Blogger H. Rapp Brown has been on a one-blogger crusade to get someone – politicians, the media, tree-chaining greenies – to pay attention to the fact that today the great trees of Yerba Buena Island will begin to be chopped down.

It’s all extremely frustrating, Brown said. Attention must be paid, but it isn’t. Even the evergreen Guardian doesn’t seem to care. He said he told some of the lads from the newbie Bay Citizen and others about the approaching slaughter over drinks at Drinks at Chris Daly’s bar – the presumed center of political activism in the city – but so far only the silence of trees falling unseen in the forest.

It used to be religion in San Francisco that chopping down a tree was an act of sacrilege and the occasion of political outrage. Why doesn’t the media care enough to send a lousy helicopter over the island for film at eleven so viewers can at least watch in horror? Maybe somebody will – the chopping begins this morning and continues daily.

Here is Brown’s last plaintive blog sent out Monday – and a link to a You-Tube video he and a buddy made of the tree-killing preps:  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb9AwpFCXnI

From: “h. brown” <h@ludd.net>

Date: January 18, 2011 4:18:14 PM PST

To: h@ludd.net

Subject: Unprotected Treasure Island trees to fall tomorrow

boys and girls,

Tomorrow (Wednesday, January 19th 2011) the

John Stewart Company contractors will begin major

logging of the forest on Yerba Buena Island.  Here

is the notice given residents.

They claim they need no permits because the

trees (many are magnificent 100 plus year old

Monterey pine)are not native.   In fact, they

are clearing views for the development planned

atop the hill which is presently sealed off from

prying cameras such as Tony De Renzo and I took

up there last week.

Some of you (such as Will Kane and the Chronicle)

could stop this if you wanted.   Just one TV crew

led by Dan Noyes would halt the destruction.

Will you act?

I’ve done all that I can.   Stewart says they need

no City permission because technically, since the

developer (Lennar – surprised?) hasn’t yet made a

payment to the Navy to change official ownership

and the Navy doesn’t give a shit what happens to

the trees.

You may need a helicopter to film this because the

security around the site is heavy now.

What a fucking travesty.

h.

Reigning Democratic political boss Aaron Peskin cancelled the post-election meeting of the San Francisco Democratic Party’s Central Committee by e-mail Monday on the grounds that the long-scheduled Nov. 24 meeting might conflict with Thanksgiving. Peskin had precious little to be thankful for this election. The abrupt cancellation allowed Peskin to duck discomforting questions and a possible move to replace him as chair.

“Aaron wants to sit up there as chair only when he gets to gloat. This meeting would have been about recriminations,” said longtime Committee member Arlo Hale Smith Jr.

Peskin was facing intra-party fire for his high-handed tactics against his archenemy Scott Wiener in the Supervisorial Race in D. 8 in which e-mails in the Party’s name and other hit pieces went out to D. 8 residents pushing Peskin candidate Rafael Mandleman against Wiener. Wiener won.

John Shanley, Mayor Gavin Newsom’s representative on the DCCC, said he wanted to openly question Peskin about “backroom deals” he made in the name of the Party in the Supervisor races. Several other members said there were discussions about moves to replace Peskin as chair.

Another growing controversy Peskin ducked by canceling the meeting was post-election discontent over the ugly campaign run by Peskin-favorite Deborah Walker in D. 6 against victorious Jane Kim in which Walker hit pieces are being criticized by Kim supporters are bordering on racist. While many DCCC members wanted to give Kim at least a Second Choice endorsement Peskin insisted that the loser Walker be the Democratic Party’s only official choice for Supervisor.

Peskin said he would “not be in town” for Thanksgiving.

MACHINE BEATEN!

