Sweet Melissa

November 2010 Voter Guide: Prop E

San Franciscans vote in odd-numbered years for some very important local offices. For example, in 2011, we’ll be voting on the next mayor. That some folks are mobilizing now to maximize the number of voters they can cram into the booths should come as no surprise, then.

This brings us to Proposition E on this year’s ballot. Proposed by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi and supported by all the supervisors except Michela Alioto-Pier and Sean Elsbernd, the proposition would direct the Board of Supervisors to create a system by which San Franciscans can register to vote and cast a vote on the same day in municipal elections. (Because we have state and federal races in even-numbered years, voters would still have to wait 15 days from their date of registration until they can vote in those elections.)

Supporters of Prop. E claim that voter turnout is low for our municipal elections and that allowing same-day registration will solve that problem. That’s ridiculous.

Let’s face it: The reason turnout is low is because municipal elections are boring. The last one pitted Mistermayor against a naked guy. This makes for fun cocktail party chatter, but no one’s going to skip their afternoon run to Starbucks to go vote in that type of election.

Having said that, it does stand to reason that there will be a small increase in the number of voters on Election Day if Prop. E passes. People who can’t get it together to register 15 days in advance of the election date, for whatever reason, would be our new voters. In exchange, according to the city controller, Prop. E will cost The City $424,000 per election to train poll workers, print new materials and develop new Election Day procedures.

Whether $424,000 for those new voters is a fair deal is what each of us (who manage to get registered in time) will be able to decide Nov. 2.

November 2010 Voter Guide: Proposition G, This one is going to break records, I tell you...

"I’m going to skip to the polls in November,” my friend Dubya told me over beer and football. Like many other people, he can’t wait to vote for Proposition G. That ballot measure would eliminate the provision in the City Charter that guarantees Muni operators the second-highest wages in the nation.

The pro-Prop. G effort is called Fix Muni Now, but it won’t totally fix Muni. It only mandates that operators negotiate their wages. If we don’t have elected officials willing to stand up to the operators, there won’t really be a change. So, for those of you who live in districts 2, 6, 8 and 10: if you are voting yes on G, check out which supervisor candidates support it too.

I expect Prop. G to pass with numbers that will make history and may even surprise the operators union, which has consistently given the Bronx salute to San Francisco. Tuesday’s “unofficial” boycott of the cable car bell-ringing contest is just one more reason people can’t wait to ring the union’s bell on Election Day.

November 2010 Voter Guide: Prop H, I'll probably vote for this but...whatever...

Proposition H on the November ballot would forbid city elected officials from being a member of a party county central committee. And while it applies to both parties, let's be honest - this is about the Democratic County Central Committee.

That it was put on the ballot by Mistermayor — himself an elected official who sits on the country central committee of the Democratic Party by virtue of being the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor — is not even my favorite part of this proposition. (Other elected officials who also sit on the Democratic County Central Committee include supervisors John Avalos, David Campos, David Chiu and Eric Mar.)

When a City Hall staffer breathlessly handed me a copy of Prop. H several months ago, I wondered why he was laughing. Then I read the first sentence of the proposition: “Holding public office requires the subordination of personal and political concerns to the faithful discharge of duties on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco.”

Hilarious! I mean, Mistermayor is so desperate to get away from San Francisco that he’s fighting for a job in Sacramento where he’ll sit in the car and hold Meg Whitman’s purse while she “has grown-up talk time.” Not sure he’s the best champion of focusing politicians’ attention on serving The City.

It takes a few minutes to stop giggling at this proposition, but once you do, there are a few things the measure is supposed to address. First, there is no limit to the amount you can give a candidate who is running for the central committee, whose members are elected in June of even-numbered years. So, a person running for the central committee can amass and spend tons of money and build up name recognition for the June election. Then when they are up for citywide office a few months later — in November of a given year — they can still ride the wave of love they bought with the central committee election cash. This seems to undercut the intent of The City’s campaign contribution limits.

Plus, a person or company trying to suck up to a sitting elected official who is on the central committee can just give tons of money to the committee with a wink. Finally, since the Democratic Country Central Committee slate pretty much guarantees a win in any local election, the opportunity to give oneself that big endorsement can seem like an unfair advantage.

