June 1 GREENZINE SF Green Party Weekly News and Events www.sfgreenparty.org twitter.com/sfgreenparty www.facebook.com/groups/SFGreenParty/ Save the date! Next Sunday (June 8) is the Haight Street Fair, as well as Sunday Streets on the Great Highway. We will set up a booth or table at both, to gather signatures to raise the minimum wage to $15/hr, and to protect Golden Gate Park from toxic tire-based astroturf. If you can volunteer at either, email us at cc@sfgreens.org. SF Greens have made the following endorsements for the June 3 election. Don't forget to vote this Tuesday if you haven't already! SF: * No on A, a $400 million local bond measure that claims to fund fire and police stations, but is not actually required to * Yes on B, the right to vote on Waterfront development that exceeds the current height limits. * Congress, D12 - Barry Hermanson * State Assembly, D17 - David Campos * Superior Court Judge, Office 20 - Daniel Flores Statewide: * Governor - Luis Rodriguez * Lt Governor - Jena Goodman * Controller - Laura Wells * Treasurer - Ellen Brown * Secretary of State - David Curtis * Yes on 41, a bond measure to fund supportive housing for veterans * Yes on 42, a requirement for local govenments to follow open meetings and public records laws Full explanations for all these endorsements can be found on our website: http://sfgreenparty.org/endorsements/62-june-2014-endorsements Or read them below, and pass them on to anybody who's interested! On election night, this Tuesday, let's join the Campos campaign and League of Pissed Off Voters at Virgil's Sea Room after the polls close at 8 pm: 3152 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110 GREEN VOTER GUIDE - full SF Green Party endorsements for June 3: No on Prop A Prop A is a $400 million bond that is supposedly for the purpose of improving public safety, including police and fire department facilities. The cost of the bonds would be paid back by a property tax increase, although 50% of the costs could be passed through by landlords to tenants. The Green Party opposes Prop A for several reasons. First, we are generally hesitant to support measures that are funded by bonds, because bonds are an unfair form of taxation that transfers wealth from lower and middle class residents to the 1%-ers (see our full Statement on Bond Funding, below). Second, this bond has even less oversight than usual, and the money could be used as a slush fund for the Mayor's pet projects. While Mayor Lee has discussed his supposed spending plans with the Chronicle, the language of Prop A allows Lee and the Board of Supervisors to spend the money on whatever they want, without going back to the voters. Given our Board of Supervisors' reluctance to challenge the Mayor, is it likely that the money will be well spent, or squandered on boondoggles such as America's Cup and tax breaks for allies of the Mayor? Prop A claims that it will result in improved public safety in the next earthquake. However, this claim is misleading at best. Voters already passed a $412 million bond, Prop B in June 2010, which was supposed to fund some of the same projects that the Chronicle has reported will be funded by Prop A (neighborhood fire houses and the emergency water supply upgrade). Most SF residents still support these important projects. Mayor Lee is trotting out the same projects again, assuming voters won't remember that we have already paid for them once! According to Chronicle, almost half the bond money will go to the SF Police Department for upgrades to their motorcycle unit and crime lab. These costs could easily be paid for with the regular police budget, since the department wastes millions every year on expensive toys such as Segways, over-patrolling the airport, and inefficiency (e.g., many tasks could be done by civilians or Sheriff's deputies rather than more expensive police officers). If we really want to improve public safety, we should support proven, effective techniques such as community policing. We should hire more emergency services workers who live in SF, since many now live in distant suburbs and would be unable to drive into the City after a major earthquake. And emergency response money would be much better spent on training more NERT volunteers, rather than buying more toys for the police. Please join us in opposing Prop A. Yes on B Prop B requires developers who want to exceed the current height limits for new development along the waterfront to obtain voter approval for their project. One of the Green Party's 10 Key Values is "Future Focus," which in this case means considering the long-term effects of development. Housing prices in SF are currently at an all-time high, which gives developers a great incentive to build the largest buildings they can get away with. The developers get rich quick, and SF residents are left holding the bag for hidden costs of the new development: higher expenses for City services, increased traffic, slower Muni. If tall buildings are built along the waterfront, one of these social costs will be a blocking of public access and views of the Bay, effectively privatizing what is now a public benefit of living in our beautiful City. We are supposed to have checks and balances to prevent this. We have zoning laws and height limits for good reason: to allow development