Text by Steven T. Jones, photos by Tim Daw

Friends, colleagues and supporters of Sup. Ross Mirkarimi gathered last night to celebrate the recent birth of his son, Theo Aureliano Mirkarimi, with an event dubbed the Mirkarimi Man-Baby Shower and Bar Crawl that started at Molotov’s in Lower Haight.

Among those taking part in an event centered around drinking, cigar smoking, carousing, congratulatory support, wearing custom trucker’s caps, and general male bonding were Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, his predecessor Aaron Peskin, City Attorney’s Office spokesperson Matt Dorsey, Chiu board aide David Noyola, former mayoral candidate Quintin Mecke, Mirkarimi aide Rick Galbreath, Guardian publisher Bruce Brugmann, former Santa Monica mayor Mike Feinstein, Entertainment Commissioner John Wood and local political activists Julian Davis, Andy Blue, Dan Nguyen-Tan, Amandeep Jawa, and Boris Delepine.

Macanudos and Mecke

By Tim Redmond

There are lots of problems with the Muni fare hikes, and Paul Hogarth points out some of them. But there's a larger issue here: Is this really going to bring in more revenue?

Every time Muni raises fares, some people stop riding the bus. That's basic economics -- you hike the price of a product, and you sell less of it. And if your raise the price too high, and enough people stop buying your product, you actually lose money.

That's called the price elasticity of demand, and it's a central part of any economics course. It's hard to run a business without some basic understanding of the concept.

If your product isn't necessary for people's lives (and there are available alternatives), the drop-off is faster and sharper -- raise airline tickets high enough and people quickly drop discretionary travel and vacation closer to home. When the product is something everyone absolutely needs, like housing, and there's no substitute, you can raise prices a lot more without losing customers (see: San Francisco rents).

Muni is somewhere in between. For some people, typically poor and working-class people, it's essential -- they don't own cars and need the bus or train to get to work. For others -- those of us who are physically able to ride bikes, or to walk to work or the store, or economically able to afford private cars -- the price elasticity of Muni is much higher.

There are all sorts of studies on this (here, for example, but trust me, unless you're really into economic theory and lots of strange numbers, don't even think about it.)

Suffice to say that in San Francisco, a small city with typically good weather, a fairly wealthy population and a lot of people who enjoy walking and biking, the price elasticity of demand for Muni is relatively high -- that is, when prices go up, people who can will seek other alternatives. Nobody knows exactlyat what the price point Muni starts to lose money -- when fare hikes become counterproductive -- but I suspect we're approaching it. The largest rate hike in half a century is not only regressive, counter to the city's transit-first policy and environmentally stupid -- it may be a financial mistake.

Now contrast that with raising parking prices. For starters, most drivers who park downtown can well afford to pay a couple bucks more for parking. Second, check out the streets -- parking is so hard to find that it seems very likely that demand exceeds supply by enough of a factor that raising prices won't impact use and will bring in more revenue.

And what if some people decide that parking costs too much and stop driving? Isn't that what the city wants to accomplish anyway?

This decision to raise fares more than parking is nuts, on every level.

Rev. Amos’ Brown’s recent op-ed in the Examiner is the latest in a string of attacks on anyone who suggests that anything about Lennar's redevelopment plan could be improved.

These types of attacks are called “shooting the messenger.” And while they can be effective in silencing critics, they don’t address the problems contained in the message that the (now smeared) messenger was delivering.

In this latest instance of shooting the messenger, Amos’ target is the outspoken Minister Christopher Muhammad, who leads the Nation of Islam mosque on Third Street in Bayview Hunter’s Point and represents the Muslim school that sits adjacent to the shipyard.

Muhammad, who is good at firing up his followers with feisty soul-shaking speeches, has taken to comparing Florida-based developer Lennar to an invasive Burmese python, ever since Lennar failed to control toxic asbestos at the shipyard.

Muhammad also has taken to saying that if Lennar had screwed up in Pacific Heights and the kids at the school had been white, the response from Mayor Gavin Newsom and corporation would have been very different—and Lennar would likely have been fined more than $500,000, which is equal to the cost of one of the 10,500 condos that they are planning to build on the shipyard and Candlestick Point in the next decade.

Muhammad, who has been making these comments at just about every commission, hearing, and meeting citywide, recently took his show on the road to embarrass Newsom at the townhalls in Napa and San Jose, where the man who wants to be California’s next governor was hoping to seduce supporters with speeches and a sunny smile, not be shouted down by a black minister shouting about asbestos and poor innocent children.

Last month, Newsom responded to Muhammad’s crashing of his gubernatorial run in what seemed like sour grapes manner: according to columnists Matier and Ross, Newsom saw that a letter was fired off to Muhammad’s school, with the help of Brown, demanding that $24,000 (of unpaid back rent totaling $168,000) be settled in 30 days, or the school—and with it the kids—will face eviction.

By Steven T. Jones

Faced with San Francisco Police Department threats to block their permits to sell beer and to have amplified music, organizers of the How Weird Street Faire have decided to pay the nearly $10,000 that the cops were demanding up front rather than go to court to fight fees that appear to violate caps written into city codes.

How Weird organizer Brad Olsen said vendor fees and other financial support should allow them to come up with the money. That's good news for those planning to attend the May 10 event, although other outdoor event advocates -- such as John Wood, with the Entertainment Commission and Love Fest -- had urged How Weird to make a stand against rapidly escalating SFPD fees. As the Guardian reported, city codes cap fees for events this size at $5,494.

Police have said they're required to recover all costs associated with the event, although it is the SFPD that decides have many cops on overtime are required to staff the event, which has had no major police incidents in its 10-year history. Love Fest is a far larger event covering more territory, and therefore gets a bigger SFPD bill, so this fight is likely to pick up again once its organizers begin the permit process this summer.

Meanwhile, the SFPD has begun an aggressive campaign to crackdown on underground parties, one that has caused the dozens of local Burning Man camps now staging fundraisers to get creative in throwing parties. Many have moved the parties to the East Bay, while others are renting out existing clubs in San Francisco to get around the crackdown (which many suspect is tied to an SFPD power vacuum and struggle as Chief Heather Fong prepares to retire).

Stay tuned to the Guardian for more coverage of the Death of Fun.

By TIm Redmond

San Francisco stands to lose the vast majority of its public-access cable programming June 30th unless Sup. Ross Mirkarimi is able to convince his colleagues to try to force Comcast, the local cable operator, to keep paying the tab.

Comcast for years has paid enough money through its francise agreement with the city to fund the San Francisco Community Television Corporation, a nonprofit, at a level of roughly $700,000 a year. That pays for the studios on Market Street and a staff to manage 134 local programs that show on channels 29 and 76. It’s a wonderful mix of stuff, put together for what amounts to a bargain price in decidedly low-overhead studios, and demonstrates exactly what the notion of public-access TV is all about.

But in 2006, the state Legislature took the authority to regulate cable franchises away from cities -- and that left San Francisco unable to continue demanding the payment for public access. Mirkarimi has figured out a way around it, and he has the support of state Sen. Mark Leno, who argues that the state legislation never intended to prevent cities from mandating public-access fees.

The technical glitch is language that seems to imply that the city can force Comcast to pay for facilities, but not for operating costs. Since the city’s pretty broke right now, it’s going to be hard to get $700,000 in General Fund money to pay the CTC staff. In fact, CTC applied to renew its contract, but the city said it was only going to be able to pay some $100,000 a year going forward.

But frankly, without a staff to operate the access channels, the whole enterprise will die.

Mirkarimi’s bill would hit Comcast with a new fee -- and based on a letter he’s received from Leno, he thinks it will fly legally. But the cable company says it will simply pass that on to customers (who frankly don’t have a lot of choice in the market). The Chronicle’s Marisa Lagos put it this way:

A city report estimates that consumers, who currently shell out $6.24 per year, could end up paying 352 percent more, or $28.20 per year

That sounds like a whopping fee hike -- 352 percent more! -- but in reality, we’re talking about all of $21.96 a YEAR, or $1.83 a month. Which is pretty minimal.

At the Budget Committee, Mirkarimi and Sup. John Avalos voted to send the bill to the full board, which takes it up tomorrow, May 5th. Saving public access TV isn’t as important as saving public health, but it’s a part of San Francisco, and it’s a way for diverse and creative voices to get on the air -- and it would cost the taxpayers nothing and cable subscribers pennies. This one needs community support.

By Tim Redmond

The San Jose Mercury News just busted Gavin Newsom for using a Spanish-speaking (sorta) ringer in his campaign announcement. Turns out the guy isn't an immigrant; he's a Mission District doctor who is the ex-husband of Newsom's education advisor and SF School Board member Hydra Mendoza.

Editor's note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His reports from the inside appear Mondays and Thursdays. He will respond to questions and comments, but since communications out of the state prison system are often difficult, it may take a little while.

By Just A Guy

Last week's blog didn't get as much response as I had hoped, but got what I expected. It is obvious that even the left is less concerned with the general living condition of prisoners than with the impact on the economy and society in general, but I think it is being overlooked that the way we are treated often results in de-sensitized individuals being released into to a world they now view as more agressive and unfair. I will use this to seque into medical and mental health care as this is a portrait of how we're treated, too.

To say there is inadequate mental health care would be a gross understatement, this has been verified (by Elaina Jannell in previous posts) with respect to California State Prison-Solano. Keep in mind that Solano is supposed to be a pilot program prison, a place where they bring the politicians and tour groups to show what a great job the California Deparment of Corrections and Rehabilition is doing and how all your tax money is being spent.

Well, that's Solano, not here or the other thirty-two prisons. If the mental health care is inadequate at a pilot program, imagine what it's like somewhere that isn't under the microscope!

I am one of those people that is supposed to be getting mental health care, but I have not seen anyone from the mental health staff in well over a year. While I feel I am well adjusted and, quite frankly, don't hold the services in high regard (for obvious reasons) there are people around me who have blatantly obvious mental/psychological disorders that DO NOT receive care. The CDCR answer seems to be paint.

Betchya wonder what the hell I'm talking about.

By Ben Terrall

On Monday, June 8, the seven former Black Panthers known as the San Francisco 8 will face a preliminary hearing in Superior Court. The defendants are charged in the 1971 death of a local police officer; the charges were initially brought back in 1975, and dismissed when a judge ruled that the central evidence in the case was obtained through torture.

In fact, the FBI COINTELPRO-era case has a chilling resemblance to stories of torture at Guantanamo Bay: the statements were obtained after several of the suspects were subject to sleep deprivation, wet blankets used for asphyxiation, and beatings.

Now, although the San Francisco district attorney refused to file charges, Attorney General Jerry Brown has brought the case back. In 2007, he charged eight men – all of them now in their 60s, 70s and 80s – with murder. One defendant has been dropped from the case.

The remaining defendants are Herman Bell, Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Henry (Hank)Jones, Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), Harold Taylor and Francisco Torres.

The case has attracted international attention, and Nobel Prize winners including Desmond Tutu have called on Brown to drop the charges.


Locally, it’s led to a fascinating battle within the San Francisco Labor Council.

By Tim Redmond

Lots of talk about the Sunset reservoir Solar proposal over the weekend; the Chron weighed in with a fairly weak story that just did the he-says-she-says without getting into any of the real issues. And Julian Davis has a pretty detailed analysis here, at Fog City Journal.

The simple point is that the contract the supes are about to sign off on isn’t a great deal for the city. We’re going to be paying a lot of money to a private company to do something the city ought to be able to do itself.

