Green Greetings,<br><br>It's been a week since our highly successful and super-fun Goodbye-Office Blow-out Bash, thanks to everyone who donated art, food and drinks, DJ'd, read, painted, dealt with the details, and to the full house of party-people who helped make it such a rockin' good time! The auction was fun and entertaining thanks to our spirited professional auctioneer, Antler and we raised a few hundred bucks which more than covered the cost of a generous supply of free food and open bar! Our host, the new tenant, Joshua of Brightline Defense was exceptionally gracious and let us keep the party rolling well into the wee hours! The place looked so good and was so alive, we almost felt sorry to leave it, but it's time and we have better things to look forward to. We even got a good, funny review (albeit with some snide remarks) in the SF Weekly! Check it out here: <a href="http://www.sfgreenparty.org" target="_blank">http://www.sfgreenparty.org</a><br>
Tian Harter also did a short pictorial review:<br><a href="http://tian.greens.org/SanFrancisco/Green/Party/Oct09/index.html">http://tian.greens.org/SanFrancisco/Green/Party/Oct09/index.html</a> <br>
<br>===============================<br><br><b>Today is also election day, so get out there and vote</b> if you've put it off this long and spread the word about <b>our endorsements </b>(Also written out below)<b>:</b><br>
<a href="http://www.sfgreenparty.org/campaigns/campaigns.gem" target="_blank">http://www.sfgreenparty.org/campaigns/campaigns.gem</a><br><br>===============================<br><br><b>Save the Date - Wed 11/18</b> 7-9pm<br>
Our next <b>General Membership Meeting</b> will be a week early this month to avoid Thanksgiving. The plan is to focus on <b>Medical Marijuana</b> and in particular looking at city policy around people trying to follow the spirit of Prop 215 to legally grow their own medicine and how some are being busted, and what can be done to clarify the rules so people know how to stay within the law. We are expecting to have well-known activist, Ed Rosenthal on hand to take part in the discussion and are awaiting a response from the Women's Building about our reservation of one of their rooms. Stay tuned.<br>
<br>===============================<br><p><b>Green Party Endorsements, San Francisco Propositions</b></p>
<p><b>Yes on A (2-year budget process).</b> Prop A would convert the
SF budget process from the current 1-year budget cycle to a rolling
2-year cycle (i.e., budgeting 2 years out, but with opportunities for
the Supervisors to amend the budget every year). In addition, Prop A
would require SF to adopt a 5-year fiscal plan, and would also
standardize the deadlines for labor negotiations with all public
employee unions.</p>
<p>We support Prop A because it is in keeping with our Key Value of
Future Focus. A rolling two year budget (and 5-year fiscal
projections) would allow departments to make more long-term plans,
while still allowing democratic modifications to the budget every
year. It would also put other public employee unions on equal footing
with the Police and Firefighters' unions, who currently get their
contracts negotiated before the others. Although Prop A is a small
step in the right direction, stronger reform will still be needed if
it passes. Currently, the Mayor can "veto" any budget item
approved by the Supervisors, by simply refusing to spend money that
was legally allocated. There is no means for the Supervisors to
override such action, even by unanimous consent. This is a major
imbalance of power, and two of the authors of Prop A, Supervisors
Avalos and Chiu, shot down stronger legislation sponsored by
Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly that would have given the
Supervisors a legal means to override Mayoral budget vetoes. This
year's budget was a largely a result of a backroom deal between
Mayor Newsom and Supervisors Avalos and Chiu, and unfortunately these
two Supervisors chose to roll over for the Mayor rather than
challenging him.</p>
<p><b>Yes on B (allow supervisors to hire more aides, if
budgeted).</b> Prop B would allow the Supervisors to have more than
two aides, if sufficient funds were budgeted. Currently, Supervisors
rely on a number of volunteers to help them research legislation and
answer concerns from their constituents. These volunteers often do
work that is comparable to the work done by paid staff, and the
Supervisors should be allowed to hire them if they have sufficient
funds in their budget.</p>
<p><b>No on C (corporate naming rights to Candlestick Park).</b> We
have always opposed the growing commercialization of public spaces.
In 2004, Green Supervisor Matt Gonzalez sponsored Prop H, which would
would prevent the city-owned Candlestick Park from being renamed
"PG&E Field," "Bechtel Stadium,"
"Halliburton Park" or other corporate names in the future.
