@Bárbara Chelsai: Straight out of the Republican play book

Here's the second article from The Guardsman.

Sit-lie ordinance left to voters
Posted on 10 September 2010 by Greg Zeman, The Guardsman

*Editor’s Note: This story was reprinted from El Tecolote

By Greg Zeman
The Guardsman

San Francisco voters will decide the future of the controversial Civil Sidewalks, or “sit-lie,” ordinance, which failed to pass the Board of Supervisors; Mayor Gavin Newsom is using his executive privilege to place the item on the November ballot.

Some people, including District 9 Supervisor David Campos, feel the ordinance, which would criminalize sitting or lying on public sidewalks anywhere in the city between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., could be used to unfairly target day laborers.

“The fact is, that at some point, as a day laborer, you will have to sit down during the day. It is humanly impossible to be standing all day as you’re waiting and looking for a job,” Campos said at the June 8 board meeting where the ordinance was voted down 8-3. “Are you telling me that you’re not going to enforce the law against day laborers?”

Sit-lie and S-Comm

The recent absorption of San Francisco into the Department of Justice’s “Secure Communities” program – a federal program that will cross-check fingerprints of those arrested in SF against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement database – has raised concerns about police using the proposed law to target undocumented workers for deportation. Although the Mayor’s office and supporters of the ordinance have consistently claimed that the measure is not aimed at day laborers or undocumented workers, there is no language in the proposed law making this distinction.

A group of men standing on César Chávez Street, who identified themselves as day laborers, who asked their names not be published, said they fear that the law could be used to sweep them off the street and out of the country just for trying to work.

“I maybe can stand without sitting for four or five hours if I have to, but how can I stand all day?” asked Carlos, one of the men on César Chávez whose name was changed for fear of reprisal. “What if I want to sit down to eat?”

District 8 Supervisor Bevan Dufty said he couldn’t vote for a the ordinance on just a verbal promise that day laborers would not be targeted.

“I’m not willing to support something that on its face is going to have to be selectively enforced,” he said. “To stand and listen to officers go, ‘oh no, we’re not going to focus on individuals who are day laborers, that’s not what our focus is,’ that’s not the way the law works.”

Sidewalk Civility

Proponents of the measure, including District 2 Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, say that the ordinance is a vital police tool. They insist it is not directed at any disadvantaged group.

“The legislation is not intended to target homeless people or people with mental health issues. It’s intended to address concerns related to public safety and came about form the voices of residents and merchants throughout the city,” she said. “The police do not have a tool for dealing with people who are not breaking the law, but who act provocatively to passers-by or merchants.”

The proposed ordinance is heavily endorsed by Police Chief Goerge Gascón who argues that it is a necessary tool in neighborhoods like the Haight, which is receiving an increasing number of complaints about groups of “thugs” blocking sidewalks and bullying merchants, pedestrians and local residents.

However, Campos doesn’t buy the civility angle on sit-lie.

“By it’s very definition, it doesn’t actually address the issue of civility, because it allows for incivility so long as the person is standing,” he said, adding that he viewed a new law as unnecessary. “On the record, the assistant Chief of Police acknowledged that the police department already has the legal tools they need to be proactive around these issues. The Office of Criminal Justice did not provide any information to actually dispute that specific assertion.”

Pier still maintains that police currently lack the ability to “proactively engage” the individuals that advocates of the ordinance are concerned with.

Wedge issue for November

At the first of two Public Safety Committee hearings where the Mayor’s Department of Justice and the SFPD were given the opportunity to explain the need for the new ordinance, District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly voiced his critical view of the law. He sees the ordinance as a politically motivated distraction from “draconian cuts” to homeless services.

“It would be great to see those who have gotten whipped up about supporting this come out and speak about basic services which have been cut,” Daly said. “You can move the problem around, chief, but you can’t solve the problem with this. You say it’s not a fix all? It’s not a fix anything.”

At that same meeting, Campos persistently questioned SFPD Deputy Chief Kevin Cashman about what criminal behaviors the new ordinance was attempting to address that could not be addressed under current law. He and others on the board were unsatisfied with the response they got.