I’ve watched central committee endorsement meetings and it’s funny to watch people endorse themselves. Personally, I’d find it uncomfortable. But there is obviously little shame at City Hall

Prop J and K Hotel Tax - Website Bonus

Okay, didn't have enough room to include all this, but, according to the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, June 2010, the increase from 14 percent to 16 percent taxes "would make San Francisco’s hotel tax and fees the highest in our competitive set" -the extra 1.5 percent is a Tourism Improvement District assessment:

o San Francisco – 17.5% (if raised)

o New York – 16.5%

o Vancouver – 16.5%

o Anaheim – 15.87%

o Seattle – 15.6%

o San Francisco – 15% to 15.5% (current)

o Chicago – 15.39%

o Washington, DC – 14.5%

o Boston – 14.45%

o LA–14%

o New Orleans – 14%

o Las Vegas – 12% to 13%

o San Diego – 12.5%

o Millbrae & Burlingame – 12%

o South San Francisco – 9%

November 2010 Voter Guide: Props J and K, Hotel Taxes

Propositions J and K are both hotel tax measures. They are next to each other on the ballot, and each has similar provisions. Also, if both measures pass, the one that gets the most votes wins. Confused yet?

Currently, San Francisco’s hotel tax is 14 percent. Of that, 8 percent is for specific purposes (tourism improvement, etc.) and 6 percent goes into the general fund. Our tax law directs hotels to collect and pay that tax to The City. Search engines like Orbitz and Expedia only charge taxes on the amount hotels receive, not on the inflated cost the websites charge consumers. Both ballot propositions would close that loophole — though Prop. K does so more artfully. Making websites collect and pay hotel tax on the amount charged to the consumer is estimated to bring in $6 million per year.

Also, in an effort to exclude people who live in single-resident-occupancy hotels from hotel taxes, there is an exception for “permanent residents.” But airlines often book rooms for longer than 30 days and rotate flight attendants and pilots in and out, thus taking advantage of “permanent resident” status. Both ballot propositions clarify that “permanent residents” are people, not companies that book a hotel for an extended period of time.

Where the provisions differ is this: Prop. J also contains a 2 percent increase in the hotel tax for the general fund, bringing the total to 16 percent. The increase would expire in 2014, though I’m not aware of any tax increase in this city that has ever been allowed to expire. Ever. Proponents of Prop. J say the increase will only be a $3 increase per night and bring in about $25 million per year. They point out that the hotel tax hasn’t changed since 1994.

The Chamber of Commerce says the tax increase would result in fewer people staying in hotels and thus the elimination of about 2,000 (mostly union) jobs from the local hotel industry. Also, lower occupancy rates mean less money spent elsewhere in The City by visitors — at a loss of $75 million a year, according to the Chamber.

In fact, according to Joe D’Alessandro, president of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, at least five organizations have said they will “reconsider” holding events here if Prop. J is enacted. D’Alessandro estimates that the lost revenue from those conventions would be $120 million.

Finally, adding to the list of “reasons people hate politicians,” Mistermayor added a confusing and underhanded provision in Prop. K that says: Assuming both Props. J and K pass, if Prop. K (without a 2 percent increase) gets more votes than Prop. J (with a 2 percent increase), Prop. J will not take effect.

This little proposition battle is, sadly, taxing.

BONUS: Other good articles about the hotel taxes are at BeyondChron and the Bay Guardian.

November 2010 Voter Guide - Prop L: L(a)ying down the Law

In December 2009, KPIX (Ch. 5) did a story about “serial inebriates” in the Haight who were becoming more “threatening, territorial and psychotic.” At the time, police Capt. Teresa Barrett said that the Police Department was looking at how other jurisdictions deal with the same problem and saw that Tacoma, Wash., and Berkeley each have laws against sitting or lying down on public sidewalks.

Later, police Chief George Gascón and Mistermayor each came out in favor of a sit-lie law, but when most members of the Board of Supervisors said they’d vote it down, Mistermayor put it on the Nov. 2 ballot as Proposition L.

Specifically, Prop. L would make it a misdemeanor for people (after a warning) to sit or lie down on public sidewalks between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. The law contains exceptions for people legitimately in wheelchairs, parade onlookers and other folks who might need to occupy a sidewalk for a short period of time. It does not apply to parks, benches or private property. For many of us, deciding how to vote on this is not easy. And so, I give you four things you should know about Prop. L.

1. Remember that, in order to become law, Prop. L has to do more than get a majority of the votes. It has to get more votes than Proposition M (mandating foot patrols) because of a provision put into Prop. M by Supervisor David Chiu.