_______

FERRELL, COHEN

VICTORIOUS;

WIENER, KIM ALSO

WIN – ALL ARE

NON-MACHINE

CANDIDATES

________

Bay Guardian In Denial

As Its Slate Card Flops

________

Peskin Also Loses Ballot

Propositions, Judicial Race

________

By Warren Hinckle

In an historic and politically histrionic defeat for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee controlled by Aaron Peskin, moderates have been elected to the Board of Supervisors –all of Peskin’s ‘progressive’ candidates lost – and the majority of his ballot propositions were also rejected by the voters in the November 2 election.

Many media have been hesitant to call the contested Supervisorial races, but  The Argonaut’s election analysts declared early that Marina native son Mark Farrell would defeat Janet Reilly in District 2 and Melia Cohen has prevailed in a wide field of candidates in Bayview District 10.

The Argonaut first called the District 2 race for Farrell on Sunday night. Reilly after an expensive and flashy campaign overseen by her political guru husband Clint was in first place by some 400 votes in early returns, but her lead diminished after 2^nd choice vote transfers under the city’s Ranked Choice Voting system. Votes from the other two D. 2 candidates, assistant US Attorney Abraham Simmons and Clinton family friend Kat Anderson – both ran to the relative right of Reilly in the conservative Marina/Pacific Heights district – transferred heavily to Farrell as the preferred 2^nd choice when it became clear the other candidates could not win first place. Attorney and longtime DCCC member Arlo Hale Smith Jr.,  a ranked choice voting expert, estimated that when transfers are completed Farrell would win by approximately 200 votes.

A similarly pronounced vote transfer occurred in District 10 where Peskin’s candidate Tony Kelly lead in early voting returns but political newcomer Malia Cohen began the move  toward first place after vote transfers from the multiplicity of candidates running. (A complete district-by-district analysis by ranked choice voting expert Smith is posted on this site.)

The election results show a remarkable resurgence in moderate San Francisco politics, belying the city’s Berkeley-esque national image. Peskin also failed in an attempt to extend his political reach to the Bench when he ran a gay Latino attorney against sitting Superior Court judge Richard Ulmer. The entire San Francisco Bench including its gay and lesbian judges backed Ulmer against Peskin’s candidate, who lost.

When it isn’t busy trying to scratch up lunch money by repossessing the delivery trucks of the rival SF Weekly, The Bay Guardian prides itself on the political clout of its election Endorsements which fill the entire front page  — and seemed weirdly in denial after all its first choice candidates for Supervisor lost. [Read more →]

By Arlo Hale Smith Jr.

Member, San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee, Former Bart Board member.

Now that the dust has somewhat settled, one thing is clear . . .  Aaron Peskin’s Political Machine took a major beating in the November 2^nd election.

Peskin/SFDCCC supported candidates Janet Reilly, Debra Walker and Rafael Mandelman  lost in D 2, D 6. and D 8.   In D 10, the “real” choice of Peskin and the Bay Guardian – Tony Kelly – not only lost, but was blocked from receiving the SFDCCC endorsement.

Ballot measures dear to the Machine also lost:   Props D and E – which could have encouraged voter fraud by allowing illegals to vote and election day voter registration were defeated, as were attempts to raise the hotel tax to finance the orgies of spending desired by Peskin’s allies on the Board of Supes.

How this happened involves an analysis of the impact of RCV (Ranked Choice Voting)

District 2: Informed Voters Use RCV to Overpower Wealthy Peskin Ally Janet Reilly

The D 2 races shatters conventional political thinking (on the Left) that RCV tends to help “progressive” candidates. Ammiano and company pushed RCV on the theory that eliminating the expense of traditional two candidate “run offs” would allow less well-financed candidates a better chance to win.  The problem with this logic:  Peskin and his allies actually took power in 2000 because MODERATE candidates LOST conventional runoffs! [Remember, McGoldrick and Maxwell were distant second-place candidates whose run off wins were sort of a surprise!]