I had conversations last week with a number of supervisors, and it’s looking like some of the progressives -- John Avalos and Eric Mar, for example -- are leaning toward supporting the project. Mar told me he’s been listening to the Sierra Club, which is often a good thing to do when it comes to alternative energy, but in this case I think the traditional enviros are so thrilled that there’s actual a viable solar project on the horizon that they’re not spending enough time on the details.

In fact, I spoke with John Rizzo, the Sierra Club’s point person on the project, and he told me that “The Sierra Club doesn’t care about the details of the contract. We’re not contract experts. We just want to see this happen.”

He agreed that it’s infuriating that so much of the federal alternative-energy money is going to the private sector, and said he’d support legislation that would give public agencies access to the same sort of money private companies get in tax breaks. “But global warming isn’t waiting,” he said. “Let’s build this one with this kind of a deal, and try the have the city build the next one.”

I with Rizzo in spirt, but the truth is, we’re going to regret this deal.

The only reason it makes sense to pay Recurrent Energy to do this is that Recurrent gets a $12 million tax break, and the city, as a public agency, doesn’t qualify for that money.

Let me make a humble suggestion. Rep. Nancy Pelosi is, I believe, still the speaker of the House. She’s managed to get San Francisco something like a billion dollars for the Chinatown subway. I’m willing to bet a case of Bud Light (and I don’t make bets that valuable easily) that if the mayor of San Francisco called Rep. Pelosi and told her that the difference between building a five-megawatt solar project and not building it was $12 million in federal money -- so little in terms of federal spending that it’s what Mirkarimi calls "decimal dust" -- San Francisco would have a promise of that cash so fast that Newsom couldn’t even find a shovel to break ground before the check arrived.

And the thing that frustrates me is that nobody’s even trying.

The supes ought to send this deal back to committee and take a real look at ways the city can do the same project, and own it, for less money. I refuse to believe that’s not possible.

And if Gavin Newsom wants to say he can’t make this work, then he’s going to have a hell of a time convincing any of us that he has the ability to run the State of California.

For anyone who believed that Mayor Newsom was merely proposing a) to merge the Mayor’s Office of Community Investment with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development and b) change how community block development grants are spent, and that none of this would happen until he got the Board of Supervisors's approval, as is required, according to the City charter, here’s a letterthat suggests that the MOCI/OEWD merger is a done deal, and that changes to community development block grants use are about to be rammed through, give or take a community comment, or two.

Dated April 16, the missive states that, “The Mayor’s Office of Community Investment (MOCI), now merged with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, is proposing to amend the 2005-2009 Consolidated Plan.”

The Consolidated Plan, in case you are wondering, sets forth the strategy and goals for the city’s use of four federal funding sources: community block development grants, emergency shelter grants, home investment partnerships and housing opportunities for persons with AIDS.

According to the OEWD April 16 missive, Newsom’s proposed amendment seeks to undertake “economic development, housing and public service activities with CDBG funds” and promote “innovative programs in economically disadvantaged areas.” It also designates the Western Addition as a “neighborhood revitalization strategy area.”

You can check out the entire draft plan here.

By Steven T. Jones

While Mayor Gavin Newsom gallivants around the country – he’s been back east accepting accolades for same-sex marriage and Healthy San Francisco and trying to shore up White House support for his Treasure Island and Hunters Point redevelopment schemes – other city leaders are doing the hard work of restoring San Francisco values.

On Wednesday, there are two shining examples of this uphill battle that take place on opposite ends of Civic Center Plaza. First, SF Public Defender Jeff Adachi hosts “Justice Summit 2009: Defending the Public and the Constitution,” which highlights the importance of constitutional guarantees of quality legal representation for all defendants, regardless of income level, a right that has been eroded by budgetary pressures in San Francisco and around the country.

Among the long list of respected legal thinkers will be a keynote speech by US District Judge Thelton Henderson, who has ordered California to finally do something about severe overcrowding and substandard medical care in its prisons – a laudable and courageous stand that has been met with utter cowardice, contempt, and pandering by state officials. That event begins at 10 a.m. in the main library’s Koret Auditorium.

Then, at 1:30 in City Hall, the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee will consider a proposal by Board President David Chiu to reject the terrible and short-sighted budget that was just approved by the Municipal Transportation Agency, which reduces Muni service and increases the fare to $2 while asking little from motorists (who will increase in numbers as more people eschew taking transit) or from Muni chief Nat Ford, whose $316,459 salary is the highest in city government (again, Newsom's doing).

These are difficult issues that require hard work (and more revenue from the well-heeled city residents that Newsom is siding with in blocking a special election on tax measures), but it’s good to see we still have some public-spirited elected officials who are willing to take risks and work for San Francisco values instead of simply campaigning on them.

So maybe it’s more complicated than blaming it all on Craigslist, but reports that The Onion, that venerable fake news publication, is discontinuing print editions in San Francisco and Los Angeles, “because the advertising in both cities has been abysmal” got me thinking uncharitably of Craig Newmark again.
Speaking of killings, Craigslist representatives are meeting with attorney generals from Missouri, Illinois and Connecticut today to negotiate eliminating ads for prostitution and other suspected illegal sexual activities from their site.

Text and photos by Joe Sciarrillo

Thousands marched in Bay Area cities on May 1 to honor International Workers' Day, or May Day, offering a preview of the big struggles to come on the national political front.

Mission District activists chanted on Dolores Street, "¡Qué viva las familias! ¡Qué viva el barrio! Viva!" energizing participants to join together to support their families and neighborhoods. Yet the daily struggles of immigrants and laborers, families living hand-to-mouth, and loved ones separated by borders has eluded most media outlets and commentators.

The nationwide marches focused on calls for comprehensive immigration reform and improving workers' conditions, including passing the Employee Free Choice Act. This was just days after the first question at President Barack Obama's April 29 news conference asked if he would close the U.S./Mexico border due to the swine flu outbreak. He, of course, responded by declaring that he would not do so.

By Rebecca Bowe

The Board of Supervisors voted 7 to 4 this afternoon to approve a 25-year power purchase agreement with Recurrent Energy, a private firm that plans to construct a 5-megawatt photovoltaic array at the Sunset Reservoir. Supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, Chris Daly and Ross Mirkarimi voted against the agreement, voicing concerns that the city would be locked into a bad financial deal for years to come and asserting that the city could strike a better deal with Recurrent. Part of the problem, Mirkarimi noted, is that the city would be locked into paying a fixed price for solar energy even if the going rate drops significantly in coming years.

The Guardian has weighed in on the project at several junctures. While everyone at the table believes that the end goal is laudable – adding 5 megawatts of clean energy to the city’s renewable portfolio – Supervisors Mirkarimi and Campos have expressed opposition to contract terms that they say would ultimately sell San Francisco ratepayers short. At a joint meeting between LAFCo and the SFPUC on April 24, Mirkarimi also worried that the Recurrent Energy project could undercut the efforts of San Francisco’s fledgling Community Choice Aggregation initiative.

The power purchase agreement was originally put forth by Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Carmen Chu. Chu advocated strongly for it during today’s meeting, saying she believed it was a good deal and noting that it would create 71 jobs.

Daly weighed in heavily against it, calling the deal a politicized “rush job.” The result, in his opinion, is that “we get electricity that is green, but it is too expensive to give anyone else the opportunity to do it too. … Going green doesn’t mean going green stupid. If it seems like gymnastics for a deal, there is a better way.”

By Tim Redmond

Congratulations to City Editor Steven T. Jones, who won a presitigous Maggie Award from the Western Publishing Association. Jones won in the category of "Best Signed Editorial or Essay" for his March 19, 2008 report on the state of the antiwar movement, "Resistance is futile -- or is it?".

By Tim Redmond

Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't actually admit that he favors legalizing marijuana, which he once referred to (after taking hit on camera) as "not a drug, it's a leaf," but he did say that the state ought to have a debate on the issue. That's possibly good news for Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, who has a bill to legalize pot that's not exactly moving forward fast. Some of the Democrats in Sacramento are more afraid of the Demon Leaf than the guv is.

I don't know if Arnold still does the 420, but I know he realizes that his budget plan is heading for defeat. And legalizing and taxing the state's biggest cash crop would do wonders to boost state revenue.

UPDATE: Just talked to Ammiano, who told me that "I'm predicting something pretty good comes out of this." WIth polls showing more than half the state supports legal pot, even the Democratic leadership, which has been loathe to move the Ammiano bill foward, may be ready at least to discuss the issue.

"The opposition is shrinking and the proponents are growing," he said.

So it will be interesting to see how the Democratic candidates for governor shake down on this. "Gavin Newsom has trapped himself by saying no," Ammiano noted. Can't wait to hear what ol' Jerry Brown has to say.

By Rebecca Bowe

On Dec. 31, 2008, Mirant’s wastewater-discharge permit expired -- but the gas and diesel-fired power plant still runs an average of nearly 20 hours a day, according to figures released by the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO).

One unit at the facility uses a system called once-through cooling, which means it takes in huge quantities of water from the bay to cool the machinery, then dumps it all back at temperatures high enough to impact surrounding ecosystems. This process is regulated by a permit issued by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. A spreadsheet on the agency’s Web site shows that more than five months into 2009, a hearing to outline the terms of a new wastewater-discharge permit still hasn't been scheduled. The water board is waiting on a state policy decision regarding once-through cooling before it acts, a note explains.

Text by Sarah Phelan

Asking for change outside local nightclubs could end up costing you $100 or a stint in the county jail, thanks to a newly enacted loitering ban that's aimed at making clubbing safer but threatens First Amendment rights.

Google the phrase “we met outside the club” and you’ll get all sorts of interesting hits, mostly involving luscious bands, lascivious strippers and a crazy story titled “Getting laid Brazilian style.”

But meeting band members, picking up strippers and getting laid San Francisco style by people you met outside clubs here just got potentially harder, thanks to loitering legislation that the Board of Supervisors passed yesterday, in an effort to make clubbing safer. And then there are the usual questions about how this legislation impinges on people’s First Amendment rights and how it will most likely end up netting a bunch of homeless folks rather than hardened criminals.

“The areas outside nightclubs have become the site of robberies, assaults, stabbings and shootings” states the loitering ban that the Board passed in a 9-2 vote, with Sups. Chris Daly and John Avalos dissenting.

By Steven T. Jones

Proponents of Sunday Streets accepting their award. Photo by Orange Photography courtesy of the SFBC.

The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition honored the proponents of Sunday Streets – the temporary closure of San Francisco roads to cars that was created by a partnership of groups ranging from Livable City to the Mayor’s Office – at its annual Golden Wheels awards event, held last night in the War Memorial Building across from City Hall.

Sunday Streets, part of an international trend toward adopting the ciclovias popularized in Columbia as a means of expanding public space and promoting fitness and recreation, started last year in San Francisco with two events and there are six planned for this year, with the second coming this Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. from AT&T Park to the Bayview Opera House.

“The streets belong to us, they are the public spaces of the city, but they don’t feel like they belong to us,” said Livable City director Tom Radulovich, who praised the unlikely coalition that brought these events together. “I don’t get a chance to thank the mayor for very many things…But the mayor was committed to this.”

By Steven T. Jones

While the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing on President David Chiu’s proposal to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s disastrous budget is just getting underway, the fact that Chiu has six co-sponsors (giving him the seven votes required to reject it) seems to indicate that this budget is going down.

“If people have to pay more for less, they will stop taking Muni,” Chiu said at the hearing, referring to an MTA budget that closes a $126 million budget deficit mostly with Muni fare increases and deep service cuts.

Chiu and Sup. David Campos also took issue with the $66 million that the MTA is planning to pay out to other city agencies, most notably the police and health departments and the 311 call center, a pet project of Mayor Gavin Newsom. “Whatever money riders of Muni pay into the system should be used for public transportation,” Campos said, adding that his Mission District constituents are angry that the MTA is being used as a piggy bank by other city departments. “I’m very troubled by that and I believe the voters of my district are troubled by that.”