2. Back in 1994, then-Mayor Frank Jordan put a sit-lie measure on the ballot and it failed by fewer than 3,000 votes. The arguments for and against the sit-lie law in 1994 are eerily similar to the ones flying around today, including this one: We have adequate laws on the books, it’s just that police aren’t enforcing them.

3. Sure we have laws prohibiting harassment, obstructing people and aggressive panhandling, but according to testimony by Paul Henderson, chief administrator of the District Attorney’s Office, when people are on trial for these offenses, judges require a victim to show up in court because the defendant has the right to confront his accuser, and it cannot just be the cop who witnessed the crime. (And that’s assuming the police happen to be there to see the crime and that we want officers to spend their time testifying in misdemeanor trials.) Finding victims who have the time, interest and guts to prosecute quality-of-life crimes is the main impediment to enforcing them, say the police. Prop. L is different because it doesn’t have such a “victim cooperation” requirement. Sort of like a speeding ticket.

4. A law similar to Prop. L was passed in May after complaints that people were hanging around in front of bars and dance clubs after closing time, causing trouble. At the time, the police didn’t have the ability to ask people to move along, so the board passed an anti-loitering law aimed those establishments. As with Prop. L, people get a warning to move along and then a citation if they don’t. After one year, there have been two citations issued and no complaints about selective enforcement.

November 2010 Voter Guide: Prop M, Foot Patrols and the Sit-Lie Ordinance

‘I think as popular as foot beats are, I think our [police] chief, frankly, is just as popular,” Supervisor Bevan Dufty said right before the Board of Supervisors elected, over Dufty’s objection, to put Proposition M on November’s ballot. That proposition would require the Police Commission to develop a policy on community policing and direct the Police Department to draft and implement a foot patrol program.

Dufty’s comment addresses one argument against Prop. M: Who do you want running the Police Department, supervisors or police Chief George Gascón? For many people, that question is, um, less than difficult to answer. Some voters will be downright giddy at the chance to send a message to board members that we think they are incompetent.

Still, it’s not easy to vote against foot patrols. Everyone loves the idea of beat cops. According to the text of Prop. M, a recent poll shows 90 percent of San Franciscans “believe foot patrols are a necessary tool” for the SFPD.

Thing is, the Police Department agrees that foot patrols are important. In fact, the reason the department is opposed to Prop. M is because it already has a foot patrol program and is willing to work with supervisors to make it better. At least that’s what Assistant Chief Jeff Godown and Capt. David Lazar said at the board’s July 15 Rules Committee meeting, where Prop. M was discussed at length.

At that meeting, Godown and Lazar described how the Police Department already has a foot patrol program that has been very effective in reducing crime and increasing perceptions of safety. Furthermore, the department is wooing communities with all sorts of other romantic gestures: Each district station has a community advisory board and a sergeant appointed to be the liaison to community groups, our cadets spend more time learning about cultural competence than those at any other police academy in the nation, the department has devoted scads of resources to dealing with people who don’t speak English and they all have “I [heart] San Francisco Communities” tattoos in places they can’t show us.

OK, I made that last part up, but the SFPD’s point was: We already do this stuff and we’ll work with the Board of Supervisors to make changes, so why do you want to legislate this? Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, the measure’s sponsor, responded that we need a public endorsement of foot patrols and community policing to make sure officers stay committed to those ideals. He didn’t name any specific provision of Prop. M that would change the current Police Department practices.

In fact, just when I was ready to toss Prop. M into the “won’t help or hurt The City much” pile, board President David Chiu added a “poison pill” to the proposition that says if Prop. M gets more votes than Mistermayor’s sit-lie ordinance (Proposition L), Prop. M wins and the sit-lie law won’t take effect. Chiu’s move (a little trick he learned from Mistermayor) to make people choose between the sit-lie ordinance and foot patrols is nonsensical.

Silly political games like that just make it easier for people to answer the question: Should we allow supervisors to get involved in running the Police Department?

ALSO: Check out Paul Hogarth's excellent write-ups of November's ballot measures here and here.

November 2010 Ballot: Prop N

I know the November election seems like an eternity away, but since this is a weekly column and there are 15 measures on the ballot, we should start looking at the proposed measures. In an effort to ease us all into the position of citizen legislators, I’d like to begin at the end of the ballot and work backward, which means today’s contestant is Proposition N, the property transfer tax increase.