55% of the voters agreed with Supervisor Gonzalez that "Monster
Park" was a tacky name, and now the Chamber of Commerce is
asking for a do-over. Just say no.</p>
<p><b>No on D (giant, flashing, rotating corporate ad billboards on
Market Street).</b> The SF Green Party was instrumental in passing a
ballot measure in 2002 that prohibited new billboards in SF (Prop G
passed with 77% of the vote). Although Mayors Brown and Newsom have
chosen to look the other way and ignore many new billboards put up in
violation of that law, it would be difficult even for Newsom to
ignore two blocks of giant, flashing, rotating video billboards that
the sponsors of Prop D plan to build on Market Street. We sympathize
with the owner of the Warfield Theater, who says he simply wants to
restore a classic sign on his building, while replacing the
old-fashioned light bulbs with energy-efficient lighting and removing
obsolete corporate logos. There should be a legal way for him to
accomplish this. However, Prop D goes way too far. It would give part
of Market Street the garish look of downtown Tokyo, and result in San
Franciscans being blasted with corporate ads that could be seen for
miles. Worse, the authors of Prop D use poor kids as window
dressing--although they claim that some profits from the billboards
would be donated to programs that benefit "youth arts," the
committee that would distribute such funding would be a self-selected
group of business owners. Prop D does not legally require the
committee to spend ANY funds to benefit local kids, as suggested by
their ad campaign. It is disgraceful that the local Democratic Party
has joined with the Chamber of Commerce in supporting the
over-commercialization of our public space.</p>
<p><b>Yes on E (ban on additional corporate ad billboards on public
property).</b> Prop E would ban new corporate ads on public street
furniture, such as newspaper racks and Muni bus shelters. After the
2002 billboard ban passed overwhelmingly (see discussion above),
corporations found a loophole, and lobbied Muni to build new bus
shelters plastered with their ads. Most of these new bus shelters are
not located out in the neighborhoods where they are needed, but
rather downtown where they will be seen by the advertisers'
target customers. It's time for Muni to focus more on running the
buses than on selling billboards. Let's limit visual blight by
voting Yes on E.</p>
<p><b>San Francisco municipal offices</b></p>
<p><b>Treasurer - no endorsement.</b> Jose Cisneros is currently
running unopposed for reelection. We appreciate Cisneros' efforts
to lower taxes on SRO residents, and his lobbying of banks to provide
less costly alternatives to check-cashing companies for SF's
poorest residents. However, we would like Cisneros to be more
proactive in pushing for changes to laws that would benefit City
residents. For example, state law severely limits the types of
investments that a local Treasurer can make. City funds must be
invested in commercial banks and government bonds, and may not be
invested in projects such as community land trusts, alternative
energy development, or even home loans to local residents. Rather
than working to create a publicly-owned Bank of San Francisco that
could invest City funds in such projects, Cisneros has focused on
making deals with private banks. Although he has extracted small
concessions (such as lowering some fees for low-income residents), he
should ask for more, as many of these same banks recently received
trillions of our federal tax dollars from the Bush and Obama
administrations. And while Assessor Phil Ting has called for reform
of Prop 13 to require large corporations to pay their fair share of
California taxes, Cisneros has not publicly joined him.</p>
<p><b>City Attorney - no endorsement.</b> Dennis Herrera is running
unopposed for re-election. Although Herrera's office has done
admirable work lobbying on behalf of marriage equality rights, he
hasn't accomplished much else. In 2007, he sided with the Lennar
Corporation in blocking a citizen-led initiative regarding
Bayview-Hunters Point redevelopment from being placed on the ballot,
even though the residents had gathered a sufficient number of
signatures. By ruling that the petitions were invalid because the
signature gatherers had not attached copies of a phone book-sized
piece of legislation they were seeking to overturn, Herrera set a
dangerous precedent that will allow authorities to reject any
petition that they believe shouldn't be allowed before voters on
similar technicalities. Herrera also promised 4 years ago to enforce
the Raker Act (which would bring public power to SF), and he
hasn't made any moves towards doing so. He's also been
unwilling to enforce open records (Sunshine) laws. Herrera did not
participate in the SF Green Party's endorsement process.</p><p>===============================</p><div class="gmail_quote"></div><p><u><b>NEWS</b></u><br></p><br>The Green Party U.S. has launched a campaign, "Focus on Rwanda, as party struggles to emerge."<div style="margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.gp.org/campaigns/international/rwanda/index.php" target="_blank">http://www.gp.org/campaigns/international/rwanda/index.php</a></span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br>
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