gets to decide who runs the department, but in practice, it's up to the mayor -- who has announced today that the new Planning Director will be John Rahaim, who now holds that same job in Seattle. Rahaim has apparently informed the folks in Seattle that he's accepted the job, although I don't think the commission has formally offered it to him. And, of course, he has to resign his new position immediately, before he even starts work. Welcome to San Francisco.

I don't know much about Rahaim, but I found one interview that he did with a Seattle radio station in which he made it pretty clear who calls the shots in major development decisions:

MANY AMERICAN PLANNERS ADMIRE WHAT'S HAPPENED IN VANCOUVER. BUT THEY SAY STANDARD PRACTICE IN CANADA CAN'T FLY ON THIS SIDE OF THE BORDER.

RAHAIM: "Rightly or wrongly, in American society we rely on private developers to build."

SEATTLE CITY PLANNER JOHN RAHAIM SAYS UNLIKE CANADA, WHERE THE GOVERNMENT DETERMINES HOW AND WHAT DEVELOPERS WILL BUILD, IN THIS COUNTRY WE RELY ON INCENTIVES TO ENCOURAGE DEVELOPERS TO CARRY OUT AN OFFICIAL VISION.

RAHAIM: "And it's the only way to achieve some of these goals…We don't nearly influence the market the way other governments do, where development is a privilege, not a right. But nonetheless we do. These programs, subsidies, do influence the market."

Seattle's had a downtown housing building boom, just like San Francisco, and of course, if the guy didn't share Newsom's basic philosophy, he wouldn't have been offered the job.

UPDATE: My error on the process. In fact, the commission sent three names to the mayor, including Rahaim's, and the mayor made the choice. That's how it works. So Rahaim has the job -- until, of course, he follows the mayor's directive and resigns.

photo courtesy of wolf.like.me on flickr

That’s right, break out the picket signs -- your favorite apocalypse is on the reprise. Irvine Rep. Assemblyman Chuck DeVore has introduced legislation to repeal the 31-year ban on new nuclear power plants and launched a ballot initiative. On Sept. 12, the state’s Republican party unanimously voted to support the bill for more nuclear power, which is being touted as safe, clean, reliable, and affordable -- all adjectives the industry has yet to merit.

It's also being called “emissions-free,” a handy moniker for a power source in our globally-warmed future. It's being promoted by pro-clearcutting, pro-GMO "environmentalists" that happen to pull paychecks from the nuclear industry.

Pro-nukes fans are now gathering the 433,000 signatures needed to put the bill on California's June 2008 ballot.

A 1976 California state law banned new nuclear plants until a permanent storage facility for the radioactive waste was established. Meanwhile, said permanent facility – Nevada’s Yucca Mt. -- suffered another setback on Sept. 4 when a federal judge ruled the state could suspend water permits for drilling at the site – further delaying a project that is already seven years overdue.

Spent-fuel nuclear waste is currently stored on the sites of nuclear power plants – which has raised concerns about safety from terrorist attacks. CA Attorney General Jerry Brown recently filed a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, arguing that its waste confidence ruling is inadequate – meaning, we don’t have much faith in your determination that the pools of water where used up nuclear fuel rods bob like swimming pool toys are safe.

By Sarah Phelan

My son leaving Oakland Airport on his way to Iraq

Six years ago, when the first planes hit the World Trade Center, I never imagined that my son would end up being deployed to Iraq as part of Bush’s 2007 troop surge. I also never imagined that there was a connection between 9/11 and Iraq. That's because there wasn’t one, even though Bush kept trying to make one, and can now claim that Al Qaeda is in Iraq--even though he won't explain his own role in creating a vacuum in Iraq, which Al Qaeda and other faith-based militias have since filled. But enough about Bush.

My son was 14 years old in 2001 and already showing interest in all things military, despite or perhaps because of, my own peacenik tendencies. But as I watched horrific images of the towers burning and imploding in New York, I had no inkling of the personal price that Bush’s warmongering was going to cost my family on the West Coast, or the losses that the people of this nation and Iraq would start to endure within two years of the 9/11 attacks.

But within weeks of those attacks, I did get my first clue of Bush’s takeover plans for Iraq when I interviewed a former UN ambassador to Iraq, a weapons inspector, and an activist who delivered medicine to Iraqis in defiance of US sanctions during the 1990s.

These three experts on Iraq warned that Bush was serious about invading Iraq, a country they said was broken from years of sanctions and not home to weapons of mass destruction—though Saddam Hussein’s pride would not allow him to admit as much to the US and the rest of the world .