While this saga will take at least another week or two to play out at the board level, if Chiu’s co-sponsors remain supportive, the board is going to make the MTA come up with a fair, smart budget that doesn’t subsidize unrelated services or discourage public transit use when we need it most.

By Steven T. Jones

The supervisors that voted 4-1 yesterday to reject the MTA's budget were smart, deliberate, curious, and forward-looking, so it's no surprise that the Mayor Gavin Newsom's flack Nathan Ballard told the Chronicle that they were "failing to grasp the big picture" and causing cuts in public health and other city services.

If those cuts happen, that's Newsom's fault for blocking the new revenue measures that President David Chiu, who also led this charge in questioning a budget that will hurt Muni and the city, tried to create. Instead, Newsom supports this utterly dishonest MTA budget, which takes even more than the $26 million per year that voters in 2007 said they wanted Muni to have by approving Prop. A and using it to fund pet projects that he wants to claim in his run for governor.

Newsom was also the one who decided to pay MTA director Nat Ford $316,000, the highest salary in the city, and to negotiate overly generous contracts with city police, fire, and management unions that he's now having to try to go back and undo. He lets taxpayers pay Ballard and other highly paid political operatives and lets his precious 311 call center charge the MTA almost $2 per call, which is more than it costs to ride the bus. And he wants MTA is increase the number of fare inspectors, even though that program costs $8 million and only netted $350,000 in fines. On and on it goes, as the hearing yesterday clearly highlighted.

But don't take my word for it, go to SFGTV and watch the Budget and Finance Committee hearing, starting around the third hour when this item began. Watch Chiu respectfully and intelligently ask insightful questions of Ford that clearly showed just how bad this budget is. Then you'll grasp the big picture and appreciate who's really running the city and who's willing to sacrifice this city on the altar of his personal ambitions.

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. You can read some of his earlier blogs here and here and here. He's trying to give the taxpayers -- who are forking over huge sums of money every year to keep 170,000 Californians behind bars -- a sense of what prison life is really like. He welcomes comments and questions, and tries to answer all of them, although sometimes it takes a while because he has to reach us from prison, where it's often hard to communicate with the outside. His blog posts run Mondays and Thursdays. Today he takes on the difficult topic of race in prison, and explains how prison customs and a lack of state programs lead to a type of segregation that's damaging and harmful to everyone.

By Just A Guy

Well, it seems as if the initial excitement over this blog has waned a little bit, but I am okay with that. What I am really looking for from my audience (sounds kind of arrogant, sorry) is questions and potential topics to discuss. So, lay your fingers to the keyboard and start typing. You with loved ones in prison, ask them for topics to discuss too.

So far I have touched on quite a few things like health care, rehabilitation, education, vocations, and all the little things that make prison prison, but I have just scratched the surface of this drama called prison life. I would like to get into how a lot of this stuff makes me feel, how it makes my fellow prisoners feel, our families, the staff, the public. Maybe we can generate a big group hug! (Lol).

Prison life is really a trip, there are all these little rules that make up the politics of prison, and are the rules of survival among my fellow inmates. I don't think the general public really knows about this stuff, but it's fascinating and discouraging, so I will blog a bit about the despair we create for ourselves.

I certainly don't want it to be said that I didn't present both sides of the picture, it's easy to rail against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, but I said I will keep it real, so I will, to the best of my ability anyway.

The most ironic thing to me about being in prison is that we come to prison and have all sorts of freedoms taken away from us based on our actions, then we make up all sorts of our own rules -- and imprison ourselves even more. The creation of these rules, groups, standards, and ideologies separate us even further from normal mores, thus, further reducing our already limited freedoms.

Nowhere it that more obvious than in race relations.

By Julian Davis

(Julian Davis is on the board of San Francisco Tomorrow, an urban environmental organization. He chaired last November's Clean Energy campaign, prop H.)

In the wake of Tuesday’s vote on the Recurrent solar power deal for the Sunset Reservoir, long time progressive activists have to ask themselves, what happened?

A widespread commitment to positive government courses through the veins of San Francisco’s political community. Whether it’s defending the public health care system against cuts or the perennial advocacy of public power, one thing that unites progressives is a belief that government should work for the people and that corporate special interests have no place dictating or writing the terms at City Hall.

By Tim Redmond

The Marin Independent Journal is going nuts about the fact that San Francisco Sup. Ross Mirkarimi got a slot on the state Coastal Commission. The IJ wanted a Marinite, Sup. Steve Kinsey, and is blasting Sen. Mark Leno for recommending Mirkarimi (which for all practical purposes guaranteed that the San Francisco environmental leader would get the post).

According to the IJ:

Leno said it was a difficult choice and that he respects Kinsey's experience. He said Mirkarimi offers strong environmental credentials and stressed that a San Franciscan has not held the North Coast seat for 32 years. He pointed to Mirkarimi's leadership in winning passage of San Francisco's ban on plastic bags. Leno said he also heard from some environmentalists who asked him not to pick Kinsey. Apparently Kinsey works harder than they would like to balance historic private property rights and local agriculture with protection of California's coast.

You get the point -- Kinsey thinks that the Coastal Commission should "balance" property rights and coastal protection. Actually, that's not the panel's job. The commission was set up to prevent development along the coast; it's supposed to be really, really hard to get a permit to do anything that would limit public access or damange a pristine coastal area.

A former Sierra Club president makes the point nicely here.

But wait -- the IJ isn't done. In an oped column May 5th, Brad Breithaupt insists that Leno was snubbing the northern part of his district:

For the first time in 30 years, a Marin resident isn't serving on the commission, even as an alternate.

Guess what? It's been more than 30 years since San Francisco had a seat on the commission.

But that's not the issue. The issue is that coastal protection is more important than whether someone lives in San Francisco or Marin -- and on an increasingly conservative and pro-development commission, the representative from the SF/Marin/Sonoma area needs to be a hard-core enviro, someone who isn't looking to compromise with property owners or developers.

"And I think Ross Mirkarimi has already proven he's doing an excellent job," Leno said. So lighten up, Marin.

By Steven T. Jones

Hearst dropped the hammer on the San Francisco Chronicle this morning, laying off 20 people in the newsroom, including award-winning veteran writers Susan Sward and Jane Kay. SFist was the first up with a fairly complete list, which our sources at the Chron has confirmed is accurate.

The layoffs follow voluntary buyouts that dozens of Chron employees took, including political writer John Wildermuth. Most of the terminations, both the layoffs and buyouts, go into effect at the end of the month. Although Chron employees knew this was coming, it was still tough blow to morale at the paper.

An employee meeting to discuss the news has been set for 4:30 pm. We'll have more on this story as it develops.

By Steven T. Jones

News that prosecutors have raided the administrative offices at City College of San Francisco seeking documents associated with a scheme to launder public funds into campaign contributions (a story that Chron investigative reporter Lance Williams broke in 2007, and which the Guardian has furthered a couple times) is a big deal and a long time in coming.

As the Guardian has written repeatedly over the years, City College administrators from former Chancellor Phil Day on down have always played fast and loose with the people's money and need to be held accountable.

The DA's investigation should cast a wide net in learning who knew about this money laundering scheme, including looking at longtime board members who enabled Day and held back the reformers. Luckily, that board now has some public spirited members, including Milton Marks, John Rizzo, and Chris Jackson (who just joined the board last year), but they're still in the minority. Nonetheless, they need to push this board to work hard to restore the public's confidence in this important institution.

By Steven T. Jones

As the Board of Supervisors prepares to reject the Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget this Tuesday, word is the Mayor’s Office and MTA are threatening to play chicken and not try in good faith to develop a new budget before the current one expires at the end of the month (in which case, the city General Fund would pay for current Muni service levels, thus expanding the city’s budget deficit).

“We don’t have a course of action charted for if the Board of Supervisors rejects this budget,” MTA spokesperson Judson True said. When I asked whether the board would get together next week to try to develop a budget (its next meeting is May 19), he said, “Whether the MTA board convenes or not is up to the MTA board.”

And that board is made up entirely of mayoral appointees, which is how we got into this mess in the first place. The Mayor’s Office has not answered our inquiries, and MTA director Nat Ford hasn’t been available to supervisors or anyone else. He even cancelled a long-planned interview tonight on the City Desk News Hour, on which I’ll be discussing this issue tonight (7 p.m. on Comcast Channel 11).

It’s not as if the MTA and Newsom didn’t see this coming. More than a month ago, Board President David Chiu visited the MTA and said the Board of Supervisors would reject the budget if it relied too heavily on Muni service cuts and fare hikes and if it continued to subsidize other city agencies through ballooning work orders.

By Steven T. Jones

It’s shameful that the Bay Area is home to so many of the top people implicated in creating this country’s torture program. They include the former White House lawyers who created the legal justification for the program, Jay Bybee (who is now a justice at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, located on 7th Street) and John Yoo (who teaches law at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall); top Bush Administration enablers Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, who are down at Stanford’s Hoover Institute; and our own Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who was reportedly briefed on the program when it began back in 2002 as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

While Pelosi has so far (inexplicably) escaped serious scrutiny of the issue (just as she did about her foreknowledge of Bush’s illegal wiretapping program), there’s a budding impeachment movement against Bybee, Rice and Rumsfeld reportedly need to consult lawyers before traveling (they should really visit Spain, which I hear is lovely this time of year), and regular protests calling for Yoo’s removal continue next week when World Can’t Wait plans to have a large protest outside Boalt’s commencement ceremonies on May 16 at the Greek Theater.

Justice is coming slowly, but it is coming.

By Tim Redmond

Okay, here's the TV event of the month: Assemblymember Tom Ammiano will be discussing his marijuana legalization bill with Gov. Schwarzenegger, live on CNN, tomorrow (Sat) at 2:30 pm. The segment will be rebroadcast later in the day.

Must-see TV.

By Steven T. Jones

San Francisco financier Warren Hellman is one of downtown's most complex and interesting figures, as I learned years ago when I worked on an award-winning profile of him. Since then, we've stayed in touch and spoken every few months, often about the state of the print media in San Francisco and around the country.

Earlier this year, as the Chronicle was having its problems, we again talked about the need for a more sustainable media model and he said that he planned to contact Hearst executives and explore the possibility of creating a nonprofit paper, a goal that other less connected and endowed entities have also been pursuing (including The Public Press, on whose steering committee I've served). But Hellman has the pull to get top executives on the phone and to generate significant capital.

Now, as the San Francisco Business Times reports, Hellman has made significant progress and says he intends to make an announcement in two months about how he plans to create a new print media presence in San Francisco.

We wish him luck and are anxious to see what his team comes up with.

By Steven T. Jones

Paul Hogarth has announced his withdrawal from the District 6 race for the Board of Supervisors, clearing the way for Debra Walker to be the sole significant progressive candidate in that race (although Jim Meko will also vie for those votes in a district that is one of the city's most liberal, while downtown is expected to offer up its own candidate).

In making his announcement, Hogarth -- who works for Tenderloin Housing Clinic and writes for its Beyond Chron blog -- cited financial reasons and the fact that his heart just wasn't in it right now. He had come under some criticism in the Guardian and elsewhere for planning to continue writing for the blog as he ran.

By Tim Redmond

In case you missed it Saturday, here's the CNN segment on Tom Ammiano's pot decrim bill. The governor was supposed to be on with Ammiano, but he ducked at the last minute, claiming he was too busy with the Santa Barbara fires. (Funny, I didn't see him carrying an axe or a hose.)

