Downtown's Polling in District 11

It looks like the downtown interests can’t wait any longer and have initiated their campaigning in District 11. I've heard from two unrelated sources, a neighbor and the wife of another D11 candidate who have been polled about the District 11 race.

While many people have asked me whether I will do or have done a poll, polling is simply way out of the price range of a grassroots campaign for it even to be considered, even with the public financing. Why should I bother when when my campaign is really going to be won on people power, neighbors talking to neighbors and people getting involved in their communities, not by the meddling of big businesses who want to shape public opinion to back a candidate who will work for them.

In a text message, my neighbor Emiliano wrote he was asked about three of the leading candidates, what he thought about Newsom, Daly and Peskin, potholes, parks, graffiti, clean streets, parking, and chain stores. He was then asked about whether he would support the creation of a code of conduct for the Board of Supervisors. A similar code of conduct had been proposed by Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier and other Newsom allies on the Board of Supervisors.

The type of downtown interests who typically employ polling to help them shape public opinion include the Chamber of Commerce, the California Urban Issues Project which represents some small and but mostly big businesses, the Committee on Jobs, the lobbying and political firm Barnes Mosher Whitehurst Lauter and Partners whose clients include some of the Bay Area’s wealthiest businesses, the Building Owners and Managers Association who represent the high rise office commercial office buildings and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association who represents many of San Francisco’s big name restaurants.

All of these entities and their allies would like City Hall to represent their interests and the interests of their big paying partners. One of their methods is to narrow down the political discussion in the City to address “quality of life issues,” getting people to focus more on the annoyances of garbage and graffiti and potholes. They want to us to back candidates who will talk their talk. They want us to be angrier about garbage rather than the fact that the San Francisco developers are building thousands of luxury condos instead of the kind of housing that working people can afford. That’s because the big business political firms are aligned with and bought and paid for by interests who are making a killing on the luxury real estate market.

And while I do believe litter, graffiti and potholes are problems that a Supervisor should be concerned about and work on, they are only a symptom of more pressing needs in the city and District 11. Our main issues are economic ones. Many residents lack access to better paying jobs and affordable housing. For instance, lack of street parking is only a symptom of the high cost of living and the unavailability of local jobs, not to mention the lack of efficient and comprehensive public transit. As housing gets more unaffordable people have little choice but to double up with other folks to cover the rent or the mortgage. As jobs are found more regionally and regional transportation remains mired in the 1940s freeway mentality, households need more than one car to get around to their various places of work. I’ve lived in District 11 since 1999. Even after the dot com boom and bust housing costs have continued to soar and street parking has gotten more scarce and harder to find.

All the District 11 candidates will talk about District 11 not getting its fair share, but as long as we’re focused on the little things, we’re never going to get it. If we don’t think big we’re never going to get the kind of change that’s going to make our communities safer, cleaner and more affordable to working families. My vision for change is based on people getting involved in the democratic process. If everyday people participate in the political process then downtown would have less of an ability to influence our elections. We'd be more able to care for neighborhoods, shape public policy and hold city hall accountable to our needs. Only through neighbors reaching out to neighbors, through communities planning together are we’re going to be able to create the kind of change that District 11 residents are really yearning for.

Let's not let downtown nickel and dime us on the issues in our district!

Under I.C.E.?

The May 1 march and rally was another triumph of one of the most important civil rights movements in the country. Along with the anti-war movement, the same sex marriage movement, the movements for universal health care, environmental justice and women's rights I count the movement for immigrant rights as vitally important.

Last week, my family, children and I marched with thousands of immigrants, both documented and undocumented and their allies in the faith and labor communities. It was one of the more exuberant marches that I have ever participated in.

The next day, President Bush's Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the taquerias of multiple communities across the Bay Area. I.C.E. locked up and detained 73 people, including children andpregnant and lactating women, and has initiated deportation proceedings on many of them, dividing family members and breaking up homes. These well coordinated retaliatory actions have instilled great fear among the immigrant community whose main aspiration is to live a life of dignity and independence, free from political intimidation, military rule, economic and environmental deprivation. Compared to other countries, the United States offers some hope for these aspirations.

Think about it: our nation's armies are able to move freely across the globe. The Bush Administration has sent them to Iraq and Afghanistan, and in Iraq in particular, the military has created hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of refugees. Similar estimates count numbers of deaths. Global economic policies allow multi-national corporations and manufacturers to move freely across the globe to find cheaper labor and less stringent worker and environmental standards. This race to the bottom destabilizes communities, forcing workers to compete for insufficient numbers of low wage jobs and concentrate into ghettos that all too often lack basic infrastructure such as safe housing, sanitation, schools, access to clean water and transportation. Many immigrants come from such communities.

