Voter Guides - theballot.org - SF 07: The Undercover, Off-Year Election (CA)

Mayor

1st Choice: Quintin Mecke

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Quintin is a young activist who has been busting his ass on progressive causes for 10 years. He runs the Safety Network Partnership—a citywide community-based public safety program that addresses the root causes of violence. He has tons of experience in city government including currently serving on the Homeless Shelter Monitoring Committee, and previously on the Elections Taskforce on Redistricting, the Civil Grand Jury. He was also president of the SF Mental Health Association. He has concrete proposals to make San Francisco safer through community policing and reforming public housing, increase affordable housing through limited-equity ownership and community land trusts, and reduce homelessness while treating the homeless with dignity.

2nd Choice: Dr. Ahimsa Porter-Sumchai

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Dr. Sumchai is a physician in San Francisco who has held numerous seats on SF public health advisory committees and is a long-time environmental activist. Her platform is centered on addressing the social, economic, environment concerns of the largely ignored Southeast sector of San Francisco. Her main legislative priorities include displacement issues that are occurring in the Mission district and Bayview/Hunters Point, public safety and disaster preparedness, violence as a public health problem, fixing MUNI, single payer universal health care, protecting threatened and endangered species, development of below market rate housing, environmental health and justice and worker safety.

3rd Choice: Chicken John Rinaldi

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Chicken John is not your average politician. He’s a practical thinker who is deliberately running an absurd campaign. He wants to make San Francisco a world-class city of art, eliminate city government’s resistance to innovative thinking, and make the City a showcase for sustainable technology. He believes a non-partisan City Manager position should be created to run the day-to-day business of the City, and he promises to hire Quintin Mecke and Dr. Ahimsa Sumchai as City Managers while he focuses on art and innovation. He converted his truck to run on coffee grounds with zero emissions, and he wants to use this technology to generate clean power at the dump. He's also pushing a "Scrap House" Law to require 10% recycled materials in new construction. Chicken has inspired a potential sleeping giant of progressive politics in San Francisco—the artists and freaks and geeks who are a vital part of SF culture, but who are disillusioned with politics as usual. He's running for 2nd place to draw attention to the absurdity of an election where the winner is already predetermined, and to send a message to disenfranchised but progressive-minded people that there’s still room for them in San Francisco.

No on Gavin Newsom

Endorsed Vote: No

We will NOT vote for Gavin. It's serious. We know that he has a reputation across the country for being a hardcore liberal, but after following him closely these last four years, we think he's all talk. He says the right things about gay marriage, health care, and union rights. But either he doesn't follow through, or he just takes credit for others' work.

We worked hard to try to pass Prop A in June '06 to create a fund for violence prevention programs. Gavin opposed it.
We were part of the coalition that created public financing for the Mayor's race. Gavin refuses to abide by the voluntary spending limit and now he's trying to raid the public financing fund for one of his half-baked photo-op projects.
Gavin stood with us long enough for a photo-op when we passed SweatFree SF, which requires that everything the City buys be certified as not coming from a sweatshop. Two years later, Gavin hasn't signed one sweatfree purchasing contract. Instead he keeps opening up loopholes.

And that's just a few of the things we've worked hardest on. Some of our other issues with him:

Gavin has done nothing to reform the out-of-touch culture of the SFPD, and he vetoed police foot patrols twice.
MUNI continues to suck. Gavin brought up "free MUNI" long enough to make some headlines, but then he dropped it like a bad habit. Instead he's blown city resources on temporarily fixing one route at a time to puff-up performance numbers, without addressing Muni's systemic issues.
When a coalition tried to reform the tax structure to make big downtown corporations pay their fair share and give small businesses a break, Gavin sided with downtown and opposed it.

And the list goes on and on. We might have been down with Gavin if he was a Senator from Nevada or something, but for Mayor of San Francisco, we can do better. Any one of our three choices above would make great Mayors. Why settle for good when you can have great?

Sheriff

Michael Hennessey

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Sheriff Hennessey is often called the "most progressive Sheriff in America." He created the nation’s only fully accredited charter high school inside a county jail. He created a program to offer social services to tenants facing eviction. The SF Sheriff’s department is one of the country’s most diverse, with women and minorities making up 70% of Deputies.