Editors note: Just a guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His dispatches run Mondays and Thursdays. He tries to answer all questions and comments, but it takes a while to get communications out of the state prison system, so be patient.

By Just A Guy

Another day's gone by, and I’m a little closer to home and struggling for something to write about. It's easy once I get going, but figuring out what my topic should be can be difficult.

I mentioned I'd talk about how we feel. I can really only write about how I feel, how it is on a daily basis. It's hard to quantify a lot of these things, but I will try and lay it out. When I say prison and the way we are treated is de-sensitizing, that probably bears explanation, so I will delve into that for a minute.

Imagine, for a moment, being in an environment that is always hostile. Please don't mistake hostility for violence in this instance, but more of an overall feeling or undertone of unease. If you can, think of a day or time in your life where you were just uncomfortable, just not quite at rest, not able to quite put your finger on why, maybe it was where you were, maybe it was the people or person you were around, maybe you were in a bad neighborhood and were lost. How about this -- the first time, as a child you left the boundaries of your home or neighborhood on your own, rode your bike a little further than you'd ever been ... you weren't scared really, you were sure you knew how to get home, but you were just a little ambivalent, or not at rest ... that's sort of how it feels to be in prison. Vulnerable. Not able to relax.

Also, imagine what it's like to really trust no one around you. Imagine if you always felt like someone was trying to get something from you, that the smiles were false, that you were being watched all the time, that your world was really a tight rope over a bed of rusty, broken nails. Imagine a state of mind where every decision you make, every meal you eat, and every "friendship" you have is behind the fence on of the wrong side of justice and pining for a moment of solace.

By Tim Redmond

The future of military recruiting in public schools will come back before the San Francisco School Board tomorrow (Tuesday May 12) as the seven board members take up a resolution by Jill Wynns and Rachel Norton that would undo a previous board decision and bring back JROTC.

This is, of course, a terrible idea.
It’s also going to be a close vote -- Wynns, Norton and Hydra Mendoza are expected to support the resolution. Jane Kim, Kim-Shree Maufas and Sandra Fewer are going to oppose it. The swing vote is Norman Yee -- and nobody has any idea what he’s going to do.

If the Wynns resolution bringing back JROTC fails, then the program is dead. The board has already voted to phase the recruiting program out, as of next month.

Of course, JROTC will be in trouble anyway as long as the board doesn’t grant phys ed credit to students who take the elective activity. Right now, the JROTC instructors don’t qualify as state-certified phys ed teachers, and the program doesn’t meet state standards. Assembly member Fiona Ma is trying to change that, but here bill doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

It’s a heated and emotional topic that’s generated a lot of organizing and energy at the board -- and as the final vote nears, Kim, Fewer and Mendoza have been meeting with JROTC instructors to see if there’s any ground for compromise.

“I told them I would consider approving it as an after-school program,” Kim told me. “If students really want it, then they can do it after school, with no credit.” The response from JROTC: No way, that would kill the program.

“If the program is so popular, I don’t get the issue,” Kim explained.

The other glitch: The JROTC instructors say the Department of Defense, which ultimately calls the shots here, wouldn’t accept an after-school program.

In other words, the military really IS using the hook of P.E. credit to snag potential military recruits in public high schools.

There’s another interesting element to all of this. The San Francisco public high schools are considering changing curriculum anyway to fit more closely to the UC/CSU admission requirements -- and there’s no way JROTC would qualify for any course credit under those standards.

Yee has said in the past -- and has told me personally -- that he doesn’t want JROTC to come back and that he won’t vote for P.E. credit for the program. But the pressure on the board members will be intense. I hope he has the courage to do the right thing.

The military has every right to go after 18-year-olds, and is using every tool at its disposal to convince them to join up. Seducing minors into the war maching just isn’t acceptable in San Francisco.

By Rebecca Bowe

At Monday’s Land Use and Economic Development Committee hearing, Human Rights Commission Executive Director Chris Iglesias reported on how many locally owned San Francisco businesses benefit from city-issued contracts. The Guardian spotlighted this issue recently.

Across the board, the data showed, most city contracts are awarded to outside firms. (One speaker referred to them as “the Halliburtons of the world.”) The number of prime contracts and subcontracts awarded to non-local businesses was disproportionately higher than those awarded to local businesses, minority-owned businesses, or women-owned businesses, the data showed. Between September of 2006 and December of 2008, Iglesias noted, 35 percent of all city contracts went to certified local business enterprises.

In terms of city departments, Public Works led the way by awarding some 48 percent of its contracts to local firms. The airport issued just 10 percent of its contracts to local businesses, the port contributed 22 percent, and the Public Utilities Commission awarded 34 percent. Citywide, just 9 percent of term-contract awards and 7 percent of blanket-purchase orders were made through local firms.

Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, who formerly served on the city’s Small Business Commission, was less than thrilled by the findings.

By Tim Redmond

Here's what Norman Yee told me last fall:

"I will not vote to bring back JROTC to the schools. I have always said that I support JROTC if it meets state requirements. But since it doesn't, I'm not for bringing it back. People ask these yes-or-no questions, and they don't understand what my position really is."

This morning the Chronicle reports that he's ready to vote to bring the program back.

What's happening? I haven't been able to reach Yee today, but if he's changed his position, that would be a serious disappointment, since many of us endorsed him for re-election in part because he had the courage to vote down JROTC last time around.

The vote is tonight.

By Steven T. Jones

Newsom only rides Muni for photos ops, so he won't feel the pinch of paying $2 fares for decreased service.

As the Board of Supervisors prepares to vote this afternoon on a Muni budget that would raise fares and cut service in order to subsidize other city departments and protect drivers from increased parking fees, pressure from Mayor Gavin Newsom has reportedly flipped Sup. Bevan Dufty and weakened the resolve of the final swing vote, Sup. Sophie Maxwell.

Streetsblog has an excellent report (including audio from Newsom yesterday) about how Dufty – after voting against the Muni budget in committee just last week -- has relented to accusations by the Mayor’s Office that a vote against the MTA budget is a vote to widen the city’s budget deficit.

Yet the reality is that the city charter makes the MTA an independent agency, not a piggybank for the Police Department, Newsom’s cherished 311 call center, or the other city agencies that will siphon off $66 million in Muni funds through work orders for functions that they perform anyway. Work orders have increased by way more than the $26 million per year that Newsom encouraged voters to give Muni by approving Prop. A in 2007.

Newsom tried dismissed arguments that the budget would create a downward spiral for Muni, which is already reeling from state budget cuts, saying of the issue “this is nothing.” He also said, “You have to be responsible for the things you advocate because there’s tradeoffs.” That’s true, and apparently Newsom is willing to trade the MTA’s independence and the quality of public transit in San Francisco for appeasing the cops, subsidizing 311, and justifying his budgetary unilateralism and opposition to new revenue measures.

By Tim Redmond

Like so much in San Francisco politics, the vote tonight on restoring JROTC isn't as simple as it might seem.

The resolution by Jill Wynns and Rachel Norton simply directs the superintendent to preserve JROTC at the seven high schools where the program currently exists. It doesn't say a word about Physical Education credit.

That's a central issue, because just about everyone agrees that if students don't get PE credit for JROTC, so few will sign up that the program will die anyway. State law seems to say that anyone teaching PE classes has to have a teaching credential, and the JROTC instructors don't qualify. The Chron reports that

Last week, the California Board of Education clarified the issue, saying local education officials have the authority to offer PE credits for JROTC. The state Department of Education reiterated that position in a letter to district and county education officials Monday.

JROTC instructors, who have a state and federal credential to teach the military course, would not need a PE credential, said Phil Lafontaine, the department's director of professional development and curriculum support.

"They're appropriately credentialed," he said, even if students are earning PE credit.

But Gentle Blythe, the SFUSD spokesperson, told me that the district "has not seen that letter, so we haven't been able to analyze it."

In the meantime, the school board voted last June to end PE credit for this past year, which was supposed to be the final year of JROTC. According to Norton, that resolution doen't apply going forward -- so she's convinced that if her resolution passes tonight, the PE issue will be moot. "The board policy enacted last year only end PE credit for the 2008-2009 year," she told me.

Now it gets interesting. The intent of the board last year was almost certainly to end PE credit forever, since JROTC was supposed to be phased out after this year (why deny PE credit in 2009-2010 for a program that wasn't supposed to exist?) But if the technical interpretation Norton is offering holds up, the board may face another vote --to withold PE credit for next year and into the future.

And since the swing vote on JROTC, Norman Yee, has made it clear ijn the past that he doesn't support PE credit, he could wind up voting yes tonight to save the program -- then no on a future resolution killing PE credit (which would effectively kill JROTC anyway).

"That's possible," Norton said. "But I don't think it's going to happen."

It might, though -- I don't see JROTC foes letting this go.

UPDATE: I just spoke with Norman Yee. He says he plans to support the Wynns-Norton resolution "with amendments" -- including the right for some high schools to opt out. He says his previous refusal to support PE credit was based on the state's position that only credentialed teachers could teach PE -- but if the state is wiling to accept the SF program, so is he.

Ick, that means this comes down to the district's legal interpretation of a letter from the state Board of Education. Stay tuned.

By Rebecca Bowe

Photo courtesy Janet Carpinelli

The Bluepeter Building, a unique industrial warehouse constructed in 1940 along San Francisco’s central waterfront, has become the focus of a neighborhood campaign for historic preservation. Under the Mission Bay redevelopment plan, it's slated for demolition -- but some community members are hoping an alternative vision can be implemented.

Janet Carpinelli of the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association has a vision for rehabbing the Bluepeter Building and converting it to a fish market, casual food vending business, and community gathering space which she says could also be integrated into a maritime history tour along the city's Central Waterfront. Owned by the Port of San Francisco, it’s been shuttered for more than a decade and hasn’t been very well maintained. Under the Mission Bay redevelopment plan, the building would be torn down and a park would be constructed on the lot instead.

"Just putting the park there is not as interesting,” Carpinelli says. “We shouldn’t just be knocking down the building.”

By Steven T. Jones
As our followers on Twitter know, backroom negotiations between the Mayor's Office and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors have delayed consideration of rejecting the Muni budget. The MTA seems to be basically letting the Mayor's Office (through Sup. Carmen Chu) represent this supposedly independent agency.

For now, Sup. Sophie Maxwell seems to be standing firm with the six solid progressives for the seven votes they need to reject while Sup. Bevan Dufty is simply following Newsom. Maxwell has lots of Muni riders in her district and sources say she wants more from drivers in budget cuts that hit Muni rider by a 4-1 ratio (although she isn't commenting).

Progressives also want a paring back of the budget's $66 million raid by other departments and sources say there has been some progress there, but no deal yet. The board is in closed session now and most indications are there there will be action on this today, but you never know. If no deal is reached, progressive supes will have to decide whether to reject the budget or continue the item a week in the hopes of reaching a deal.

Stay tuned

The Board of Supervisors voted 6-5 in favor of a Muni budget deal that restores almost $10 million in cuts but leaves the fare hike to $2 and most of the MTA transfers to other departments intact. More details in a couple hours.

By Steven T. Jones

After hours of negotiations between the Mayor’s Office (mostly via its representative, Sup. Carmen Chu) and progressive members of the Board of Supervisors, President David Chiu reconvened his colleagues this evening to announce that he had cut a deal on his challenge to Muni’s budget: “I’m happy to say we’ve made good headway.”