“The case for this legislation simply has not been made. We had a hearing where very specific and clear questions were asked of the Mayor’s office, of Criminal Justice and the department of police and no answers were provided,” Campos said. “If they cannot provide that justification to this body, then what is the justification that’s going to be provided to the public?”

District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, whose district encompasses the Haight-Ashbury where the ordinance first started building steam, agreed that the law would not effectively address the concerns being voiced by its advocates.

“To say that if somebody is acting in a harassing manner, if somebody is being uncivil towards somebody else and they’re doing so simply standing up, and they’re not sitting and they’re not lying, that all of a sudden you’re to tell me that the police do not have the tools in order to remedy the situation? That’s untrue,” Mirkarimi said. “When somebody spits on a baby, when somebody threatens somebody else with physical harm, when someone, like the mayor, sees someone smoking crack, that is not necessarily a new application that is covered by the sit-or-lie law. That is already a violation of law.”

New life for an old idea

This is not the first time that San Francisco business owners and residents have tried to deal with individuals “encamping” on their neighborhood’s sidewalks with a sit-lie ordinance. In 1968, the Board of Supervisors unanimously adopted Section 20 of the Municipal Police Code, which criminalized sitting or lying on the sidewalk. One of the law’s biggest proponents was the Haight-Ashbury Merchants and Improvement Association, which felt the presence of “hippies” on the sidewalk in the Upper Haight was hurting their businesses.

In 1979, the ACLU challenged MPC 20 by filing a suit against the Chief of Police and the Sheriff, alleging that the law was being used to target Gay men in Eureka Valley which would eventually become The Castro. The case was resolved through a partial settlement, which resulted in the repeal of MPC 20 by the Board of Supervisors. The defunct law was replaced by the set of laws against sidewalk obstruction that are still on the books.

The proposed ordinance is modeled after a similar law in Seattle that was passed in 1994 and later upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Now cities like Berkeley, Palo Alto and Portland, Ore., are considering following suit.

Orhun; You're welcome.

Concerning opposition to sit-lie....Maybe they have lots planned for October, but I'm wondering what happened to the "Sidewalks are for people" group who oppose sit-lie? I don't see anything going on with them. There are no "No on L" campaign signs anywhere. No "No on sit-lie" signs anywhere. No campaign buttons being distributed. Nothing. Dead. I realize these things take money and staff. Maybe they have neither. I know they have been well, well outspent by the yes on sit-lie group which consists of the real estate and banking industry. (I'm already working 2 jobs and I don't have the time to start a campaign or to help the no on sit-lie group). The "no on sit-lie" group have a website but how many people know about that? I'm seeing a few more "We support Civil Sidewalks" signs in businesses. That's the pro sit-lie group. I'm seeing those signs in places where I would not have expected the people to put one up. I won't patronize those businesses in the future. I also read on the yes on sit-lie website that Cole Hardware and the Red Victorian Bed and Breakfast are 2 businesses supporting sit-lie. I used to shop at Cole Hardware. I won't anymore. I suspect most people don't even know what Prop L is. I won't be surprised to see it pass because I don't have much confidence in the voters these days.

I think it should be mentioned again who is financially behind sit-lie. Here is a very informative article about that from the Bay Citizen.

Pacific Heights Moguls Fund Sit/Lie
High-tech financiers, not Haight Street merchants, are bankrolling Prop. L
By Zoe Corneli on August 11, 2010

The passionate debate about San Francisco’s controversial sit/lie ballot measure may be hottest in Haight-Ashbury, where residents and small business owners are boiling mad about transients on the streets. But many of the bucks behind Proposition L are coming from a different neighborhood — Pacific Heights — and a more elite group of residents.

Campaign finance reports filed Aug. 2 reveal that the measure’s backers include some of the Bay Area’s wealthiest and most influential players. Among those who have donated a total of $50,800 to date are two major Silicon Valley financiers, a former Wells Fargo CEO, a local high-society philanthropist who runs a real-estate company and the principal of a Michigan-based development firm. (Scroll down to see an interactive chart of the donations.)