Despite not benefiting from the same global economic policies, workers are on the move. Deprived of mobility under the law, immigrants are members of a de facto borderless planet. Despite the daily struggle for dignity in the work place, for safer communities and better housing immigrants are in our midst. Throughout U.S. history immigrant workers have made great contributions to our economy. Immigrants are such an integral part of our everyday existence, that anti-immigrant enforcers have as much ability to stop immigration as they have the ability to live without the roofs over their heads that immigrants install, without the food or clothes that immigrants grow and manufacture, the offices that immigrants clean, the restaurants that immigrants run and child care that immigrants provide.

Clearly we need immigration policies that account for the reality of immigrant labor and the immigrant community. We need new policies that provide respite from intimidation and amnesty for the mix of documented and undocumented people who live here. Perhaps with a new administration in Washington we can have these types of policies.

On Monday, I joined again with the labor, faith and immigrant community to denounce these raids and pray for this better day. As a candidate I not only stand behind San Francisco's sanctuary city ordinance, I seek to strengthen it.

Homeowners for Rent Control

I wouldn't be living in San Francisco anymore it weren't for rent control. As it is, I've seen apartments like my first apartment, a one bedroom, mouse infested unit on Haight and Webster Street go from $625 a month to $1800 and even $2200 a month.

Thanks to my last landlord who, in the middle of the dot com boom, rented an entire three bedroom Excelsior District house to my wife and me for only $1250 a month, we were able to save enough money to put a down payment on a fixer upper house a few blocks away. We couldn't have done it without our landlord's generosity and understanding.

I'd like to think that our landlord's sense of responsibility is the norm. Unfortunately, many tenants have a completely different experience. For them, rent control is a necessary tool to ward off unfair rent increases, unfair evictions and building code violations that all too often make their units unsafe, unhealthy and uninhabitable.

Enter Prop 98, a doomsday ballot measure to end rent control and environmental regulations in California --all under the guise of eminent domain reform. We've seen such trojan horse deceptions on the California ballot but few propositions compare with how this measure would devastate communities throughout the state. Overnight unscrupulous landlords would be able to raise the rent to any level they see fit. In San Francisco, long-term tenants who have enjoyed the protections that rent control has provided would suddenly find themselves on the street.

Prop 98 could very well be California's Katrina.

I stopped by the Tenants' Convention on Saturday to offer my support against Prop 98. In the coming weeks I will be campaigning hard to turn out the vote against this measure. It's quite clear San Francisco will be on the right side of this one, but we're going to need every vote we can get to neutralize the votes in other parts of the state. San Francisco and other big city homeowners can play a critical role in this effort. We must consider how Prop 98 would hurt us all, tenant and homeowner alike.

San Francisco Labor Council Endorsement

I am honored and grateful for the early endorsement of the San Francisco Labor Council. Last night's vote culminates two weeks of intense campaigning. In this effort, I introduced myself to hundreds of union representatives, made countless calls and appeared alongside the other District 11 candidates before the Labor Council's executive committee and the combined membership SEIU Locals 1000, 1021, 1877 and United Healthcare Workers West.

In a part of the city where every fourth voter is a union member, the Labor Council endorsement will make an enormous difference in District 11.

I want to thank all the members who kept an open mind and recognized my work as an organizer and a great supporter of the labor movement from inside City Hall. Special thanks goes to Conny Ford of Office & Proffessional Employees Union Local 3, Robert Haaland of SEIU Local 1021, Mike Theriault of the Building and Construction Trades, Mike Casey President of UNITE HERE! Local 2 -- the needle trades and hotel workers union, Tim Paulsen President of the San Francisco Labor Council and Giuliana Milanese retired organizer with the California Nurses Association.

The Reports of My Running for the Democratic County Central Committee Are Greatly Exaggerated

Contrary to what the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Saturday, I am not running for the Democratic County Central Committee. I did pull papers and I did get over the required 20 signatures to run for a seat representing the 12th Assembly District on the DCCC. In the end, I felt that the the DCCC wasn't the right fit for me and I never turned in the signatures.

I want to focus my energy on my campaign for Supervisor and the needs of District 11.

Minnie and Lovie Ward Recreation Center Outrage

There are many examples of District 11 residents not getting their fair share of city services and it's safe to say that of all the parts of the D11, the Ocean View, Merced Heights and Ingleside (OMI) neighborhoods get the short end of a very small stick. A case in point: "the Minnie and Lovie Ward Ocean View Recreation Center.