District Attorney

Kamala Harris

Endorsed Vote: No Endorsement

Prop A - Reform MUNI and Prevent Parking Lot Insanity

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Anyone who rides MUNI knows that it needs help. Prop A isn’t an extreme makeover, but it’s a good start. It will give MUNI an additional $26 million a year. It gives the MTA Board more control of MUNI operations, and creates incentives for the MUNI operator’s union to work to improve MUNI performance. Also, it includes a “poison pill” that will nullify the crazy Prop H, even if they both pass. We’re a little nervous about transferring power from the Board of Supervisors to the MTA, and taxi drivers don’t want the MTA to control taxi medallions. But Supervisor Peskin says he’ll work to close that loophole. More money for MUNI and defeating Prop H are both noble causes. Vote yes on A.
- Full text of A
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponents
- Paid arguments for A
- Paid arguments against A

Prop B - Kick out Commissioners When Their Terms' Expire

Endorsed Vote: Yes

San Francisco has hundreds of commissions, from the Police Commission to the Asthma Task Force to the Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force. If you're inspired to get involved, check out the current vacancies at this link. Currently, when commissioners' terms expire, they can keep on serving until their replacements are appointed. That's kind of weird. Prop B will kick them off 60 days after their terms expires.

The only thing is that Prop B doesn't require the Mayor or the Supervisors to appoint replacements in a timely manner. So if a bunch of Commissioners are "timed-out" and no replacements are appointed, the commission might not have enough members to operate. A nefarious Supervisor or Mayor could even use this as a loophole to cripple a commission she or he doesn't like by failing to appoint commissioners. That's a long shot, but it's a little sketchy. Overall though, we think Prop B is a good first step towards fixing our commission system.

- Full text of B
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- Paid arguments for B
- No paid arguments against B

Prop C - Move Up the Deadline for Supervisors to Submit Propositions

Endorsed Vote: No

We like the idea of having public hearings on propositions, but Prop C doesn’t include any way to revise the propositions based on public feedback. And it only affects propositions submitted by the Supervisors—not ones submitted by big money interests who can afford to hire signature gatherers.
- Full text of C
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- Paid arguments for C
- No paid arguments against C

Prop D - Renew Library Fund and Give Them a Blank Check for Bonds

Endorsed Vote: No

We’re totally down with libraries, but we’re suspicious of bonds—they’re like credit cards for governments. Prop D gives the library commission too much leeway on issuing bonds without asking the voters. The current library fund doesn’t expire until 2009, so if we turn this one down, we have three elections next year to get it right.
- Full text of D
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- Paid arguments for D
- Paid arguments against D

Prop E - Question Time with the Mayor--The Sequel

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Didn’t we decide this last year??? Last year, 56.4% of voters approved “Question Time”: asking the Mayor to meet once a month with the Board of Supervisors for a public discussion. But because it wasn’t legally binding, Gavin has refused to comply. Prop E would legally require Gavin to meet with the Supes. But instead of listening to the voters, Gavin is raising big money to defeat Prop E. With all of the problems in our City, this is what he’s focusing on? San Francisco deserves a chance to hear our elected officials discuss what’s happening in the City. Why do we have to ask twice?
- Full text of E
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- No paid arguments for E
- Paid arguments against E

Prop F - Give Old SFO Cops the Same Benefits as the Rest of the SFPD

Endorsed Vote: Yes

Back in the day (pre-1998), the police at the airport were a separate department from the SFPD. All of the police now have the same retirement benefits. But there are 60 old airport cops who are now part of the SFPD, and a lot of them are working in other stations. But they have the old retirement benefits that aren't as good as the SFPD's. Prop F will allow those cops to transfer over to the City program. The City will pony up $670,000 spread over 20 years to do that. And if it costs more than that, the cops themselves will pay the difference.

We've had our issues with the SFPD and we think the department's command staff is totally out of touch, but it's basic good labor practice that all employees should have the same benefits. So vote yes on on F, and the next time the cops hassle you, tell them you voted for their retirement benefits!
- Full text of F
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- No paid arguments for F
- No paid arguments against F

Prop G - Matching Funds for the Golden Gate Park Stables

Endorsed Vote: No

Did you know there are horse stables in Golden Gate Park? They've been closed since 2001 because they're rundown. Prop G would set aside up to $750,000 in a matching fund to renovate the stables. For every $3 in private donations, the City would pitch in a buck.

Don't get us wrong, we've got nothing against the horsies. But is this really the best use of City funds? There's nothing in Prop G to ensure that there will be an affordable way for locals to go for a horse ride, nothing about programs for SF youth, etc. We're nervous that we could throw down $750K so the rich folks can have a place to park their horses.

Over at Beyond Chron our boy, Peter Lauterborn (who is running for School Board next year!) talks about all of the recommendations the Youth Commission made for budget priorities. We could take that $750K and build a new youth center and a skate park and regularly clean athletic fields.

Proponents of Prop G say that it would be a safeguard against privatizing the stables. The privatization game plan goes like this: you defund something (like the stables or the golf courses or whatever) until it falls apart. Then you say "oh look, the city can't run the horse stables, we need a private company to do it." Then the company comes in and runs our public asset to make a private profit. Lame.