In the D 2 race, Ms. Reilly had ample campaign funds and managed to get every endorsement on the Left – including the Labor Council and SFDCCC – almost by default.  She ran a campaign in which she actually agreed with the moderate positions of Supervisor elect Mark Farrell on most issues.  She even ended up promising NOT to vote for Peskin for Mayor!  However, the voters didn’t trust her protestations of “independence” from Peskin’s Machine.

This is where RCV comes in:  Supporters of the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th place candidates voted in favor of Farrell over Reilly in the RCV choices by about a 14% margin.This was adequate to overcome Reilly’s 1.5% lead in “first choice” preferences. [Specifically Reilly lead by about 200 votes among “first choices”, but Farrell picked up 450 more votes from RCV than Reilly did, allowing him to win by about 200 votes.]

Also adverse to Reilly was the fact that most voters understood RCV and did NOT exhaust their ballots.   A voter who does not indicate a second or third choice preference may have his/her ballot exhausted and not counted in subsequent RCV totals (beyond first choice tallies).  Only about 1300 voters in D 2 “exhausted” their ballots. This compares favorably to the 4000 and 8000 voters whose ballots were exhausted in D 6 and D 10, respectively.

Analysis:  The moderate, better educated voters of D 2 understood RCV and used it effectively.

D6:  Chiu and Kim Successfully Circumvent Peskin “fix” of the SFDCCC to Win

Supervisor David Chiu actively campaigned for School Board President Jane Kim despite the fact that Debra Walker had been Peskin’s anointed candidate for over a year. This was the first truly major public break between Peskin and his hand-picked successor, Chiu.

While Kim and Walker did not dramatically differ on the issues, Kim made a point of reaching out to moderate voters, while Walker did not.   [Read more →]

The Argonaut’s election analysis has declared Mark Farrell’s victory in District 2, although there are ballots to be counted, his dramatic surge in rank choice voting counts on Friday gives him, in the opinion of political experts, an insurmountable lead over Reilly even if her ever-energetic campaign manger, Clint, spends more money on lawyers for a recount. Reilly ran a modern, sophisticated campaign, deluging the district with sharp mailers, but Farrell ran a door-to-door born-and-raised here-went-to-Catholic-schools one-of-your-own and one of the more traditional family-orientated districts in the city. The Catholic vote was very important there and he carried it. If any race was an example that there is still a moderate vote along traditional value lines in the wacky San Francisco presented in the national media, Farrell’s victory contradicts that.

Click to read the PDF Version.

Governor Jerry Brown

Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom

Attorney General Kamala Harris

Insurance Commissioner Mike Villines

Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer

District 2 Mark Farrell

District 4 Carmen Chu

District 6 Theresa Sparks

District 8 Scott Wiener/Rebecca Prosan (2nd Choice)

District 10 Steve Moss/Laynette Sweet (2nd Choice)

San Francisco Ballot Measures

AA Vehicle Registration Fee    NO

We’re for this when the City starts licensing  bicycles  for a registratio fee & subjects them to the same rules of the road-and speeding  tickets- that motorists in cars are.

A Earthquake Safety Retrofit Loan Program General Obligation Bond ($46,150,00)     YES

We went along with SPUR’s recommendation on this but we  take their word that it won’t become another city bureaucratic boondoggle.

B City Retirement and Health Plans     YES

You don’t fix a leak in the roof by shooting the workers who built the house.

C Mayoral Appearances at Board Meetings     NO

D Non-Citizen Voting in School Board Elections     NO

E Election Day Voter Registration     NO

An early warning about potential voter fraud in the 2011 mayoral election.  SF is the only county in the state requesting this and the Secretary of State’s office is not equipped to proccess the voter certification.

F Health Service Board Elections     YES

G Transit Operator Wages (Fix Muni Now)     YES

H Local Elected Official on Political Party Com     YES

I Saturday Voting    OK

J Hotel Tax Clarification and Temporary Increase     NO

K Hotel Tax Clarification and Definitions    NO

L Sitting or Lying on Sidewalks    YES

M Community Policing and Foot Patrols (Board of Supervisors’ Confusing response to Prop. N)    NO

A bogus proposition intended to confuse the voters.