Chiu asked MTA chief Nat Ford to announce the terms: the agency would trim $10.3 million from the budget (a $2.8 million reduction in the $66 million it is giving to other city departments, $6.5 million in salary and operations savings and other nips and tucks, and $1 million in increased parking revenue after a 90-day study of extending meter hours) and restore $8.6 million in proposed Muni service cuts, immediately complete MOU negotiations with the SFPD to finally explain why the MTA is giving them millions of dollars every year, and delay by six months increases in what seniors, youth and the disabled will pay for Fast Passes.

Everyone thanked Chiu for taking the lead on challenging the MTA budget and negotiating a settlement to this conflict with Mayor Gavin Newsom, then all the progressive supervisors criticized the package as a bad deal that unduly punishes Muni riders and lets Newsom get away with raiding what is supposed to be an independent agency. "I have to say I'm utterly disappointed with where we are right now," said Sup. David Campos, the first to react to the freshly inked deal.

The board voted 6-5 to drop its challenge of MTA’s budget, allowing fares to increase to $2 and services to be reduced, with Sups. Campos, Ross Mirkarimi, Chris Daly, John Avalos, and Eric Mar in dissent.

Seeming stung by the criticism of his colleagues, Chiu seemed to lay blame where it belonged when he said, “On Friday, the mayor and I had a conversation about this budget and it was made clear to me that there wouldn’t be any movement….We needed to work this out so we could move forward on the myriad issues before us.”

By Tim Redmond

Ross tell the supes how it is. Photo by Luke Thomas

It wouldn’t have been John Ross Day in San Francisco if they didn’t have to call the cops.

And, indeed, a few minutes after Ross – the poet, journalist, activist, author and Bay Guardian correspondent – was honored at the Board of Supervisors, with a proclamation sponsored by Sup. John Avalos, his companeros and campaneras recessed to a conference room down the hall to await refreshments, and since it was 4:20, and the windows of the room were open, well …. The smell of fresh herbal medicine wafted out the door and down the hall, and pretty soon you could smell it in front of the supervisors chamber, and before long a couple of sheriff’s deputies came by and – politely, respectfully – informed us all that smoking – “of any kind” – was forbidden in City Hall.

And for a moment, I shuddered, because whenever the cops are around and John is around, there always seems to be trouble.

But remarkably enough, everyone on all sides kept cool, and the deputies walked away, and John made it through an entire afternoon and evening at City Hall without getting arrested.

That’s a far cry from the old days.

Typically, when people are honored by the supervisors, they thank the board, praise the wonders of this city and politely and meekly receive their award. Not John Ross.

The half-blind, half deaf rabble rouser made a short statement in which he managed to insult city government, denounce the entire process of giving out awards and demand that the board reject the Muni fare hike. Then he read a poem denouncing the “motherfuckers” who are driving poor people out of the Mission.

It was a great moment in San Francisco history. Supervisors Chris Daly, David Campos, Avalos and Ross Mirkarimi seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely; some of their colleagues, as Daly later told me, were squirming.

But that’s why we love John Ross, an uncontrollable shit disturber who is utterly and sometimes insanely fearless, who is pure of heart and devoted so deeply to the cause of social justice that he can’t put it aside, even for a minute.

Here’s his statement, in entirety.

Text by Sarah Phelan

Courtesy of the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation.

As the Guardian's report about foreclosures in San Francisco reveals, they are concentrated in the southeast, where working people and communities of color live, making efforts to recapture these properties and resell them as affordable housing units a worthy endeavor.

But for those who believe buying these properties isn't the best use of city money in stringent budgetary times, it's worth looking at what's happening policy-wise elsewhere in the Bay Area.

Last month, a dozen Democratic U.S senators joined their Republican colleagues to defeat a bill that would have allowed judges to reduce mortgages in bankruptcy courts. President Obama, facing strong opposition from the nation’s surviving banks, did not pressure lawmakers to support the measure, and the Senate killed a plan to spare thousands of homeowners from foreclosure through bankruptcy.

Steven Zuckerman, managing director of the California branch of Self-Help, one of the largest community development financial institutions (CDFI) in the United States, says his organization was deeply involved in supporting that legislation. And he doesn’t buy detractors arguments that lowering mortgages in bankruptcy courts would cause banks to raise other people’s mortgage rates.”

‘The bill only included mortgages that already exist,” Zuckerman, who blames the bill’s failure on the “lobbying of bankers’ associations," told me.

According to information posted at its website, the North Carolina-based Self-Help has already provided billions in financing to small business owners and nonprofits nationwide in an effort to create and protect ownership and economic opportunities for minorities, women, rural residents, and low-wealth families and communities.

And locally, Self-Help is one of several CDFIs trying to help communities like San Francisco’s southeast sector and North Richmond in the East Bay, which have been hard hit by the recent wave of foreclosures sweeping the area.

”We do have a program and a product that we are trying to make available to groups that work in areas with high foreclosures,” Zuckerman said.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with our snarky coverage, but Craigslist has agreed to dump its erotic services section.

By Tim Redmond

It's no surprise, really, that the School Board voted to reinstate JROTC last night.. ONce Norman Yee announced he was going to support the program, the deal was done.

By the way: We endorsed Yee in part because he voted not to allow phys ed credit for JROTC, and without PE credit, the program's going to die eventually anyway because not enough students will sign up. Now, since the state (sort of) claims that JROTC qualifies for credit, Yee says he's willing to accept that and keep the miitary recruitment program going.

I'm not happy about that, and neither are a lot of other progressives who supported Yee. But for the record, I don't think Yee would ever have brought this back on his own; it took Rachel Norton and Jill Wynns to do that. And love JROTC or hate it, credit (or blame) for this lies squarely with those two board members.

Not letting Yee off the hook, but facts is facts.

Now then: It's still not as simple as it seems. Even if Norton is right, and the board's resolution killing PE credit only covered last year, it's still not clear that the San Francisco schools can legally award class credit for JROTC. IN most cases, only people who have a state teaching credential are allowed to teach classes for credit in California public schools. The California Department of Education says that JROTC instructors can teach PE wihtout that credential:

JROTC instructors, who have a state and federal credential to teach the military course, would not need a PE credential, said Phil Lafontaine, the department's director of professional development and curriculum support.

"They're appropriately credentialed," he said, even if students are earning PE credit.

But John T. Affedlt, managing attorney for the San Francisco law firm Public Advocates, says that's completely wrong. In a May 12, 2009 letter to the SFUSD (warning, PDF), he notes:

Mr. Lafontaine's opinion is not only wrong, it is utterly of no consequence ... in California, it is the Commission on Teacher Credntialing (CTC) -- not the California Department of Education -- which implements and interprets state law regarding what constitutes appropriate credentials.

He adds:

There is no statute authorizing individuals possessing only JROTC credentials to teach PE.

So the School Board and legal counsel have some figuring to do. I think the whole PE credit question ought to come back up before the board -- and JROTC supporters should hold off on celebrating until that messy legal issue is settled.

By Steven T. Jones

SF's Sunset Reservoir will soon be covered in solar panels

A last ditch effort by progressive supervisors to reconsider an expensive solar power project fell one vote short yesterday when progressive Sup. Eric Mar maintained his unqualified support for the deal and refused to send it back to committee for more research and discussion.

At issue is a five-megawatt solar array atop Sunset Reservoir, which the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission recommended awarding to Recurrent Energy, despite the fact that the 25-year deal obligates the city to pay $235 per megawatt-hour throughout the life of the project (even though prices are expected to drop as new technologies come online) and setting the city’s buyout price at $33 million or more.

By Rebecca Bowe

In an article last month about how Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates has decided to trade in his car for a bus pass, the Chronicle reported an interesting transportation tidbit about San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom:

“[Newsom] rides Muni incognito, disguised in a baseball cap, and walks when he can, said his spokesman Nathan Ballard.”

In the wake of recent drama over the Muni budget, a group of anonymous city transit riders has apparently banded together to kick off a contest dubbed “Where’s Gavin?”

In a letter posted today by the N-Judah Chronicles, the contest organizers explain: “We don't think that Gavin actually gets it on transit or gets on transit, contrary to the comment in the Chronicle that said he goes incognito. We'd like him to ride more, perhaps to get a feeling for what riders go through even on days when the budget hasn't been cut.”

To wit, they promise to buy a Fast Pass for the first person to get a picture of Newsom riding incognito on Muni. (Cable cars don’t count.) They also say they’ll buy beer for any others who present a photo, subject to a “verification of authenticity.” Here’s a snippet from the contest Web site: “Only you, the riders of our beloved San Francisco Municipal Railway, can find Gavin going incognito. And to get you excited, check out the sidebar to see what prizes you could win! The deep and resounding question of our time is not ‘Where’s Waldo?’ It’s ‘Where’s Gavin?’”

In March, when the Guardian reported that the Society of Professional Journalists had honored MAPlight.org with a James Madison Award for Electronic Access, folks at the Berkeley-based non-profit told me that they were about to launch MAPLight.org Los Angeles to reveal campaign contributions to L.A. politicians.

And, as you’ll see if you click the MAPLight.org Los Angeles link, this new public, web-accessible database, which provides citizens with key campaign finance data including industry, interest group, company and individual campaign contributions, is up and running, as of today. Check it out—and dream how much easier it will be to follow the money, if and when the group launches MAPLight.orgSanFrancisco—something, they tell me, is entirely doable.
And imagine how much easier it would have been for Chinatown's private investigator JJ "Jake" Gittes to unravel the web of money and deceit wrapped round Los Angeles' water supply, if he'd had access to MAPlight's online tools.

By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. He writes on life behind bars and tries to explain to Californians what their taxes -- huge amounts of their taxes -- are paying for. He will attempt to answer all questions and comments, but it's hard to communicate from a state prison, so it may take a while. His last post is here.

Hello everybody. I’m happy that many more people responded to my previous blog than I expected. I am glad that you were able to speak out a little on a more widely read forum. This seems to be working and maybe people will wake up to what's really happening.

On to business.

So, Arnold is considering releasing many more inmates than the 8,000 initially proposed by his administration. I am not sure what the latest numbers are, I am hearing everything from 20,0000 to 38,000 potential releases. There's even talk of selling San Quentin. Let's all hope for the best, but let's examine this a little deeper.

First, let me say this: I think it's strange that Arnold is going to show the public two budget proposals, one if the propositions don't pass and one for if they do. I strongly suspect the one for non-passage is going to be a scare tactic with which he threatens the mass release of prisoners into the public. Your neighborhoods will be overrun by all these horrible prisoners, so you'd better pass these propositions or the ex-cons will be next door to you come July!

Wow! I hope that's not what it he says, but I think he will.

What about all these "hardened" criminals that shouldn't be let out, or certainly not let out early? Let's talk about them. What about all the lifers that get parole dates, but then the governor in his "Governor's Review" denies the person his/her parole out of hand? What is the purpose of a parole board if the governor has the final say? Seems to be just more people (the parole board) supping at the trough of your tax money.

I'm enjoying this photo of City Attorney Dennis Herrera, as part of his office's participation in Bike to Work Day. His T-shirt is kinda scary, (it makes me think of all the lawyers who ARE driving today). But cotton shorts, as opposed to butt-clinging lycra, is definitely a good choice, me also thinks.

By Tim Redmond

Well, the good news is that the BART Board is actually considering civilian oversight for the police department. The bad news is, the committee looking at the issue is only recommending one model, a San Jose-style system that is much weaker than what San Francisco has.

There's a public meeting to discuss this tomorrow:

Second Public Forum on Civilian Police Oversight set for May 15

WHEN: Friday, May 15, 2009
TIME: 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.
WHERE: Joseph P. Bort Metro Center Auditorium
101 - 8th Street in Oakland
(across from Lake Merritt BART Station)

By Steven T. Jones

Even though I tweaked them at the end of my bike story this week, the Natural Resources Defense Council should be commended for recognizing the importance of pushing for a sustainable food system, which it did on Saturday night at the Academy of Science with its first-ever Growing Green Awards.

