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[Sustain] Emergency Alert! Serious Danger Of Losing Progressive SF Board This Friday
by Eric Brooks 05 Jan '11

05 Jan '11

Hi all, SF Board president David Chiu is apparently on the verge of making a deal with Newsom to vote for Newsom's pick for interim mayor (his own City Administrator Ed Lee). If Chiu has made a deal to vote for Lee and give up his Supervisor post to be appointed as District Attorney (or another post) by Newsom, then Newsom or Ed Lee will appoint a conservative to replace Chiu as Supervisor of District 3. If that happens, we are in deep shit for at least the next decade. There is also the complication that even some of the progressive supervisors may cave in and swing to Lee in the final vote (this Friday at 3pm) if we don't make it absolutely clear to them that we will -not- under any circumstances accept them appointing Newsom's pick for the next mayor. Everyone on this list with any influence whatsoever on Chiu needs to contact him immediately and make sure he knows his political career is -over- if he sides with the mayor; especially if he leaves his supervisor seat. Also contact Mirkarimi, Avalos, Campos, and Mar, and make sure they know that Ed Lee is absolutely unacceptable and that they should get move HARD to get Chiu back in line -immediately- and before the Friday vote. It would also help to contact Duty and Maxwell and tell them we will not accept Lee as interim Mayor. in solidarity Eric B

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[Sustain] Bay Citizen story w/ BG comment re Lawsuit-false EE savings claims
by Barbara George 31 Dec '10