Ronald C. Conway, a managing partner of Angel Investors LP, was the first to donate to the campaign. In total, he has given $35,000 — the largest contribution from any donor — to the Coalition for Civil Sidewalks, which is pushing for passage of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s ordinance to ban sitting or lying down on city sidewalks. Conway, known as the “Godfather of Silicon Valley,” was an early investor in Google and PayPal and serves on advisory boards for Twitter, Facebook and Digg, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Gary Rivlin, the author of a 2001 book about Conway, was surprised to learn that the investor had thrown his weight behind a local political effort. “Conway was the kind of guy who put almost all of his time and energy and money into helping his startups and hardly struck me as the kind to devote himself to side political causes,” Rivlin wrote in an e-mail.

But that's just what he did. "I donated to get the campaign off the ground," Conway wrote in an e-mail. "This movement began by merchants and neighbors coming together and I wanted to help them build their organization as I believe in their cause."

Conway said he was "very active in numerous other causes that help the City at large."

"I am confident that there will be many more donations following mine as a cross section of San Franciscans have embraced this issue," he wrote.

More donations did indeed follow Conway's gift. They came largely from a cadre of business-affiliated power brokers, many of whom list addresses on the Peninsula, in Pacific Heights or in downtown San Francisco.

Tied for second place, with $5,000 each in contributions, are Michael Moritz and Diane B. Wilsey. Moritz, a partner at the Menlo Park venture firm Sequoia Capital, said he was too “swamped” to comment for this article. Moritz has given $150,000 to another San Francisco political cause — Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s pension-reform measure, Proposition B. Union members planned to protest Moritz’s involvement in that effort outside his Pac Heights home Wednesday evening.

Wilsey, who goes by Dede, is best known for having headed up the $200-million renovation of the de Young museum. A 2005 Chronicle article credited her with single-handedly raising more than $190 million for the project through her “charming, savvy and willful” manner. She “knows how much people can afford to give and makes a pithy case for why they should,” reporter Jesse Hamlin wrote. The campaign finance filing identifies Wilsey as president of A. Wilsey Properties Co. (Editor's note: Wilsey has also made a substantial donation to The Bay Citizen and was recently elected to the board.)

In fourth place, at $2,500, is Richard M. Kovacevich, a former CEO and board chairman of Wells Fargo. Fifth place goes to Stephen Grand, president of Grand Sakwa Properties LLC. While Grand is based in San Francisco, his company is headquartered in Farmington Hills, Mich., and is a major developer of residential and retail properties in Southeast Michigan, including, according to a Detroit business newspaper, the former Kmart headquarters in Troy, Mich.

Of the $50,800 in funding, the campaign has spent or plans to spend $31,613.99 — much of it on political consultants. Payments of $5,000 each went to Hsieh and Associates, the firm of San Francisco consultant Tom Hsieh; and Ground Floor Public Affairs, the company founded by Alex Tourk, Newsom’s former campaign manager and deputy chief of staff. Another $5,000 is owed to Hsieh, and $6,792.15 is owed to Tourk’s firm.

Bob Offer-Westort, an organizer with the opposing campaign, Sidewalks Are for People, said the funding told a story different from the public image of the Civil Sidewalks campaign, which has highlighted the plight of neighborhood merchants and residents. “The idea that this is a grassroots campaign I think is belied by where the money is coming from,” he said. “It’s coming from the finance sector and the real-estate sector.”

But Kent Uyehara, merchant chair of the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association and head of the Civil Sidewalks campaign, said the people who donated are the ones who can afford to do so, and who have the political savvy to get a proposition passed. Small business owners "don't have the money" and historically have not been politically organized, he said.

On Monday, the anti-Prop. L campaign received its first $5,000 donation, from Scott Handleman, an independent attorney in San Francisco. Prior to that, Sidewalks Are for People's total bankroll had been $50 — the minimum needed to open a bank account — donated by Paul Boden, an advocate for the homeless. Both campaigns will file finance reports again in early October.

That's the end of the article. One of the comments on Bay Citizen about this article was this: Glad to see that the truth is finally coming out. If you google the names of these people, every one has been a major donor to republican presidential candidates or causes. CEOs of huge banks and Real Estate Investors who got us into the current financial crisis, should not be trusted to do what is best for us. Vote No on this ridiculous law!

If one has trouble on the sidewalks, call the police, which one would have to do anyway.

Bárbara Chelsai speaks so well, you should have her speak for all the progressive candidates.

Make an effort to make it happen.

People, let the BG know that you support this idea!!!