of new projects that fit the culture of our neighborhoods and benefit SF residents. However, Mayor Lee has continued the tradition of corruption of the Brown and Newsom years by allowing his campaign donors to get away with anything they want, and the current Board of Supervisors is less a check on the Mayor's power than a rubber stamp. The last working check we have on uncontrolled, shortsighted development is direct democracy. Although we would prefer our elected representatives do their job and represent all SF residents rather than their campaign donors, holding elections to approve new development is really the only effective way at this point to ensure that new projects are really in the public interest. Join us in voting YES on Prop B. Congress, D12 - Barry Hermanson Barry Hermanson is running as the Green Party candidate against Nancy Pelosi. As the Bay Guardian noted in endorsing Pelosi, she "has presided over economic policies that have consolidated wealth in ever fewer hands and dismantled the social safety net, environmental policies that have ignored global warming and fed our over-reliance on the private automobile, and military policies that expanded the war machine and overreaching surveillance state." They didn't mention her opposition to Single Payer health care, or her repeated endorsement of the most conservative Democrats running for local office in SF. More importantly, San Francisco does not have a representative who represents San Franciscans; instead, Pelosi is a national spokesperson for defending Democratic Party policies and anything President Obama currently supports. Although the majority of San Franciscans are registered with the Democratic Party, most local Democrats (and Greens and members of other smaller parties) disagree with Pelosi's positions on the issues above, yet she places the needs of her political party above her job of representing all of us. The key question facing voters this June is whether Pelosi will face a Republican or a Green this November. Because of the "Top Two" primary, all voters (regardless of party) will vote in a single election June 3rd, with only the 2 leading candidates going on to the November election. If Barry Hermanson can beat the Republican, San Franciscans will for the first time be able to go into November with a clear choice: re-electing Pelosi, who does not represent San Francisco values, or electing a Green who does. In a two-way race, the "spoiler" issue would be moot. And although Pelosi has never agreed to debate her opponents, Hermanson would challenge her support for a long list of terrible policies including the ones mentioned above. Getting a Green into the November election is our best chance to change the political discourse on a number of issues. Vote Barry Hermanson for Congress this June to make it happen! State Assembly, D17 - David Campos Without a Green in the race, the Assembly contest comes down to choosing between two Democratic Party Supervisors, who will go into a rematch in November. Despite both candidates being Democrats, their political choices and attitudes towards the Green Party have been very different. David Campos has been most in agreement with Green Party values, scoring 88% for two straight years on our Supervisors Report Cards (http://sfgreenparty.org/issues/60-sf-supervisors-report-card-2013). His opponent, David Chiu, fell from 50% in 2012 to 38% in 2013. The main issues on which Campos differs from Chiu have been related to supporting corruption by the Lee Machine. Four of the key votes on which the two Supervisors differed related to Mayoral appointees: Chiu was a rubber stamp for Mayor Lee, while Campos opposed the worst Lee appointees. Campos is also much stronger on civil rights: Chiu was the swing vote in two new laws to impose curfews in public parks and a ban on public nudity. And of course Chiu was also the swing vote in favor of appointing Mayor Lee as mayor in the first place, rather than somebody (such as former Sheriff Hennessey) not beholden to the Willie Brown/Gavin Newsom Machine. As President of the Board of Supervisors, Chiu has limited public comment and rarely bothers to listen to differing opinions, a sharp contrast to the days when Matt Gonzalez served as President and built bipartisan consensus. Although both Campos and Chiu originally supported the construction of toxic artificial-turf soccer fields in Golden Gate Park near Ocean Beach, Campos has recently supported Green Party legislation to require the project to use natural grass. And Campos is supporting legislation to allow voters to choose a replacement for whichever Supervisor is ultimately elected to the Assembly, whereas Chiu supports the status quo in which Mayor Lee would appoint a replacement after the election. Even though the winner of this contest won't be decided until November, it's important to give Campos a head start on Chiu, who has raised a record amount of money from developers and Mayor Lee's other backers. We strongly endorse David Campos for Assembly. Superior Court Judge, Office 20 - Daniel Flores Daniel Flores is in a three way race for Superior Court Judge. Based on his answers to the Milk Club questionnaire (http://www.milkclub.org/candidate_questionnaires_june_election), he seems to share many Green Party values. In response to the