Journalist and awards chair Michael Pollan has been the food movement’s idea guy and de facto leader, a role he’s not entirely comfortable with. “There’s no question I’m an advocate as a journalist,” the author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and other important works told me. “But the difference is as a movement leader, you speak for the movement, and I need to continue to speak for myself….As a journalist, your first obligation is to your readers.”

By Steven T. Jones

Market Street was packed with cyclists this morning. Photo by Dustin Jensen, courtesy of SFBC.

There were more than twice as many bicycles as cars this morning on Market Street, a tribute to the popularity of Bike to Work Day and the growing bicycle movement that I discussed in this week’s cover story (an article that has provoked lots of passionate responses, both positive and negative).

After conducting traffic surveys, the SF Municipal Transportation Agency (which will soon be considering almost 60 new bicycle projects) announced that from 8 – 9 a.m. on Market, there were 776 bicycles and 374 cars, an even bigger ratio than last year, when bikes doubled cars for the first time.

By Tim Redmond

The gov's speech yesterday was designed to frighten the voters -- and his message -- that the budget deficit will grow to $21 billion and schools will lose teachers, MediCal receipients would lose benefits etc. -- is pretty scary.

But remember: Most of that will happen no matter what the voters do May 19th. Only about $6 billion of the projected $21 billion would in any way be due to the failure of his budget deal.

And that's money that would come from increased lottery sales (regressive) and cuts in childrens' programs and mental health.

If Prop. 1A passes, on the other hand, California will have a fiscal straighjacket for the indefinate future. It will be our generation's version of Prop. 13. And you know how that one turned out.

You can read our endorsements here.

By Tim Redmond

That's a key question that will come before the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.

The board is voting on a resolution by Sup. Ross Mirkarimi that would seek to save the city's PEG -- that is, public, educational and government -- cable TV access program. If the resolution doesn't pass, the current PEG system, run through the nonprofit San Francisco Community Television Corporation -- will shut down June 30.

The Comcast lobbyists are all over City Hall, working every supervisor, trying to stave off a move that would make the company pay a few million dollars a year to keep CTC running. Comcast's biggest argument: We will simply pass the costs along to the consumers. Cable subscribers who now pay $6.24 a year for PEG fees will wind up paying $28.20 a year.

Comcast is calling that a 352 percent hike, but the reality is that $28 a year is, in my mind, very little to pay for the kind of cable access we now have. As CTC chief Zane Blaney noted in a message he sent around this week:

The question is whether PEG access is worth $2.35 per subscriber per month? That’s less than the price of a latte or a pizza or a bag of chips. It’s less than the price of a movie or three iTune downloads. For a year, it’s about the price of a movie for two with popcorn. Most subscribers get hundreds of channels that they don’t watch or care about and get nothing but mindless programming in return. With PEG they get access to television training and production facilities; 2,500 hours of relevant local, community-based, grassroots programming; gavel-to-gavel coverage of government meeting and distance learning courses.

The vote on Tuesday will determine if the cable industry will continue to rule at City Hall; diminish the return to San Franciscans for their use of our public-rights-of-way and continue to collect nearly $2,000,000 per year from San Francisco cable subscribers without returning anything substantial in the public interest. We can make a difference, but not without your help. Here’s what you can do.

Call and email the following Supervisors:

Bevan Dufty
415-554-6968
bevan.dufty@sfgov.org

David Chiu
514-554-7450
david.chiu@sfgov.org

Sophie Maxwell
415-554-7670
sophie.maxwell@sfgov.org

Tell them PEG access is worth $2.35 per month and, if you’re a cable subscriber, tell them you’re willing to pay this fee and to support the State Video Franchise Holder Ordinance at 3%.

Also, if you’re available, come to the meeting of the Supervisors on Tuesday, May 19th with an object worth at least $2.35 and hold it up with a sign supporting PEG. No food or drink is allowed in the Chamber.

Sounds like a good idea to me.

By Rebecca Bowe

Gays Without Borders S.F., the Rainbow World Fund, Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and others will host a rally and fundraiser Sunday to speak out against torture and slayings of gays in Iraq.

Reports in the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and elsewhere have described atrocities against gay men that occurred in Iraq’s Sadr City, where victims were fatally shot and found with the word “pervert” on notes attached to their bodies.

“This news has been under the radar for the past few years due to the overall confusion and killing in Iraq,” a press statement released by the rally organizers points out. “But the heinous torture and murder of gays in Iraq has escalated.”

The groups hope to attract international media attention to the abuses, and they plan to urge the U.S. State Department to investigate, denounce the killings, and support asylum. The goal of the fundraiser is to send $10,000 to organizations aiding Iraqi gays who are fleeing the most dangerous areas.

The rally and fundraiser -- featuring speeches from S.F. Police Commission President Theresa Sparks, State Senator Mark Leno, Supervisors Bevan Dufty and Ross Mirkarimi, and others -- will be held Sunday, May 17 from noon to 4 p.m. at Harvey Milk Plaza, near the intersection of Castro and Market streets. Speakers are scheduled for 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

Donations may be made through the Rainbow World Fund. Those interested in volunteering at the rally should email MrSFL96@aol.com.

By Steven T. Jones

A series of progressive groups will take to the steps of City Hall this afternoon for rallies supporting Sup. Chris Daly’s renters’ economic relief legislation, laying out the budget priorities of Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth, and opposing the damage to Muni that would be inflicted by the Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget.

San Francisco Tenants Union sponsors a noon rally that precedes the 1 p.m. Land Use Committee hearing on Daly’s legislation, which would expand renters’ rights to add roommates, suspend rent increases that would exceed 33 percent of a tenant’s income, and limit rent increases that have been banked over several years.

At 2 p.m., Coleman Advocates launches a preemptive strike on the June 1 release of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget, calling for City Hall to be mindful of the needs of low-income families that are being forced from the city.

And then at 3 p.m., the Transit Justice coalition will make a last ditch effort to save Muni from service cuts and fare hikes. Although the Board of Supervisors last week approved a negotiated deal to approve the MTA budget, progressive supervisors on the Budget and Finance Committee revived it the next day and it returns to the full board tomorrow.

While Sups. David Campos, John Avalos, Eric Mar, Ross Mirkarimi, and Daly – who oppose the MTA budget deal – need two more votes to be successful, they’ll highlight how Muni fares will have doubled to $2 under Newsom and they’ll push for drivers to share more of the Muni riders’ pain and a decrease in the $63 million in payouts to our departments.

By Just A Guy

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. You can read some of his past columns here, here, and here. He will try to respond to all comments and questions, but since it’s often hard to communicate from prison, it may take a while, so be patient.

I was gratified to see that Arnold is, supposedly, laying off 3,665 correctional officers and correctional employees. While I don't wish anything bad on the employees or their families, I do feel it's about time something like this was done and it sets the stage for releases. Not only that, but people out there seem to forget that government shouldn't be immune to the harsh realities of rough economic times. Any business worth its salt would have laid off lots of people long ago and eradicated redundancies, unproductive workers, and unproductive positions. A normal business that is run well also takes inventories, which, I really don't think California does in any measure. California really needs a six sigma methodology, BAD. Ask Meg Whitman, she was the CEO of eBay and is planning to run for governor, Meg said she would lay off at least 30,000 workers. Hmmm.

This is from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Lance Corcoran, a spokesman for the prison guards' union, said the union doesn't know how many guards will be laid off. He blasted the inmate--release proposal.

"This short-term savings is going to have long-term costs, and the costs will be measured, unfortunately, in lives," Corcoran said. "I anticipate some incredibly sensational crime committed by an individual that should have been incarcerated."

I understand that it's Corcoran's job to ridicule anything the California Correctional Peace Officers Association sees as a threat to its ability to protect union members and their jobs, but I think it's really funny that he’s saying that some sort of sensational crime will be the result of releases. Corcoran seems to think that the general public is so naïve (or are they?) as to not realize that any person being released is going to get out anyway!

The fact that a person was released early has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he or she commits another crime, sensational or not. Obviously another scare tactic perpetuated by the CCPOA with no counter point to Corcoran's assertion offered by the Chronicle -- imagine that. (And why is it that the mainstream news media always seems to quote the CCPOA on prison issues -- but rarely talks to, say, prisoners rights groups, or anyone else, for the other side of the story?)

By Steven T. Jones

I’ve learned to have low expectations of editorials in the San Francisco Examiner, which endorsed John McCain for president and seems to always reflect the right-wing extremism of the paper’s Denver-based owner Phil Anschutz. But today’s editorial, which questions whether climate change is happening, is a new low.

In “Cap-and-trade scheme will wreck economy,” the paper refers to how some people believe burning fossil fuels is “allegedly” causing global warming and writes, “The problem for such advocates, however, is that Earth average temperatures have been declining for the last decade, and a fast-growing number of climate and other scientists now question the root idea of a global warming crisis.”

That statement is a lie. It is the opposite of truth, and not simply a matter of opinion or perspective, but a ridiculous and calculated effort to fool readers (I'm waiting for a response from Executive Editor Jim Pimentel and Managing Editor Deirdre Hussey and will add it to comments if I hear back from them).

Global temperatures in the last decade are some of the hottest on record, which is why the polar ice caps are melting. And the scientific community – real scientists, not those who work for industry or right-wing think tanks – is united (as much as scientists ever are about anything) in its belief in climate change and its connection to excessive carbon output.

It’s so clear that even George W. Bush and most Republicans believe it. Even the oil companies, the biggest single cause of global warming and the industry that will be hit hardest as we combat it, run ads acknowledging that it's happening. But the Examiner appears to be the last holdout. Wow.

By Steven T. Jones

Maybe you didn’t notice, but there’s an election today. Whether you support or oppose the half-dozen state measures on this ballot (the Guardian opposes all six), I think it’s fair to say everyone just wants this ugly episode to be over. So don’t expect the Guardian’s usual full-court coverage of what the League of Pissed Off Voters calls “this train wreck of a ballot.”

But we will be blogging a bit about the results tonight, and I plan to swing by the League’s election night party at the El Rio, 3158 Mission, to commiserate, report, and have a couple of their $3 margarita drink specials. Because whether these measures pass or fail, I think we’re all going to need a drink.

And then tomorrow, it’s time for state officials to get back to work and try to find some honest solutions to this fiscal mess we’re in.

P.S. If you have any other election night parties you’d like to promote – or observations you want to offer – please feel free to add them in the comments section.

By Tim Redmond

Well, maybe that's a bit misleading: The BART board's committee on police oversight first proposed a very weak model, but that got shot down at a community meeting last week, and now member Tom Radulovich is proposing a somewhat stronger approach. He wants a BART police commission with professional staff and the ability to investigate misconduct cases. There are still a bunch of issues -- the civilian review agency should get all police abuse cases and should have a clear role in recommending discipline. I prefer a San Francisco-style model, which is what Assembly member Tom Ammiano is pushing, and I still think the Legislature needs to move forward on this.

But as Radulovich has looked into how the BART police really operate, he's learned a lot -- and some of it is truly amazing.

For example, he told me, the BART police union contract spells out the terms of allowable discipline for BART cops (which is crazy to begin with), but the result is mind-boggling in its insanity. Right now, by contract, the chief can only impose three types of discipline on an errant cop:
-- A letter of reprimand
-- A one-day suspension WITH PAY (that is, a paid holiday)
-- Termination.

And since it's very hard to fire a cop, that means there is basically no effective discipline.

In every American police jurisidiction I've ever heard of, a cop can be suspended without pay -- and in San Francisco, serious offenses lead to 30, 60, or 90 day suspensions.

