Guide can be viewed at:http://www.theballot.org/2011/sf

San Francisco Mayoral Election Nov 8 2011

San Francisco, CA

November 8, 2011

This is the official voter guide of the San Francisco League of Pissed Off Voters. We’re a passel of scrappy young organizers. We fight for the progressive San Francisco that *could* be, and we do it as volunteers - cause we give a shit about our communities. We empower folks who think their vote doesn’t matter, and activate people who otherwise wouldn’t care. Then we support the candidates who deserve it and hold them accountable once they're in office. This voter guide is how we educate our friends and peers on the issues, excite pissed off progressive voters, and remind sellout politicians that we’re paying attention.

Yee haw!

Mayor

This is the first competitive Mayor's election in San Francisco using Ranked Choice Voting. That means you can rank up to three candidates. If your first choice candidate finishes out of the running, your vote gets rolled over to your second choice. You don't have to vote for three, but we have three that we're excited to endorse.

Why We Will NOT Vote for Ed Lee

Sure, he seems like a nice guy, but he’s a continuation of the Newsom administration, which was a continuation of the Willie Brown administration, which was shady machine politics at its worst. The only reason Willie never went to jail is that he was slick enough to outwit the FBI. (Check out WillieBrownInc.tumblr.com for all the sketchy details.) Lee has been part of that swamp for decades, and so far as Mayor, he’s shown no desire to clean things up.

John Avalos

Endorsed Vote: First Choice

If we went into the Pissed Off Voters lab to design our ideal candidate, we'd probably emerge, cackling, with someone like Supervisor John Avalos. His priorities are our priorities: tenants’ rights, affordable housing, transit & bikes, jobs, education, progressive taxation, and social/economic/racial justice. As chair of the City Budget committee, he balanced the budget twice in the middle of the recession - collaboratively, while saving vital services. Plus, he’s a looker. ¡Avalos!

Terry Baum

Endorsed Vote: Second Choice

The great thing about ranked-choice voting* is it allows us to support a radical Green Party activist like Terry Baum. She doesn’t have much campaign cash, but besides John, she’s the only candidate we’re 100% confident shares our values.

Jeff Adachi

Endorsed Vote: Third Choice

We love the 2007 Jeff Adachi--Public Defender who fought unfair gang injunctions, created cool programs for at-risk youth, and was on the right side of local battles for economic and social justice. “Adachi 2011” has spent two years spearheading pension reform (he’s behind Prop D). While we give him props for taking on a touchy subject, he’s been working on it with union-hating venture capitalists. Still, we think his history and values make him the 3rd best choice for Mayor.

District Attorney

Why We Will NOT Vote for Geroge Gascón
George Gascón was Police Chief before he was appointed interim D.A - that’s a serious conflict of interest. Hasn’t anyone watched Law and Order? One of the D.A.’s jobs is to investigate police corruption and brutality, so those offices need to be independent. Plus, he supports the death penalty & that bullshit law that bans sitting or lying on sidewalks (“Sit/Lie”). Anyone but Gascón!

David Onek

Endorsed Vote: First Choice

A spirited young lawyer who is a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice. He’s a former Police Commissioner, an advocate for programs to keep youth out of jail, and a supporter of a community-based approach to law enforcement. He’ll keep us safe by preventing crime, instead of wasting lives and money locking up more people.

Sharmin Bock.

Endorsed Vote: Second Choice

Long-time Assistant D.A. in Alameda County who opposes the death penalty.

Nobody!

Endorsed Vote: No Endorsement

Leave your third choice blank!

Sheriff

Ross Mirkarimi

Endorsed Vote: First Choice

First and only choice! SF’s Sheriff manages the jails and security at City Hall and the Courthouse. On the Board of Supes, Mirkarimi has championed a progressive approach to law enforcement. He fought for community-based policing, created the “Reentry Council” to support ex-convicts, and opposed Sit/Lie. We think he’ll keep SF a leader in justice in the jails, so he gets our sole endorsement.

Nobody!

Endorsed Vote: No Endorsement

Leave your second choice blank!

Nobody!

Endorsed Vote: No

Leave your third choice blank too!

Prop A - Bond to keep our schools from falling down

Endorsed Vote: Yes

$531 million bond for school construction & repair. We’d rather pay for this with cash instead of the credit card, but at least these are one-time costs for buildings which will last generations. We say yes.