questionnaire, he responded that he supports issues including abortion rights, same-sex marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws to protect LGBT rights, rent control, and rights for non-citizens, including drivers licences for all CA residents, voting rights in local elections, and the DREAM act. Flores' main opponent, Carol Kinglsey, is endorsed by some prominent local conservatives, including Gavin Newsom. Flores is also opposed by Kimberley Williams, who has some progressive support. However, in response to the Milk Club questionnaire (in which she did not answer any of the issue-based questions), she said "I fully support the causes of the Democratic Party at the local, state and national level." Since those causes include illegal and immoral drone strikes overseas, and massive unconstitutional spying at home and abroad, we cannot support her. Governor - Luis Rodriguez Green Party candidate, Luis J. Rodriguez, has a new vision for California, which, as a skilled poet and author, his own words can best explain: "...our state is rich in resources, human capacity, technological advances, and social innovation, yet has some of the worst poverty and imprisonment rates. There have always been two states - one ripe for developers, corporations, financial institutions, and robber barons. The other state consists of the working class and poor... One state is beholden to the wealthier, and more powerful part of the population, far smaller in number. The other state consists of the vast majority and growing - hardworking people of all races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, and genders, many of whom have lost their livelihoods, their homes, their health, or are close to the edge." "Here is the California story we can't cover up or push aside: Increased job eliminations, evictions, home foreclosures as well as cuts in welfare and needed services in the face of a deepening poverty-creating economic crisis. Which way for California? Which way for the country? We have to envision, strategize and organize for a singular integrated California that aligns its wealth, capacities and governance for the health and benefit of everyone. I'm convinced we need more voices to address our growing impoverishment, our deepening injustice system, and the continual poisoning of our environment... The solutions are in our hands. Let's realize our dreams of a better world; let's organize to make sure our needs are met with an economy and politics that are... accessible and adequate for all." Luis J. Rodriguez is the author of 15 books of poetry, children's literature, fiction and nonfiction, including the controversial and best-selling 1993 memoir of gang life, "Always Running, La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A." He is also the co-founder of the nonprofit cultural space "Tia Chu-cha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore," as well as Chicago's "Youth Struggling for Survival," a gang and non-gang youth empowerment project. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, and more. Lt Governor - Jena Goodman In a state where chronic underfunding of higher education and the inequities it produces has become a rallying cry for students statewide, Jena Goodman, the Green Party candidate, plans on focusing her campaign on college and university campuses. "It's time for a greater student voice in our state's politics," says Goodman. Jena Goodman lives in Vallejo and served as president of the Associated Students of Napa Valley College from 2012-2013, representing approximately 8,000 students. Today she attends UC Davis, studying biodiversity and ecology. At 28 years old, she will be the youngest candidate and the only woman on the ballot for Lieutenant Governor. She will also be the best candidate to represent the interests of students and youth, and to inspire lots of them to become involved with the Green Party. Goodman was formerly Chair of the Solano County Green Party. Goodman's vision for a Green California includes free higher education, living wage green jobs, and protecting California from climate change. "I believe higher education is the key to solving a multitude of crises facing California," Goodman explained. "I will use my position as Lt. Governor (on the University of California Board of Regents, California State University Board of Trustees, and Chair of the Commission for Economic Development) to promote a green vision for investing in free higher education to prepare workers for the green economy, coupled with a Green New Deal program to create tens of thousands of living wage green jobs. By investing in education, we can expand opportunity, pull people out of poverty and shift California from fossil fuel dependency to a new green economy... My campaign is about grassroots democracy. It's about giving voters a real choice to vote for a green vision for California." Controller - Laura Wells Green Party candidate Laura Wells is a founder of the "No Corporate Money" Campaign, in which candidates pledge to take no corporate money and a critical mass of voters declare their intention to vote for no-corporate-money candidates. Wells's focus is on solutions, such as implementing a State Bank to save money on interest and to invest in California, not Wall Street bankers. She would tax