N Real Property Transfer Tax     NO

State Ballot Measures

Proposition 19     NO

A good deal for Oakland, but disasterous for the fragile economy of Mendocino County.

Proposition 20     NO

This is a sucker deal that puts California at a disadvantage to Texas & New York.

Proposition 21     YES

Proposition 22     NO

Proposition 23     NO

Proposition 24     NO

Proposition 25     NO

Proposition 26    YES

Janet Reilly’s Woman Voters Problem

By Warren Hinckle

Focus on: District 2: Farrell v. Reilly

I met Janet Reilly in Tom Donoghue’s Marina Lounge, on Chestnut Street. This is one of the oldest and therefore the greatest of San Francisco neighborhood joints, places like Gino and Carlo in North Beach and The Philosopher’s Club in West Portal, bars that are the neighborhood living room where locals gather to read the paper and watch sports on TV and talk about life in the village. She is a spectacularly good-looking candidate, strong professional presence yet feminine and friendly; the leader of the pack in a stage presentation of “Little Women.”  She came with a handler in tow. He sat to her left. They were both nursing something to drink. There was no money on the bar.

I thought it would interesting, like one of those 60 Minutes interviews, to talk to a powerful professional woman about how they keep their life apart from their love partners. Janet said that didn’t happen with her, her campaign was really professional.  Clint was not involved in it. Not? What about joint meetings pushing for endorsements and money and Clint always on the phone, saying give to Janet or else, that sort of stuff.  I mean it’s the talk of the money guys downtown. Clint beating them up on her behalf

I don’t do that, never had a joint meeting with Clint about my campaign, we are excellent professionals, she said.  Never a meeting?? What about the one with Annmarie Conroy and her Husband Bart Lally?– two friends of mine. “Oh, that did happen.” she said, almost as an afterthought, “I wanted her endorsement and she gave it to me.” Well, that was not the way my friend Annmarie told it. She said that she wouldn’t endorse Janet unless she renounced the rascal Peskin and she wasn’t willing to commit. A couple of days later, as the heat of Reilly-Peskin, Reilly-Daly came on, it became known that the Reilly family is one of the biggest contributors to public power (a no-no in D.6.)  Janet sent out a press release saying she wouldn’t back her friend Peskin for interim Mayor, god forbid, if she wins and Gavin wins for Lieutenant Governor. Conroy is taking the credit for that late blooming backstab to Reilly’s friend Peskin.

I asked her how difficult it was, being a strong professional politician and accomplished woman in her own right, to be married to a speckled egg of a husband like Clint Reilly, the political power broker and used-to-be political campaign manager who is famously known in Democratic Party higher political circles for publicly firing his then- client Dianne Feinstein–who was at that time running for Governor of California–for not having, I believe his phrase was, ‘fire in her belly’ when she took a few days off the campaign trail for a gynecological procedure. Clint has done other controversial things within the state Democratic Party such as making gazillions publishing state-wide and local phony  “Democratic Party” slate cards and sometimes, to make a buck, sticking one of his candidates –who happened to be one of the Republicans in elective office in San Francisco, then San Francisco Supervisor Annmarie Conroy — without her knowledge on one of his money-making ersatz Democratic Slate Cards. Conroy lost a close when her Democratic opponents yelled “hypocrisy” for appearing on an “official” Democratic “party” piece of mail.

Then there was left unsaid Clint’s horrific campaign for Kathleen Brown for Governor which she might have won if he hadn’t screwed it up – by say spending all her money early on on highly commissionable state-wide TV ads- and then famously not returning Kathleen’s calls during the final week of the campaign.  She sued him and the result was a sealed settlement in which she apparently got some money back but all was lost with the election.