Prop B - Bond to save our sorry roads

Endorsed Vote: Yes

$248 million bond for street repairs, prioritizing bus and bike lanes. That we need a bond to pay for this type of ongoing maintenance shows how cash-starved we are. But our streets are so jacked that if we don’t borrow now, we’ll have to spend even more later to rebuild the disintegrating roads from scratch. So we say yes.

Prop C - Collectively negotiated (if milquetoast) pension reform

Endorsed Vote: Yes

More crappy choices! On one hand, if we don’t do anything, pensions costs will drain the City budget. On the other, we hate the right wing attitude (à la Wisconsin) that unions are the problem. The question should be how to create an economy that provides all of us a better life, not how much to cut some people’s benefits.

Both C & D would make city workers pay more for their pensions. We prefer Prop C because it was written collaboratively with affected unions. Plus, parts of Prop D might be challenged and thrown out in court, so while we like elements of it, we think C’s the best of bad options.

Prop D - Unilateral (and probably illegal) Pension reform

Endorsed Vote: No

See above. For more on why we chose Prop C over Prop D. Here's a comparison of the two of them.

	Prop C	Prop D
How it was written?	Negotiated with the unions whose pensions are affected (but not the Prop D gang).	Written unilaterally.
Is it legal?	Legally sound.	Legally questionable--may get thrown out in court.
Treatment of public safety workers?	Treats cops and firefighters the same as other workers.	Has them pay more into their retirement, because they can retire earlier.
Effect on workers under $50k?	Not affected.	Not affected.
Tiers for richer workers?	All workers over $50k pay the same percentages.	The more that employees make, the higher percentage they pay for their pensions.

Prop E - Let politicians overrule voter initiatives?

Endorsed Vote: Hell No

Prop E would give the Board of Supes the power to override certain voter-approved laws. Six people, even elected officials, shouldn’t be able to overturn a decision made by 300,000. Hell No on E!

Prop F - Let unaccountable appointees water down ethics law?

Endorsed Vote: No Endorsement

F would make minor changes to the reporting requirements for political consultants, but would also let the Ethics Commission make future changes without voter approval. The Ethics Commissioners are unaccountable appointees who’ve been lousy at promoting Ethics recently.

The proponents will say that any changes still have to be approved by a super majority vote of the Board of Supervisors, but that doesn't reassure us. The Board has similar oversight on other Ethics issues (the campaign Finance Reform Ordinance and the Lobbyist Ordinance), but the Board has often been asleep at that wheel. Ethics legislation is usually complex and technical. Too many times, the Board has "taken Ethics word for it," and unanimously passed the Ethics Commission's recommendations without taking the time to review them. So we say No on F!

Prop G - Keep the current sales tax and have $0.05 go straight to SF

Endorsed Vote: Yes

California’s 9.5% sales tax just went down to 8.5%. Prop G levies a new half percent local sales tax, so it’ll come back up to 9%, and the $ will come here, not to Sacramento. We’d rather support a progressive tax that asks more of the wealthy, but even bad taxes are better than the budget cuts that would happen without this. At least sales tax effects everyone, whereas cuts are like a tax only on the poor! Yes on G.

Prop H - Should school assignment prioritize neighborhood schools over socio-economic factors?

Endorsed Vote: No

This non-binding policy statement is aimed at making it easier for kids to go to schools in their neighborhood. Sounds good, right? The problem is, not all kids live in neighborhoods with great schools.

SFUSD’s lottery system of assigning students to school is notoriously complicated, and people are always trying to mix it up. Under the current system, whether or not a child lives in the school’s neighborhood is considered after some other criteria, such as whether or not the child lives in a part of the city with low-performing schools. This prop would change it so that kids who live in the neighborhood get priority.

We’re saying no on this one. While we like the idea of neighborhood schools, the reality is that Prop H does nothing to address what’s actually wrong with our school system: de facto segregation, inadequate funding, a messed up system where sometimes low income kids/kids of color go to schools across town and then placed in “special ed” classes.

For feedback on this guide, or to report an inappropriate guide, send an email to: voterguides@theleague.com

This guide uses the Cityscape - colorful design by Nica Lorber