Green Greetings, 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: http://www.sfgreenparty.org Tian Harter also did a short pictorial review: http://tian.greens.org/SanFrancisco/Green/Party/Oct09/index.html =============================== *Today is also election day, so get out there and vote* if you've put it off this long and spread the word about *our endorsements *(Also written out below)*:* http://www.sfgreenparty.org/campaigns/campaigns.gem =============================== *Save the Date - Wed 11/18* 7-9pm Our next *General Membership Meeting* will be a week early this month to avoid Thanksgiving. The plan is to focus on *Medical Marijuana* 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. =============================== *Green Party Endorsements, San Francisco Propositions* *Yes on A (2-year budget process).* 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. 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. *Yes on B (allow supervisors to hire more aides, if budgeted).* 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. *No on C (corporate naming rights to Candlestick Park).* 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. *No on D (giant, flashing, rotating corporate ad billboards on Market Street).* 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. *Yes on E (ban on additional corporate ad billboards on public property).*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. *San Francisco municipal offices* *Treasurer - no endorsement.* 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. *City Attorney - no endorsement.* 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. =============================== *NEWS* The Green Party U.S. has launched a campaign, "Focus on Rwanda, as party struggles to emerge." http://www.gp.org/campaigns/international/rwanda/index.php =============================== If you read this far, we love you! Join our Facebook group and invite your friends: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=62534706497