But if you're a BART cop, you can screw up pretty badly and nothing at all will every happen to you.

That contract comes up in June, and the BART Board must change it. "This clearly needs to be an issue in the negotiations," Radulovich told me.

Another looney provision: All of the officers other than the chief have union protection -- and the chief can't fire, demote or in any way control his own commanders. Nobody works at the chief's pleasure.

So there's a weak chief reporting to a bad general manager and no effective discipline at all. No wonder the force is such a godawful mess.

With almost 20 percent of the vote counted, all but one California ballot measure is failing by margins of at least 20 points. The only winner looks like Prop. 1F, the largest symbolic measure to dock legislators' pay when they can't pass a timely budget. This will hope send a clear message to Sacramento that voters want them to get back to work and find a better solution to this fiscal mess.

Round three of the battle between Mayor Gavin Newsom and the Board over the Municipal Transportation Agency’s budget saw Sup. John Avalos, throw a powerful one-two punch at the Mayor's Office, with the backing of Board President David Chiu and Sups. David Campos, Chris Daly, Eric Mar, Sophie Maxwell and Ross Mirkarimi.

Last week, as Avalos observed, the Board did not have the votes needed to reject the MTA budget, but today
they had enough to delay decisions on the MTA budget until at least next week: a special meeting was set for noon, May 27, to discuss the details in an alternative, transit-first budget that Avalos is calling the “Transit Justice Package."

Under Avalos’ proposal, the MTA 2009-10 budget would roll-back proposed fare increases for seniors, youth and lifeline uers, restore bus lines to public housing, while increasing parking fees in the city’s downtown core on Sundays and evenings, and eliminating public subsidies in city parking garages.

“Given our grave economic crisis , we owe it to seniors, youth and other low-income MUNI riders to come up with a better budget that ensures MUNI accessibility and accountability, “ Avalos said, while his progressive colleagues noted that transit advocates are concerned that the under the budget that Newsom has been pushing, MUNI riders would pay four times more than drivers of private vehicles.

And then Avalos ntroduced a charter amendment to reform the MTA Board composition. Currently, the mayor appoints all seven members of the MTA Board and all the supervisors can do is confirm or reject these nominations.

Avalos’s charter amendment, which will be on the November ballot, proposes to split these appointments, so that the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors each get to nominate three commissioners, and the seventh is elected by the voters of San Francisco.

“The new MTA Board composition will create greater checks and balances and also ensure that the MTA director is not solely accountable to one person, but a Board that is more representative of the City and County of San Francisco,” Avalos said.

By Tim Redmond

It's no surprise that all of the governor's measures failedl. The Chronicle is already doing what the mainstream spin is going to be:

The defeat of the measures would put the state that's already in financial abyss into a deeper hole, but the voter rejection would further confirm Californians' disapproval of the way Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature are handling the state's fiscal crisis

And:

The opposition, made up mostly of anti-tax groups and some labor unions, raised about $5 million .

Part one is absolutely true -- the governor and the Legislature together have a dismal approval rating, and that just confirms the fact that something major, structureal is going to have to change in California. What the voters don't like is gridlock. So the question for next year is: Can the Democrats convince the electorate (and the voters in some swing districts) that things would be better off if one party was running the show and could actually get results? Because the only way this paralysis is going to change is if (a) GOP moderates have a resurgence -- fat chace -- or (b) the Democrats take over the governor's office and a strong majority in the Legislature and the voters get rid of the two-thirds rule for passing a budget and raising taxes.

That's a hell of a sales job and will need an Obama-size movement behind it. So far, none of the Democrats running for governor give me much hope.

The second part of the Chron's analysis is just wrong.

Yes, the money came from anti-tax zealots and some unions, but this defeat is the result of both the left and the right finding the compromise unacceptable. There was as much opposition from people who thought the notion of a spending cap was disastrous for the state's future as there was from people who don't want higher taxes.

And while the Democratic leadership tried their best to sell a bad deal to their constituents, the defeat here belongs to the governor, who has become California's version of George W. Bush.

By Rebecca Bowe

“One way or the other, on May 20th Californians will have to begin discussing how to fix their broken state.” This line -- referring of course to the aftermath of the special election -- appeared in an article published by the Economist last Thursday titled “California: The Ungovernable State.” The piece spotlights Sacramento’s perpetual gridlock and explores the idea of calling a statewide constitutional convention as a means of addressing the legislature’s systemic problems.

The idea is gaining momentum. The Bay Area Council, the San Francisco-based business group that initially raised the idea, hit the ground running today with the launch of a Web site, RepairCalifornia.org, to promote a constitutional convention. It also announced plans to hold town-hall style meetings throughout the state to solicit voter input. The BAC submitted a request to the state legislature to place two measures on the November 2010 ballot calling for a constitutional convention, but it’s doubtful that they’ll receive the two-thirds majority vote needed for approval. Instead, they'll probably have to go out and collect enough signatures to put it on the ballot independently.

The BAC isn’t the alone in promoting the idea -- nor is it the only group to roll out a May 20 plan for fixing the state. As the Guardian has reported, a coalition of organizations is actively campaigning for a constitutional convention. Signing onto the effort for a constitutional convention are the Courage Campaign, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the William C. Velasquez Institute and others.

While Sen. Mark Leno told us in February he thought the idea should be approached with caution so as not to "open up an entire potential Pandora's box," the idea seems to be picking up steam in the wake of the governor's failed budget measures, and with state finances in such disarray.

Reports are sketchy, but it looks as if San Francisco got hit by a new crop of subvertisements last night, this time parodying Chevron’s latest ad campaign, which critics have panned as a bunch of greenwashing.

Viewed up close and personal, the above ad that some hot glue artists slapped onto Sandra Bullocks' buttocks reads, "I will try not to get cancer,"as it targets Chevron's refinery in Richmond and encourages the curious to visit truecostofchevron.com.

Also targeted are Chevron's activities in Burma, Ecuador, Kazakhastan, Iraq and Nigeria. The action appears aimed at Chevron's upcoming May 27 shareholder meeting and you can read an "alternative" report at the truecostofchevron.com.

By Just a Guy

Editors note: Just a Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. His columns run Mondays and Thursdays. You can read his last post and links to some of his past columns here. He will try to respond to all comments and questions, but it's tricky to communicate from prison, so be patient.

Were all of you as surprised as I was at the results of American Idol? Hey! Don't make fun, so I watch Idol with all that extra IDLE time Lance Corcoran, spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, says I will have more of because of the layoff of 3,665 CDCR employees.

The reason I bring up American Idol is I see the results of the voting as similar to the mindset of Californians and the rest of the U.S. when it comes to prisons, inmates, and crime. One of the contestants was clearly a better singer and performer than the other, but the voting seemed not to be based on singing ability, rather by cultural ideologies and societal mores derived from Christian "values.”

What I mean is: one of the finalists was, obviously, "different" than the rest of "us," so rather than voting for the guy with eye liner and a boyfriend America voted for Ken, Barbie, and their daughter because that's what we've always done.

So it is with prisons and crime, because now Johnny Appleseed has become Johnny the Bad Apple and rather than embrace change it's easier to fall back on what we've been told is correct (pounded in to us since elementary school), and that is: drugs are bad, "criminals" are bad, inmates are bad, ALL police are good, and prisons are good because they protect the public.

Something I noticed since Propositions 1A-1E didn't pass on Tuesday is that the media and politicians have stopped talking about reductions in prison population and the early release of inmates. Now, they talk about the even deeper slashing of budgets for education, medical and mental-health care, and law enforcement. I am not sure I really understand this language, since "law enforcement" is such an all-encompassing term. It seems as if the word "release" is synonymous with Dalit (the Indian word for untouchable).

Maybe if we don't mention the problem of prison overcrowding, it will just go away. Maybe if don't mention releases, the CCPOA won't say anything either, and we can let inmates go (or not) and nobody will notice.

By Tim Redmond

I'm not the only one criticizing the BART Board's weak and ineffective proposal for police oversight. The conservative Contra Costa Times weighed in today with a strong editorial saying that the BART proposal doesn't go far enough and suggesting that BART adopt a San Francisco-style model:

BART should consider putting together a review board similar to what San Francisco has with its police review commission. It has a say over discipline of officers for serious offenses.

At the very least, a BART auditor and review panel should have a strong voice in developing hiring and training policies for BART officers. They also should be trusted to do more than simply offer their opinions regarding discipline of transit officers.

So when the Guardian and the CoCo Times agree on something, it's pretty clear that a wide range of people with divergent viewpoints want more action than the BART Board has offered. I hope the board members are paying attention.

Because he's going to be around even less now that his campaign for governor is officially underway. Not that he's been around all the much anyway. I like the way CBS describes how he's spending his time:

Newsom has recently taken time off from campaigning to address budget issues in San Francisco, where he told reporters Thursday morning that he hoped to complete his budget before the June 1 deadline

Excuse me -- "taken time off from campaigning?" Uh, isn't campaiging "taking time off" from the job he's been elected to do and is getting paid to do? Just for the record (thanks, Kimo Crossman for noticing this), the City Charter says:

CAEC § 13.5 (b)(2); Government Code §§ 24001, 24002 . The Mayor shall devote his or her entire time and attention to the duties of the office, and shall not devote time or attention to any other occupation or business
activity

Now, I know when any poitician runs for higher office, the current office suffers (Barack Obama wasn't introducing a lot of legislation in the U.S. Senate last year). And that's to be expected, and while the people of Illinois had a senator who was missing from the Senate a lot, I think most of them, like me, are glad that Obama did what he did.

Still, being mayor of a city that's in a state of crisis is a little different. Running for governor is fine, but I'd rather it wasn't Newsom's major occupation, at least not right now.

Meanwhile, Sfist has a fascinating poll. These things are not at all scientific, and can easily be gamed, and it's a small sample, but: remember, most sfist readers are San Franciscans, and I would guess the demographic skews young -- that is, they're Gavin's people. And guess what?

About 50 percent like Jerry Brown. Only 30 percent like Newsom. A typical comment:

Let's see, morally bankrupt, puppet mayor of San Francisco, morally bankrupt, idiot mayor of LA or the kooky old guy with more experience in his pinky than the other two combined.

Newsom better get his Plumpjack busboy uniform pressed or get used to being a socialite - again.

Gavin Newsom: Coming soon to a dog park near you, Mill Valley.

Now, before Nathan Ballard starts running around the office logging into every computer he can and piling up the Newsom votes, we all know that races are not won and lost on blog polls. Who knows -- Jerry's kids may have already started that game (although I don't think they quite have it together at this point). And numbers aside, Newsom is running a sharp campaign. He's selling himself as the agent of change, and Brown as yesterday's news, and that will work -- unless people take a hard look at what our mayor has actually done, in his own city.

Which doesn't amount to much.

By Tim Redmond

There have been so many rumors about the Supreme Court's Prop. 8 decison that I was wary of believing anything until I saw it, but Calitics just reported that the court will publish it's decision Tuesday at 10 am. To double check, I called the San Francisco CIty Attorney's Office, and they confirmed it: Tuesday morning, we'll know whether the Supremes think it's okay to amend discrimination into the California Constitution.

I'm willing to be they overturn it. But I'm always an optimist.

Dang! I knew I should've gotten hitched before Prop 8 - but do you know how long it takes Alexander McQueen to design a fierce dress?

At 10am today, the CA Supreme Court announced not-too-surprisingly that it was upholding Prop 8 on a 6-1 vote, but that the more than 18,000 same-sex weddings that were performed before the odious passage were still valid. Good news and bad.

We'll have photos and more updates throughout the day.