In the ensuing years, I saw the claims of these three experts being proven right, and those of Bush's experts being proven wrong, over and over again. And yet, once the invasion was in full force, opposition to Bush’s illegal invasion was successfully framed by his spin meisters as "opposition to our troops".

The "Stop the War" sticker came first, then the "Army Mom" sticker. And then is a yellow ribbon on the side bumper, of my car too. Proving that you can support the troops and oppose the war on Iraq all at the same time

Want to know a secret? Stating the obvious, namely that US military intervention can't solve Iraq’s civil war. But stating this stark truth won't endanger our troops, nor will it dishonor them or their families. It will endanger the credibility of all those who peddled the war and have still not taken ownership for misleading the public.

One of the bloggers at DailyKos linked to our Project Censored story, and the comments include a lot of other suggestions for stories that the mainstream media ignored. Check it out.

Photo from www.mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix.html

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) today published an excellent analysis of how the mainstream media and Democratic Party are falsely conveying a sense of official powerlessness to end the war in Iraq. The reality is that the Democrat-controlled Congress could defund the war effort immediately if it had the will to do so, forcing the Bush Administration to pursue a new strategy (ideally something along the lines of the McGovern plan).
Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi is more concerned with expanding her party's power than taking a principled stand that would save thousands of lives and begin restoring this country's image in the eyes of the Muslim world. And none of the presidential candidates (except also-rans Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Mike Gravel) are offering plans for Iraq that will substantially reduce the long-term U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. That's a disgrace that is being compounded by the mainstream media and its campaign to disempower the average American and ensure that our imperial experiment continues unchecked and unquestioned.

When Ken Garcia and Robert Haaland agree that Mayor Gavin Newsom screwed up, it must really be true. I'm talking about the mayor's strange decision to ask for the resignations of every top official and appointee in his administration, which the Chronicle reports has made Newsom quite happy, although he's about the only one feeling any joy over this.
Haaland correctly says the decision is disrespectful of workers and demonstrates a hostility toward government. And as I reported, it's a power grab prohibited by the City Charter. But mostly, it's just weirdly megalomaniacal, and one more sign that our young mayor is far more concerned with his own political ambitions than with simply being a decent human being who makes an honest effort to do right by this city, its employees, and its residents.

By Sarah Phelan

OK, so "Ed Jew Legal Defense Fund For Wine and Food" probably isn't what Jew meant when his team sent out this pulp fictionesque style invite (pictured above,) but the wording sure makes it look that way.

As the info on the inside of the "Support Jew's speedy trial" envelope notes, City Law does not allow Supervisors to set up "legal defense funds" per se. Instead it allows them to raise $100 per source for "post-election legal proceedings," in addition to the regular $500 in campaign funds.

That means if you already chipped in $500 to get Jew elected, you can add another $100 dollop . If not, you can give the whole $600 enchilada. Readers will doubtless remember that Jew's legal problems began after he took $40,000 in cash from the owners of a tapioca bubble drink chain. So, we couldn't help noticing that Jew's fund raising event at Pier 33 is being hosted by Seafood Suppliers. Not that we're saying that any of this sounds fishy, or anything.

By Sarah Phelan

Photos by Charles Russo

Last week I witnessed presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s deliver a very powerful speech at the Women for Obama event in San Francisco. Obama spent a lot of time talking about his opposition to the war in Iraq and his plans to withdraw all combat troops by the end of 2008, as well as other issues that women really care about like health care and equal wages for all.

Obama still had his toothy, crinkly edged smile and easy going style, but a fierceness came into his voice when he talked about the cost of the war to the troops and their families. And I wasn’t the only military mom in the house who appreciated Obama’s honest talk about Iraq.

Up on stage with Obama, alongside San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, was Kim Mack. Mack, who is executive director for Sacramento for Obama, talked about why she is for Obama--and one big reason was her 23-year old son Bobby, who has been serving in Iraq for a year.

In today's New York Times Magazine, two smart writers, Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt, make a really stupid mistake when they talk about nuclear power. The piece is called "the Jane Fonda Effect," and it argues that the reason the United States doesn't have more "clean and cheap nuclear energy" is that the 1979 movie "The China Syndrome" , combined with the accident at Three Mile Island, , irrationally scared the public away from this otherwise wonderful source of energy that doesn't contribute to global warming.

"The big news is that nuclear power may be making a comeback in the United States," the authors, who write the popular column "Freakonomics," note. "Has fear of a meltdown subsided, or has it merely been replaced by the fear of global warming?"