The rec center is a brand new replacement facility for an old and dilapidated center that sat on the site at Ocean View Park. If you happen to drive by the park, your first glance will draw you into an inviting scene, a beautiful public building, a brand new children's playground and a playfield in fairly decent shape. Take a closer look and ask a few questions and things don't look so good: the playground, though fully built is surrounded by yellow tape making it off limits to the many neighborhood kids who are just dying to play on it and the rec center has undergone a series of delays that have lasted over a year and are expected to continue through September.

It's readily apparent that the Rec and Park Department has utterly failed its responsibility to provide effective oversight. Dan Weaver, the treasurer of the OMI Neighbors in Action community groups reported to me that Rec and Park only received one bid from a contractor with an apparent checkered past and that this project was the first time that the department had ever taken on a project of this magnitude. Usually such projects are overseen by the Department of Public Works.

The latest delay stems from the shoddy installation of the new center's roof which cannot be guaranteed to be safe and leak-proof by the manufacturer. A new roof will have to be installed and the Rec and Park Dept and contractor are mired in negotiations and possible litigation to get the project finished. According to Rec and Park officials as reported by Library Commissioner and OMI activist Al Harris, new parts have to be ordered from the East Coast, a process that will take 11 weeks. Add this to the time it will take to remove the current roof and install the new one and we get an opening date of September, 2008. With all the delays that have already occurred many of us even wonder if this is possible.

Violence Prevention Services Lost

The OMI Safe Haven is a neighborhood program to provide support services and enrichment programs to youth in the neighborhood. It's one of the few programs in the OMI serving local youth and is supposed to be housed in the rec center. Combined with Inner City Youth, it's the linchpin to the city's violence prevention and youth development services in the neighborhood. The City's original plans were to have the Safe Haven programs running in the summer of 2007. But with the delay of the Rec Center, the Safe Haven is being housed off site. The program would not exist any more without the generosity of the Temple United Methodist Church which has offered its halls as a site. Still the Safe Haven lacks the gymnasium and overall space that the Ocean View Rec Center would provide to allow it to run at full capacity. Last summer was a violent one in the blocks surrounding the park. Residents fear that if the park stays closed through September of 2008, the summer will find many youth getting into the wrong kinds of activities that can hurt themselves and those around them. In the words of Terrell Henderson Safe Haven Director the kids will be left "with nothing to do and no where to go".

Rec and Park needs to take immediate responsibility to get this facility open by the summer. Anything less is unacceptable and a shame upon this city. In the next few weeks, neighborhood residents should be stepping up their efforts to have this site operational by the end of the school year.

On New Revenue

While the Mayor's appropriating funds from cash strapped City Departments to pay increases to some of his top aides highlights a double standard within his administration, the bigger problem is the overall budget deficit of $233,000,000. That's a big number and many of us across San Francisco's body politic fear impending cuts. In the past couple of years of decent budgets, we've seen the return of past services like increased Rec and Park employees and public health nurses, we've also seen the growth of new services cut out of whole cloth -- like the 311 Program and the San Francisco Health Plan. Each program has value and its constituency who will fight to preserve it.

There are those who believe that government has gotten too big and that in needs to downsize. I disagree with this point of view. Much of these cost of government is salaries. People make the City run. People make San Francisco livable and people who work need to keep pace with the high cost of living.

All the same, I worry about the kinds of struggle we're going to need to preserve services and jobs.

There is a way out -- raising revenue through progressive taxation. Progressive taxation means scaling taxes so that those who have more (and in the past few years, those who received big tax breaks from the Bush Administration), pay more.

In the past few year's that I've worked at City Hall, I've pursued various revenue options such as doubling the tax on property that is sold over $2 million and "closing the tax loophole" on partnerships -- such as accounting and law partnerships . Together these could yield up to $40 to $45 million during more sluggish economic times and much more during boon years.

I've also looked at bringing back the gross receipts business tax that we lost when some of SF's biggest corporations sued the city to have it eliminated. The gross receipts tax could be adjusted to affect mostly high end businesses that do business transactions that amount to many millions of dollars. The current business tax -- the payroll tax is seen as a job inhibitor. If done properly the city could replace the payroll tax with the gross receipt tax. At the same time, the city could adjust the new gross receipts tax to increase revenue and help get us out of this deficit.

According to Propositions 13 and 218, only the voters can approve local tax increases and only when the elective city council or its equivalent is up for election (in SF when the Supervisors are up for election) can we place a general tax on the ballot for voters to consider. A general tax is a tax that is not dedicated for a specific purpose.

Raising revenue is only one way to balance next year's budget without cutting significant program and services. The Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee may have to budget services and have them contingent on the passage of a tax measure on November's ballot. It's not ideal and it's risky, but there may be no other option.