By Steven T. Jones

In the wake of the California Supreme Court decision upholding Prop. 8 and denying marriage equality, Mayor Gavin Newsom has put out a call to overturn the issue at the ballot box. "Let this work start today," Newsom, who triggered the current fight five years ago with his decision to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples, said in prepared statement.

It's unclear whether Newsom wants to play a leadership role in that campaign, or whether the movement even wants him to after his boastful "whether they like it or not" speech was used effectively in pro-Prop. 8 commercials. But it is clear that Newsom's political fortunes have been closely tied to the issue, and that he probably deserves more credit for creating the current push for marriage equality in California than he does for many of the other issues on which he is campaigning for governor.

Yet today is a day to focus on this decision and how to overcome it, and Newsom seemed to strike the right chords with his statement (which follows in its entirety).

By Steven T. Jones

Sen. Mark Leno -- whose legislation to legalize same-sex marriage was twice vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger -- just put out the following statement: “Today’s decision is extremely disappointing for California and hurts thousands of caring couples who wish to make lifelong commitments to one another through marriage. Let today’s decision be a rallying cry for all Californians who believe in equality and fairness, and encourage thousands more to stand up and fight the pervasive injustices LGBT people face in our community and our nation.”

“The issue before this court was much greater than marriage equality. The question asked of our justices goes to the core of our society. Can a majority vote undermine a foundation stone of our constitutional democracy, equal protection under the law? Today our highest court ruled that minorities do not matter.”

“Through our disappointment, we will still find hope and encouragement, including the 18,000 couples whose marriages in California remain secure and protected today. Through our sadness, our resolve to fight for justice and equality only grows stronger. Love is an unstoppable force, and equality is right around the corner.”

By Tim Redmond

I have one question for the CA Supreme Court: It the voters passed a law saying that black people couldn't marry white people, or that only Christians could get married, or that Muslims couldn't marry Jews, or that hotels and restaurants had the right to deny food and lodging on the basis of skin color, would you uphold the vote?

Because if you'd put Brown v. Board of Education to a nationwide vote in 1954, what do you think would have happened?

Okay, that's two questions. But you get the point. Discrimination is now legal in California.

Sfist has a handy-dandy guide to today's protests here.

And here's Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's statement:

"Today's Supreme Court opinion upholding Prop. 8 is a stark reminder that the struggle for equality and justice must and will go on. We have come a long way since the days when Harvey Milk and I fought against the discrimination of the Briggs Initiative and Proposition 8 was no different. Harvey's message then was one of hope and we can see how that message is making progress throughout the country - five states now embrace marriage equality and several more are on the verge.

History has shown that equality cannot be denied to any group and it is only a matter of time before justice prevails. I encourage the supporters of same sex marriage to engage in peaceful, focused actions and we will transform the anger that is felt today into a successful message of political change. The decision today only strengthens my commitment and resolve to restore equality for all Californians.”

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. Read his last blog entry (and links to past ones) here. His dispatches run Monday and Thursdays; he tries to answer questions and comments as quickly as possible, but it's a bit tricky communicating from prison, so be patient.

By Just A Guy

About six months ago, a buddy of mine was denied a visitor because his prospective visitor owes the California Department of Motor Vehicles money.

What does that actually have to do with anything? How does that pose a risk to the security of the institution or California Department of Corrections in general? Isn't one of CDCR's stated goals to encourage involvement/visiting with family and friends?

It is not CDCR's responsibility to punish the inmate because his prospective visitor owes the DMV money, nor is it CDCR's responsibility to punish the prospective visitor because he/she owes the DMV. These are two unrelated entities. If someone is late in paying their state income tax will CDCR not allow them to visit one of us? CDCR, in effect, is creating a sort of debtor's prison, which is illegal.

The icing on the cake of this story is that the individual has been making payments to the DMV and is trying to pay off the debt, yet was still refused out of hand.

Apparently folks, CDCR's role has expanded from public protector to debt collector as well.

This leads me to cell phones in prison. CDCR espouses family ties, yet allows Global Tel Link, which controls the prison pay phones, to charge astronomical rates on collect calls. How is this conducive to keeping strong ties to the outside world? It costs $20 to make a 15-minute call out of state! So, my friend above can't have his girlfriend come to visit him because she hasn't paid her DMV fine, so now she accepts his collect calls because they can't see each other in person. But she spends a huge amount of money on these calls -- and can't pay the fine that is keeping her from visiting my friend. That's pure insanity.

Despite the sunny weather, the mood outside the California Supreme Court turned bitter this morning, with marriage-equality supporters and anti-gay marriage supporters exchanging verbal jabs, as news spread that the justices had upheld Proposition 8, a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage that state voters passed in November.

Initially, this bitterness wasn’t mitigated by the court’s other piece of news, namely that the justices had, however, decided to validate the marriages of the estimated 18,000 gay couples who got wed before Prop. 8 took effect.

By noon, the marriage equality movement appeared to have regathered its composure as its leaders vowed to hold rallies, starting tonight, and to go to the voters in November 2010-- timing that has profound implications for Democratic and Republican 2010 gubernatorial hopefuls

But lest anyone underestimate the polarizing nature of the emotions and beliefs on display outside the Court today, here is a brief snapshot of some of the exchanges that took place today:

“Love is unconditional!” yelled a glitter-festooned Pan Gaea, wearing a long skirt and stripper heels and standing directly in front a small knot of American River College students, who were holding up a huge Proposition 8 banner, outside the court, just before the justices issued their 6-1 ruling.

“I want my friend staying married, I don’t want homophobia taking away my rights,” Pan Gaea continued, jumping into the air and landing with a loud click of stripper heels, next to Luke Otterstad and George Popko, who are both at the Sacramento-based American River College, whose student body voted last fall to endorse Proposition 8.

“Can you handle this, yea-ah?” Pan Gaea added, showing off the stripper heels to the unwilling ARC students. “ I don’t think you’d be able to balance on these and jump on one foot on a stiletto. I don’t think so, because it takes talent and a lot of balance.”

Just then, a chant of “Shame on you!” rippled through the crowd, diverting Pan Gaea’s attention to the court ruling, details of which were being spread through the waiting crowd by gay rights activists like Ronnie Mason, who confirmed that, yes, the justices had just ruled against marriage equality for all.

“But 18,000 people are still married,” added Mason, searching for the situation’s proverbial silver lining.
“They’ll get divorced,” Otterstad countered.

Contrary to rumor, this is not legendary activist Cleve Jones

Today's Supreme Court decision to uphold Prop 8 -- but keep valid those same-sex marriages performed before its passage -- was met with dismay and protests at City Hall. Photos by Charles Russo

Same-sex couple Stuart Gaffney (left) and John Lewis appeared optimistic as they waited for the California Supreme Court ruling on Proposition 8

Sister Mary Timothy Simplicity of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence engages supporters of Proposition 8 outside of the California Supreme Court Building

Opposing sides on the issue of Proposition 8 debated the matter just moments before the California Supreme Court announced their ruling to uphold the law banning same-sex marriage in the state

A wave of discontent spread through the largely anti-Prop. 8 crowd ...

... as the ruling was announced that the California Supreme Court would uphold the measure

Story and photos by Rachel Buhner

Hundreds of people had gathered outside City Hall this morning to peacefully protest the Supreme Court’s 6-1 decision upholding Proposition 8. While there was undeniable anger and frustration in the air, the overall sentiment clearly indicated that the ruling wasn’t a surprise. Protesters arrived prepared, holding up signs and passing around petitions in a peaceful show of objection.

Frank Capley-Alfano, 34, sat among the circle of people gathered in the intersection of Van Ness and McAllister. A member of One Struggle, One Fight, he was accompanied by his husband, Joe, who held up an oversized replica of their marriage license. “I had a feeling deep down inside that the ruling would go the way it did,” Frank said. “I’m devastated, but I came to sit here and commit peaceful civil disobedience."

Joe and Frank Capley-Alfano

And he did just that. At about 11:45 am, police began barricading the intersection and warned protesters to either move to the sidewalks or face arrest. Staying true to his word, Frank and his husband remained seated as officers marched in to begin arresting those who stayed behind.

By Tim Redmond

Calitics has the scoop on one of the most insane parts of the budget debate -- just as the governor is talking about massive, mind-numbing cuts in public services, the state is about to give a big tax break to large corporations.

Lenny Goldberg, of the California Tax Reform Association, puts it this way:

"This is the gutting of the state corporate tax," said "In fact, they did it so badly that lawyers are chuckling about the opportunities for tax avoidance."

By Rebecca Bowe

Yesterday's evening rally in the wake of the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold Prop 8 attracted thousands. Click below to view a multimedia slide show of the events.

By Steven T. Jones

Image of environment justice protest from Greenaction.org

As the Bay Guardian has documented for over 40 years, Pacific Gas & Electric Company has a sordid history of malevolent actions, including illegally cheating San Franciscans out of public power (from its initial violation of the federal Raker Act to its record-setting sums spent to defeat public power initiatives), corrupting local politics, lobbying against higher clean energy standards and consumer empower measures at all levels of government, greenwashing its dirty power portfolio (including the state's largest nuclear power plant), transferring billions in ratepayer money to its parent company just before its utility declared bankruptcy (the lawsuit over which was recently dropped by Attorney General Jerry Brown, to his shame), screwing the city and ratepayers and then aggressively fighting the myriad resulting lawsuits, and on and on.

But now, we can add to the list mistreatment of its own employees. PG&E has reportedly ended negotiations with its Engineers and Scientists of California Local 20 labor union and announced its intention to unilaterally implement its final offer. The move has enraged both that union and its brothers and sisters on the larger House of Labor, which will be rallying and picketing outside PG&E headquarters at 77 Beale Street tomorrow at noon.

Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in a California state prison. Read his last blog entry (and links to past ones) here. His dispatches run Monday and Thursdays; he tries to answer questions and comments as quickly as possible, but it's a bit tricky communicating from prison, so be patient.

By Just A Guy

The tides have turned and the language is changing as politicos try to salvage their political futures via a different spin on the old tune.

As the State of California budget fiasco lays the foundation for massive cuts in spending the results will be: early releases (eventually) for prisoners and even LESS rehabilitation, NO welfare, LESS education spending, and less aid in general. The long term result, unarguably, will be MORE people in prison and HIGHER recidivism!!!

... via the lovely and very British singer Lily Allen:

Bonus! The original "Big Fat Gay Collab" video the above takes off from:

Can young people hurry up and take over the world already? Yeesh.

By Steven T. Jones

An era ended last night while my colleagues and I taped the final episode of the City Desk Newshour, a Comcast television program that has provided continuous weekly coverage of San Francisco City Hall for almost 30 years. It is simply the latest blow in a steady erosion of political and local government coverage by experienced journalists.

I’ve been a regular panelist on the show for a couple years now, but I was really struck by what an institution it is in November when we did a segment on the anniversary of the Harvey Milk and George Moscone assassinations. I glanced at the monitors and saw our B-roll footage of Milk, Moscone, and Dan White being interviewed in our studio for our show back in the day.

Comcast decided to slash its locally originated programming budget and fire half its Bay Area staff, something it is allowed to do because local governments have lost the legal ability to set local programming standards for cable companies as part of their franchise agreements. If you have Comcast cable, try to catch the final episode replays this weekend on Channel 11 and/or check out old episodes in the OnDemand section under hometown local programming.

But there is a silver lining to this story. Comcast officials in California successfully fought to save our show as long as we can retool it to have a more regional focus, which we’ll be working on over the next couple months. So tune in later this summer for a new show with a new name and new focus, but some of the same faces from the Guardian, Chronicle, Examiner, and KQED.