That’s two San Francisco women in politics–Republican Conroy and Democrat Brown–that Clint managed and who lost. The stable, family voter, Marina/Pacific Heights savvy Democrat families with long political memories remember that Clint as campaign manager had a bad relationship and bad result with at least two strong women, basically taking their money and screwing them over. People talk about that, other women who had gone down under bad circumstances, in the perspective that Clint his now running his wife for elective office. San Franciscans think she will find it difficult to free herself of her husband’s past… and present.

Janet’s political handler brought Dianne Feinstein and her husband’s business deal into the conversation–“This is unfair questioning, no one has asked things like that about Feinstein,” he said.  Say what??? I mentioned a few Los Angeles Times front-page articles about the Shanghai airport deal and the Orange County paper coverage about that land swap.

Janet said she was at the bus stops every day talking to voters and no one had asked her about this stuff. But they are talking about it in the parishes, I said. San Franciscans have memories like elephants.  She said nothing like that had ever been brought up about Dianne Feinstein and her husband, that she had no knowledge of anything of the kind.

I said that many voters I had talked to in the district in which she is running for Supervisor, the Marina, said almost in a sort of mantra, that they like her but they were concerned about Clint hanging over her shoulder and whispering into her ear, politically. They genuinely liked her-and she is a most likeable person, even if she is a politician-but had questions about the overbearing Clint– and the money that he, and her, had given to people like Daly and Peskin and issues like public power, which, finally, is not a winning issue in the Marina.

She and her handler left the bar. There remained no money on the plank, I asked Gary Ferrari if any money had exchanged hands.

“No,” he said, “They stuck you.”

Ed Moose, a barkeeper of legend and boss of the Washington Square Bar and Grill in it’s golden days, died today apparently of complications from apparently fucked-up procedures at the hospital where he was being treated for an apparently also fucked-up routine operation.

As San Francisco days go, this was a classic of gloom. Today before even the predatory funeral people could to get their paws on  the  Moose carcass, a sign went up saying that the Washbag had been closed. At the moment, there is no evidence that there was any coordination.

Among other glories, Moose established the annual penny pitch at  Washbag at which a thousand traditional inebriates tossed their tips and made a bundle for good causes. Moose was predeceased in the Washbag by his business partner San Dietch, a classic saloonkeeper and a very good man despite North Beach sniping about him. They were both from St. Louis and learned Frisco something.

I recall a dark night of mischief back at the start of the Washbag which was then the down- home Rose Postola’s we went out for mischief and stole a cable car sign from the Muni barn and installed it in  the Washbag front room before ithe joint expanded with tables and silverware to take over the gold fish store next store.

Moose’s original partners in the Washbag were Donato and Frank Rossi of the Rossi family of Gino and Carlo and without them Moose always said he would have never got the place off the ground.

He is survived by his wife Mary Etta, one of the great woman of all times and a cook to beat the best. Theirs was a wonderful marriage, the product of  an enchanting love affair, which would be the envy of the most romantic.

– Warren Hinckle

Peskin Should Do The Right Thing –

In Fairness, Allow No Endorsement Vote in Districts 6 and 8 Supervisorial Races

By Warren Hinckle

2000 was a very good year for democracy, as former DCCC member Jeff Sheehy recalls it. That year new political talent was in abundance in the San Francisco Democratic Party (including a wedding singer named  Hall and a couple of guys names Daly and Peskin) and the party central committee decided to make no endorsements in the races for district supervisor on the grounds of fundamental fairness.

“There were so many qualified candidates for the voters to choose among

that we agreed to make no endorsements for Supervisor and leave it to the voters because the official party endorsement would give one candidate an

unfair advantage over other Democrats,” said Sheehy.

And what an advantage it is — in mailing, money and imprimatur. In a study of 20 years that party made endorsements in supervisorial races, only 2 candidates managed to beat the Most Lucky Fellow with the endorsement. “Especially with the instant run-off system, the party endorsement gives a huge advantage if only one person is endorsed,” Sheehy said.