To find that answer, they cite the work of Frank Knight, a legendary U.S. economist who first defined the different in the behavior of people faced with risk (which is quantifiable) and uncertainty, which is, well, uncertain. Here's the drill: You have two boxes filled with red balls and white balls. Box one has exactly half of each; box two has an unknown mix. You want to draw a red ball; which box do you pick?

The Bay Guardian is interviewing the candidates for the 2007 elections. We'll be updating this entry as more information comes in. Post your thoughts or comments below.

Quintin Mecke: Mayoral candidate

http://qformayor.com/

Quintin Mecke interview (play time - 1:04:39)

"It's hard to find an innovative, non-PR-type initiative coming out of the mayor's office."

Visit the Guardian 2007 Election Center for updates, more interviews, and 2007 election news.

The Bay Guardian is interviewing the candidates for the 2007 elections. We'll be updating this entry as more information comes in. Post your thoughts or comments below.

Mayoral candidate: Lonnie Holmes

http://campaignwindow.com/lonnieholmesforsfmayor/

Lonnie Holmes interview (play time - 46:25):

"The crime in this city is absolutely outrageous"

Visit the Guardian 2007 Election Center for updates, more interviews, and 2007 election news.

The Bay Guardian is interviewing the candidates for the 2007 elections. We'll be updating this entry as more information comes in. Post your thoughts or comments below.

Mayoral candidate: Josh Wolf

http://joshwolf.net/JoshWolf4Mayor

"Let's make the police a part of the community, not an occupying force."

Josh Wolf interview (play time - 48:15)

Josh Wolf news on SFBG.com

Visit the Guardian 2007 Election Center for updates, more interviews, and 2007 election news.

Since this is one of the fastest-growing unions in one of the fastest-growing sectors of the workforce -- and since it's president, Andy Stern, is a leader in the rebel group that walked out of the AFL-CIO, this should be a fascinating choice.

Robert Haaland is there, live blogging it.

Newsom's decision to ask for the resignations of hundreds of city employees and appointed commissioners was a impetuous one made with no legal advice, his press secretary has admitted to the Guardian. And now, the strange and sweeping gesture is raising troubling legal questions and potential long term problems for many city employees.
"The mayor did just make the decision more or less on the spot," Newsom spokesperson Nathan Ballard told the Guardian yesterday, referring to the Sept. 7 meeting with a couple dozen senior staffers. "It was in the context of an inspirational speech to the staff."
Ballard said the big moment caused the entire room to applaud, a response that was definitely muted by Sept. 10 when Newsom sent resignation-demand letters out and informed all department heads at a regular weekly meeting. Then came the confusion, the return of some letters that amount to an immediate resignation, and the close work with the City Attorneys Office (whose representatives say they can't speak on the record about this attorney-client matter) to fix the mess.

Newsom press secretary Nathan Ballard -- who got the job after his predecessor was caught lying to reporters -- has always seemed to me a fairly robotic center-right spinmeister, delivering carefully scripted comments without much feeling or human warmth. Or maybe he just hates me and the Guardian, as I've heard from others at City Hall, which is why he's generally fairly unresponsive to our requests and terse when he finally does answer. For example, I had to hound him for days, even after he'd missed the Sunshine Ordinance deadline for the resignation letters Newsom requested and blown off a 10 a.m. appointment with me, before I could finally see the documents and ask him a few questions about them in his office on Monday, which he answered while distractedly looking at his computer almost the entire time.
That was when I was able to finally corner him into admitting that Newsom didn't seek legal advice before announcing his unorthodox and overreaching demand for everyone's resignations, a scoop that the Fog City Journal followed up today with a story on whether Ballard had lied to them and other reporters. So today, I followed up with an e-mail to Ballard (CCed to FCJ, the Chron, and the Examiner, who have also sought a straight answer) asking a simple question: Precisely when did Newsom seek legal advice on his resignation request plan? His answer, delivered a couple hours later, follows:

Alex "Grasshopper" Kaplan was at our office today to talk about his campaign for mayor, but he almost didn't make it; the guy, who has been in and out of jail for the past few weeks, got popped yesterday on what has to be one of the more utterly bogus charges in recent memory.

See, Kaplan is under a restraining order; he's supposed to stay away from Sup. Ed Jew. That goes back to his stunt a few weeks back when he parked his cab in the driveway of Jew's San Francisco house and asked if he could live there. Jew apparently thought Kaplan was a threat, and got the stay-away order.

The problem is that Kaplan loves to speak up at public comment during Board of Supervisors meetings. And just approaching the front of the room, where the microphone is, puts him within 50 feet of Jew. So when he went to speak