the super-rich the way California did decades ago, when the rich could still get richer, and it was a state filled with great opportunities. Laura Wells believes we can change our spending priorities from prisons to schools. Laura Wells is running in her second race for State Controller in 2014. She was also the Green Party candidate for Controller in 2002, an election in which she received a record-breaking half million votes, and for Governor of California in 2010, where she advocated establishing a State Bank for California and implementing fair taxation policies. At a 2010 gubernatorial debate that excluded all third party candidates, Wells was arrested upon attempting to enter the building to watch the debate, and charged with "trespassing at a private party." In 2006, she was on the executive committee of the campaign that gained voter approval for Instant Runoff Voting in her hometown city of Oakland. Wells graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wayne State University in Detroit, and earned a Masters degree from Antioch University. She worked in information technology in the financial industry for 20 years. She then served in a range of volunteer and professional capacities for community and labor organizations, including Pesticide Action Network, Women's Economic Agenda Project, and SEIU United Healthcare Workers. Treasurer - Ellen Brown Ellen Brown, the Green Party candidate for Treasurer, is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and the author of 12 books and over 200 articles. She is running for Treasurer on an innovative platform that she believes can take California from austerity to abundance. In her book "Web of Debt," she showed how a private banking cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back. In "The Public Bank Solution," her 2013 sequel, she traces the evolution of two banking models (public and private) that have competed historically, and explores contemporary public banking systems around the world. Brown announced in January: "I am running for California State Treasurer on a state bank platform, along with Laura Wells, who is running for Controller. Our vision is to transform California, the world's eighth largest economy, into a financially sovereign state. We are running on the ticket of the Green Party because it takes no corporate money. Candidates who take corporate money - and that means nearly all conventional candidates - are beholden to large corporate interests and cannot adequately represent the interests of the disenfranchised 99 percent." "There is another way to balance a state budget, one that leads to prosperity rather than austerity. California can stimulate its economy and the job market, restore low-cost higher education, build 21st-century infrastructure, preserve the environment, and relieve the state's debt burden, by establishing a bank that is owned by the people and returns its profits to the people." Secretary of State - David Curtis We are fortunate to have David Curtis as the Green Party choice in the California Secretary of State race. David Curtis is easy to talk to. His cell number is on his website, so anybody can call him and ask him questions. To date, David Curtis has received 60 donations from actual humans, so he has zero obligation to get on his knees for corporate America. He has made a career of not being a yes man. If elected, can he certify the results of an election? Yes! But... elections? The whole thing has been priced out of our range by the SCOTUS ruling. So a vote for David Curtis is basically for "No, money is not speech." David's goal for the office is to make elections as open and fair as possible, and remove obstacles to participation so that we can get representatives who are our peers. If elected, David will oversee an office of 500 people. He was an associate of The Stubbins Associates, a firm that grew from 100 to 700 people. He would also be a trustee of the state archives and the CA Museum. David was a design leader on two Guggenheim Museums and the Nevada State Museum, and is a licensed residential designer who has worked in architecture since 1989. Human activity is stressing nearly every species on Earth and Greens in office acknowledge this reality. David Curtis is a father who lives with his partner and three children in the Lucas Valley of Marin County. He first registered with the Green Party in 2000 when Ralph Nader ran for president. David has been working actively with the Green Party since 2006 as we try to become the cleanup crew for a failing two party system. David can deliver actual political reform; his campaign is already doing it. His financials are reported in real time on his website. Don't give your vote to a "more of the same" duopoly candidate... same rape of the planet, same pre-loading of the race with cash-on-hand displays, same monopoly interests, same corruption, same inadequate representation of actual people. Yes on 41 Prop 41 is basically an ammendment to a ballot measure passed by CA voters in 2008, both of which are supposed to help military veterans find housing. The 2008 measure, which we opposed, authorized nearly a billion dollars in bonds to be issued to help veterans buy private housing. Prop 41 would revoke the authority to issue $600 million in bonds that were authorized in 2008, and