2010 is very much like 2000 in terms of talented and resourceful candidates.

The hotly- contested races in Districts 6 and 8 are so hotly contested precisely because in each there are at least three strong, qualified candidates who have demonstrated the ability to raise serious campaign money.

(District 10 has had a later-blooming field than the 6 and  8 battlegrounds but there are several highly qualified candidates and if the fairness principle is applied the panel would either ranked-choice list the candidates or include them in the No Endorsement category.)

For a Democratic party panel made up of  politicians and their appointees to trade favors to anoint one of them – when they have the historical option of  not endorsing any and leaving it to the votes to pick the most qualified Democrat – raises the unsettling question of what type of democracy there is in the Democratic Party on chair Aaron Peskin’s watch.

DCCC members I spoke to thought there appears to be a developing consensus that given the strength of the field it would be fairest to take the year 2000 No Endorsement route in 2010 – but that would be unlikely if Peskin and his handmaidens on the committee play machine hardball and push through their pick of the litter.

Background to tonight’s vote: In 2008, Supervisor Chris Daly e-mailed longtime DCCC member Arlo Hale Smith Jr. that he must vote for Aaron Peskin for chair and not Scott Weiner (now the leading contender in the District 8 race for termed-out Bevan Dufy’s Supervisor seat) because the independent-minded Weiner as chair “would make it less likely that our candidates would win the endorsement of the Party.” Daly threatened Smith, the son of  former San Francisco DA Arlo Smith, with ex-communication from the Left if he didn’t make Peskin chair and confided that “Aaron, Michael Borstein (Peskin’s mini-me on the DCCC) and I” were working to “field a slate for the DCCC” in 2010 to control the Board of Supervisors.

The Daly/Peskin takeover plan hatched in 2008 will be played out in the DCCC endorsement vote tonight.

The politics of the situation are further charged by sitting members of the Board of Supervisors squatting at the Central Committee at night after  their day jobs at City Hall.  Peskin has been uncharacteristically uncoy when asked by other DCCC members about his ambitions to become Interim Mayor –  to get the job Peskin needs  six votes on the current Board to assume the remaining year of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s  term through December 2011 if Newsom is elected Lt. Governor in November.

(It is eating pie for a Supervisor to be elected to the DCCC  because of name recognition and the ability to raise money – as opposed to the financial resources of the average neighborhood activist running the a DCCC seat. (Compared to  the city’s stringent fiscal controls on Board of Supervisor races, a campaign for the DCCC is a virtual Open Seseme for fundraising.)

Mayor Newsom has placed a reform measure on the November ballot that would bar a sitting Supervisor from holding a dual seat on the Democratic county committee. If approved by voters, that would resolve the obvious complications with the  open-government Brown Act  of having  sitting county Supervisors (a non-partisan office) sitting at night on a partisan political body and discussing public policy issues outside the confines of their regularly scheduled and announced public meetings at City Hall.

It would also eliminate a channel for what is so famously called ‘special interest’ money to get into the purses of individual Supervisors via donations to their DCCC campaigns apart from the tightly restricted process of political donations to members of the Board of Supervisors.

Former DCCC member Jeff Sheehy took an historical perspective about 2000 to 2010. “The goal of the old DCCC which fostered district elections was that Committee would become a forum with members elected from the  neighborhoods and a place where new political talent in the Democratic Party would have a chance to grow.” Already-elected members of the Board of Supervisors further enabling themselves through also being elected to the DCCC did not exactly square with that grass roots, spread the political wealth ideal.

“When someone gets elected to the Board of Supervisors or the Board of Education, which are non-partisan positions, I wonder about them also running for a seat on a partisan political committee – and taking up seats on that body making it more difficult for neighborhood candidates to run,” he said.

The vote tonight is about if the DCCC is to be a farm team, or a Tammany Hall.