We definitely don't want to sell off our stables to the highest bidder, but at the same time we're not ready to give a blank check to rich horse owners. Vote no on G.
- Full text of G
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- Paid arguments for G
- No paid arguments against G

Prop H - Parking Lots Everywhere!

Endorsed Vote: No

This one is straight crazy. It mandates that a parking space be built for every new housing unit built in residential neighborhoods, and it drastically increases the number of parking spaces allowed in new Downtown office and retail developments. Not surprisingly, a parking lot construction company put up big money to get Prop H on the ballot! The Planning Department estimates Prop H will put up to 20,000 new cars on SF streets over the next 20 years. It gives people the right to remove trees, bus stops, and metered street parking in order to add curb cuts for parking garages And the fine print is filled with loopholes like providing for unlimited parking for “low-emission vehicles” which are defined so broadly that the definition includes SUVs. Need we say more?
- Full text of H
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- Paid arguments for H
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Prop I - Budgeting by the Ballot Box for a Small Business Center

Endorsed Vote: No

We support creating a small business center, but there’s no need to do this at the ballot box. The Mayor and the Supervisors already negotiated $300K for this in the budget. Now Gavin is asking the voters to give it another $400K. Maybe if he would actually meet with the Supervisors, they could work this out on their own.
- Full text of I
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- Paid arguments for I
- No paid arguments against I

Prop J - Wouldn’t Free Wi-Fi Be Nice? Prop J Won’t Make It Happen

Endorsed Vote: No

Don't get us wrong, we like wi-fi. But Prop J won't do anything to create a citywide wi-fi network. All it does is say that "we like wi-fi." It might as well be adopting a policy to say that puppies are cute. No one argues with that either, but what difference does it make if we vote on it? The city was working on a half-baked wi-fi plan with Google and Earthlink. But that plan fell apart when Earthlink realized there wasn't enough money in it for them. Prop J is a bunch of broad generalizations, with no details on how to make citywide wi-fi work. Basically, it's feel-good politics that won't do anything to really help the City.

And some other issues we have with Prop J:

It doesn't do enough to protect our privacy. Google wants to sell ads to us based on where we are in the City and what we're doing. That's kinda creepy.
Wi-fi doesn't work that well in a dense, hilly City. People on upper floors and in the middle of buildings will need equipment to amplify the signal.
Fiber optic cable is the shiznit. It's way faster than wi-fi, and a citywide fiber network would have us rocking high speeds for decades. Supervisors Ammiano and Daly want to expand our current fiber network to cover the whole city. We know that fiber optic will cost $100-200 million and it could take a long time, but it's the only real long-term solution.
Some of us think a citywide network should be a public utility like the water or sewers. That way the City would focus on giving us good service instead of letting corporations like Google and Earthlink profit off our network.
Finally, some people are concerned about what all that wi-fi radiation would do to us. We get enough of it with all those cell phone towers. A wi-fi network would double the amount of radiation in the air.

Full text of J

Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent

Paid arguments for J

Paid arguments against J

Prop K - Restrict Advertising on Street Furniture and City Buildings

Endorsed Vote: Yes

This is another symbolic policy statement that says the City should freeze the number of advertisements allowed on bus stops and city buildings at the current levels. Hell yeah. We know that free speech covers advertising, and that MUNI has come to depend on that advertising money.

But there's a lot of advertising out there that sucks on our souls and pollutes our brains with delusions of consumerism, unhealthy body images, and all kinds of other crap. Think of all the prime visual space that's wasted in our City on advertisements. Couldn't we replace some of that with useful stuff like local art and community bulletin boards.

The opposition to Prop K is almost entirely funded by Clear Channel--a god-awful corporation that makes big money off all those bus stop ads. They say Prop K will cost the city money. But the Supervisors just signed a new contract with Clear Channel. For better or worse, those ads aren't going away any time soon. Prop K only sets a policy that we don't want any more of them.

Looking at the bigger picture, we're pissed off that our City is strapped for cash to the point that we have to sell off our public space for advertising. This is one more sign that our tax structure is messed up. From Dubya's insane tax cuts at the federal level to California's infamous Prop 13 which crippled our public schools to our local tax structure where downtown corporations aren't paying their fair share, Republicans have systematically crippled our governments' ability to provide necessary services to the people. So we're left begging for scraps from Clear Channel to pay for MUNI. That's not cool. In the long term, we need to get the Republicans out of the White House and reform our local, state, and federal tax codes. But in the short-term we say Hell Yeah to Prop K.
- Full text of K
- Ballot arguments from the official proponents and opponent
- Paid arguments for K
- Paid arguments against K