replace it with the authority to issue $600 million in bonds that would be used to build supportive housing and multifamily housing (i.e., apartment complexes) for low- income veterans. We were opposed to the 2008 proposition (Prop 12) for several reasons. First, we're often hesitant to support bond funding, a regressive means of funding that primarily benefits the rich (see our Statement on Bond Funding, below). Second, the 2008 measure was to be spent exclusively on private housing, not public housing. As we said in our 2008 Voter Guide, we generally support bonds only for "urgent investment in the public sector." We are supporting Prop 41 for two reasons. First, the $600 million in new bonds is balanced by revoking $600 million in bonds that were authorized in 2008. Second, a much larger percentage (but not all) the money would be used for investment in public housing, rather than private development. The Prop 41 money is proposed to be spent much more intelligently than the 2008 plan: helping veterans who are currently homeless will actually save the state money, by reducing the amount of money needed for other services. We would prefer that all the Prop 41 money be used for public low-income housing projects and supportive housing for homeless people (not just veterans), and we would prefer the $600 million come from taxing the rich rather than bonds. However, Prop 41 is an improvement over the status quo, and therefore we endorse it. Yes on 42 Prop 42 requires local govenments to follow state laws that mandate open legislative meetings and public access to records. It is somewhat controversial, because it does not require the state to reimburse local governments for the costs of following such laws. Open meetings and Sunshine (public access) laws are both essential elements of a working democracy. In recent years, local reporters have used SF Sunshine laws to expose money being diverted from Muni to other City departments (or simply disappearing from budgets), Mayor Lee's hostility towards regulating tech companies (such as Airbnb and Lyft) that are funded by his campaign backers, and diversion of City bond funds away from their stated purpose. Although City officials make plenty of backroom deals today (including the original appointment of Ed Lee as Mayor), and Board President David Chiu has flouted the Brown Act by not giving adequate public notice for new legislation, the amount of corruption would certainly be even higher without open meetings and Sunshine laws. Why else would Supervisors allied with the Mayor put so much effort into trying to stack the Sunshine Task Force with their cronies? We also resent Jerry Brown's administration balancing the California budget by shifting costs to local governments. The costs of many important public needs, from teacher pensions to public housing, have been shifted to cities, while Brown spends more and more state money on prisons and highways. We'd prefer that CA continue to reimburse cities for the costs of complying with open meetings and Sunshine laws. However, having the state pick up the tab is not always a good thing: many local governments inflated the costs of complying with these laws, or stonewalled information requests and then passed on their resulting higher costs to the state. Because "Decentralization" and "Grassroots Democracy" are two of our 10 Key Values, we support the requirement for local governments to be more democratic, even if the state isn't paying for it. We therefore strongly support Prop 42. SF Green Party Statement on Bond Funding The SF Green Party has often been hesitant to embrace bond financing. In addition to being environmentally and socially responsible, we are also fiscally responsible. Bond funding requires payments totaling about twice the actual cost of whatever improvements are made, and passes costs on to future generations. Because people who buy bonds are almost exclusively the wealthy, as investors are paid back over the 20-30 year life of the bond, wealth is transferred from middle and low income taxpayers to rich bondholders. Bond funding also helps rich people avoid paying their fair share of taxes, since interest on municipal bonds is exempt from both state and federal tax. As noted in the California Voter Guide in 1992, over 35,000 U.S. millionaires supplemented their income with tax exempt state and local bond checks averaging over $2,500 per week (that's over $130,000 per year tax free). They avoided paying federal and state taxes on over $5 billion, which must be made up by the rest of us. The SF Green Party calls on the public to join us in working to phase out this regressive and unfair subsidy of the rich and their investment bankers (who take millions of dollars off the top when the bonds are issued). There are a few cases in which Greens have supported bond measures. In general, we are willing to support bonds that are issued to in order to build urgently needed, publicly-owned infrastructure, such as a public hospital or high speed rail. We generally oppose bonds that fund ongoing maintenance projects; these should be paid for using City revenues (which should be increased by raising taxes on the wealthy). Acknowledgements Thanks to the Alameda County Greens for original drafts of statements in support of our statewide candidates.