Prop. N was proposed by Supervisor John Avalos, who, as chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee, had to tell everyone that they would not be getting a pony on Christmas morning. Under Prop. N, real estate transfers worth more than $5 million but less than $10 million would be subject to a 2 percent tax. Transfers worth more than $10 million would be assessed a 2.5 percent tax. Currently, these transactions are taxed at 1.5 percent.

According to San Francisco Chief Economist Ted Egan, if Prop. N passes, it will bring in $35 million.

But that’s a very tenuous estimate.

You see, the property transfer tax is the youngest sibling of all taxes. It’s rebellious and unpredictable, and smokes unfiltered cigarettes. OK, I made up that last part. But the rest of it is true. Egan explained that the amount of property transfer tax we’ll get in any given year is very hard to anticipate. For example, in an effort to estimate how much money Prop. N might generate, his office ran the numbers on how much extra money the proposition would have brought in had it been in place nine years ago. His analysis showed that the amount yielded would have varied between $6 million and $90 million a year. Egan’s office averaged those numbers to get the $35 million estimate.

Egan also explained that, contrary to common San Francisco ideas about where babies and money come from, the $35 million won’t be brought by a benevolent stork. Buyers won’t take on the extra expense, so owners will pass on the cost to renters. And while it won’t apply to a large number of renters, it will apply to a few important ones. (He didn’t specify which ones.) As a result, the analyst’s 20-year forecast estimates 250 private sector jobs lost per year if Prop. N passes. While those job losses would initially be offset by gains in public employment, by 2014 we would just have a loss of employment positions.

Don’t get me wrong: Prop. N is basically guaranteed to pass. San Franciscans have no sympathy for storks or the kinds of companies and people who are party to multimillion-dollar real estate deals.

But with a projected budget shortfall of $712 million next year, it’ll take a lot more than Prop. N to prevent another sad season of budget negotiations.

Quote O' The Meeting

“Whether you agree or disagree with what the public defender has done, we should not use the budget analyst in any way to exact retribution.”

— Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, speaking out against Supervisor Chris Daly’s proposal to have Public Defender Jeff Adachi’s office audited. Public employee unions are personally unhappy with Adachi because he worked to put pension reform on the November ballot. The audit and the unions’ ire may not be related, but, like kissing your sister, it doesn’t look right. By the way, Daly’s proposal for an audit failed, with Daly and Supervisor John Avalos the only ones voting in favor of it.

Kicking Up Dust About Foot Patrols

At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, a ballot measure introduced by Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi that would require police foot patrols was considered. The debate was highly amusing, and voters will be able to consider the measure in November.

First up was Mirkarimi himself, explaining that the Board of Supervisors and voters should get involved in police matters because, among other reasons, constituents complain to members of the board about crime. That argument is the same one he used when trying to empower the board to appoint members of the Recreation and Park Commission. Whenever he brings it up, I am reminded of my days working at a frozen-yogurt stand at Six Flags. People would yell at me because a small cup of chocolaty mush cost $7. This fact did not entitle me to sit on the Six Flags board of directors. My point: Sometimes people complaining about things over which you have no control is just part of the job. Deal with it.

Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier was interested in a different kind of citizen complaint. She pointed out that voters should not get dragged into the issue of foot patrols because the law can just as easily be passed at the Board of Supervisors without voter approval. “People that elected us to do our job say, ‘Well, why aren’t they doing it? Why do we need to make this decision? Can’t they sit down, come to the table and figure out these problems by themselves? That’s what we elected them to do,’” Alioto-Pier said.

Supervisors David Campos and David Chiu said the reason the measure is on the ballot is because it’s the alternative to Mistermayor’s ordinance prohibiting sitting or lying on city sidewalks, which also is on the ballot.

At that point, things got really interesting.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd used an ingenious little trick of parliamentary procedure in an attempt to keep the measure off the ballot. I won’t bore you with the details, but nerds like me thought it was wonderfully amusing to watch the supervisors parsing through their rule books to figure out how to deal with Elsbernd’s attack.

Back and forth they went, with Elsbernd on one side and Supervisor Chris Daly, Campos and Chiu on the other. “I appreciate Sean Elsbernd’s creativity with the board rules, but ultimately he’s wrong and any advice coming from [Deputy City Attorney Cheryl] Adams at this point matters less than the decision from Harvard-trained attorney David Chiu,” Daly said. Ouch!

Since no one from Yale University was present to overrule Chiu, his decision to end the fun was final and the measure will be on the ballot.