31 Dec '10

http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/through-prediction-performance-how-… Lawsuit Claims Major "Green" Building Certification Makes False Claims on Energy Savings By JIM GUNSHINAN|December 17, 2010 12:31 p.m. Henry Gifford, a mechanical systems designer and principal at Gifford Fuel Savings, Inc. in New York City, is suing the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) for millions of dollars. Gifford, in the class action suit, claims that the USGBC has committed fraud in the selling of its Leadership in Energy Efficient Design (LEED) program, and has unfairly kept work away from people like him who are not involved in the program. (Photo of Henry by Travis Roozee.) There is a LEED for New Construction (NC), LEED for Homes, and LEED for Existing Buildings (EB), among other certifications. The rub for Gifford is that LEED is a very popular and widespread program—some municipalities require LEED certification for new city buildings—that makes claims about energy efficiency that it can’t back up. The claims of energy saving attract builders and developers to seek LEED certification, and people in architecture firms, building energy consultants, and others in the building industry have rushed to become LEED approved providers; that means they are able to help builders meet the building requirements and fill out the paperwork needed to apply for certification. Buildings with LEED certification draw higher rents and people with “LEED AP” after their names make money shepherding builders through the certification process. The issue hinges on a study commissioned by the USGBC in 2008. The New Buildings Institute (NBI) study compared buildings that are LEED certified with similar buildings that are not certified. NBI claims that LEED buildings use about 25-30% less energy than conventional buildings. But according to Gifford, who examined the data from the study, LEED buildings actually use about 29% more energy than conventional buildings. Gifford has legitimate concerns about how NBI gathered, sorted, and analyzed the study data. For example, the data on LEED buildings was submitted by a small percentage of LEED building owners; those who take the trouble to keep records and who want to share information on how their building performs. In another example, the mean energy use of one set of buildings is compared to the median energy use of another set, possibly skewing the results in favor of the LEED buildings. The USGBC counters that they do not guarantee energy savings. They model energy use using a software program and only certify that a buildings meets its design specification—sustainable wood, recycled steel, interior building material that doesn’t off-gas noxious chemicals, and so on—with predicted energy efficiency only a part of the requirements for certification. Gifford has been a thorn in the side of the USGBC for years. His criticism, along with that of others, has pushed the USGBC in the right direction. The LEED EB program requires that buildings actually perform; that they save as much energy as is predicted through the modeling software. USGBC is encouraging LEED NC building owners to take part in the LEED EH program; they are also asking LEED NC building owners to submit energy-use data that can be used to a study the effectiveness of the program. But this is not required for LEED NC certification. Gifford is afraid that in the future someone will do a thorough study of green building performance energy will be so important that we will start to measure it,” writes Gifford in a recent Press Release. “And I predict that when that happens, building energy efficiency will start to be measured by building energy use. At that time, the currently popular systems based on computer predictions of energy use will be shown to be useless, and abandoned.” Barbara George wrote on 12/30/2010 Fascinating story - FYI the last paragraph was partly deleted - here it is from another source: 'Gifford is afraid that in the future someone will do a thorough study of green building performance and use the information to discredit the whole green building movement. “I predict that someday, energy will be so important that we will start to measure it,” writes Gifford in a recent Press Release. “And I predict that when that happens, building energy efficiency will start to be measured by building energy use. At that time, the currently popular systems based on computer predictions of energy use will be shown to be useless, and abandoned.”' Energy efficiency is certainly important enough to measure and California has developed elaborate ways to measure it (at a cost of $100 million for a 3-year EE cycle - which is paid by ratepayers of the big four investor-owned utilities— PG&E, Edison, SoCal Gas and SDG&E). Unfortunately the measurement system was designed mainly to tell the CA Public Utilities Commission how much "rewards" utilities should get for saving energy. (On Dec. 16, 2010 CPUC voted 3-2 to override the first ever fully independent evaluations, overseen by its own staff — which said all the utilities did such a poor job on 2006-08 EE programs that they deserved no profits and PG&E's programs failed so badly that it should get a penalty. (Oblivious to the public's interest, the majority approved CPUC Pres. Peevey's alternate decision that gave utilities another $68 million on top of $143 million already awarded in 2008 and 2009, based on utilities' original savings estimates. Pres. Peevey asserted that utilities couldn't possibly have known their projected savings were grossly exaggerated. (The Commissioner in charge of energy efficiency, Dian Grueneich, finally broke ranks and described multiple advance warnings that evaluators were likely to downgrade utilities' inflated assumptions. Of course the Commission could have done more than issue warnings — it should have ordered utilities to revise their numbers. PG&E maintained its lies, stepped up its lobbying instead of its energy savings — and won more than $100 million “rewards” for its sociopathic choices.) What the Commission should really be asking is Gifford's question: tracking the extent to which actual energy use falls (or rises) due to EE projects - and taking that up to the system level: do the EE upgrades actually reduce the load on the grid, and exactly where and when do the savings occur. This is what’s needed for energy efficiency to become a grid-viable resource (which would allow states to close polluting power plants and lower the cost of converting to renewable energy — solar, wind, geothermal, small hydro and biofuels). The New England Independent System Operator (manager of that region’s electricity grid) has measurement guidelines for EE and other “demand-side” projects that cover what really matters on the grid, and EE has been able to bid into their energy auctions as a result. The CPUC recognized that utilities have a conflict of interest with saving energy but rejected the obvious solution of looking outside the utilities — to cities, counties, small businesses and nonprofits — for people to manage and implement these programs who really want them to succeed. Instead, California adopted these so-called "risk/rewards" for utilities — where all the risk is on ratepayers, none on utilities. Utilities nonchalantly game the system by getting profits on non-existent savings as well as on the power plants and transmission lines that should have been but were not deferred or displaced by EE projects. California utilities have the cocky attitude that they can get away with these scams, and up to now they have succeeded, thanks perhaps to their campaign contributions to nearly every politician in Sacramento and many local races, plus "charitable donations" to so-called environmental organizations that support these green charades and others who keep silent. PG&E tosses crumbs to efficiency insiders including its “platinum” sponsorship of the Northern California chapter of the US Green Building Council. On the USGBC-NCC website you’ll find accolades for the LEED-NC Berkeley YMCA-PG&E Teen Center —“donated” by PG&E! That sounds so generous, unless you know that for several years Berkeley has failed to move forward on its opportunity to become the default provider of energy AND/OR energy efficiency for its own residents and businesses — i.e. replacing PG&E’s choices. Feasibility studies funded by the State’s Energy Commission showed that Berkeley, Oakland, Richmond and others could serve their residents and businesses more than twice the renewable energy as PG&E provides, without raising rates, if they were to become “Community Choice” energy providers. “Marin Clean Energy” proved this to be true, in its very first year of operations. Seven of eleven Marin councils showed great courage, and with the support of a well-informed community managed to withstand a three-year barrage of BS and dirty tricks from PG&E (including the $46 million the company spent on the losing statewide Prop 16 on the June 2010 ballot, whereby PG&E sought to shut down its competition). The final step for Marin Clean Energy — still to come — is to make sure CPUC implements the provisions of the Community Choice law that would enable Marin — or any other cities and counties in California — to become the local administrator of energy efficiency dollars. Currently, under the utility monopoly on energy efficiency in California, cities and counties have no choice except “EE partnerships” with the utilities — where the utilities hold the purse-strings and pick apart the program plans. CPUC gives credit to the utilities for all the work that cities do — providing utilities with more EE profits as well as chips for carbon trading — and robbing cities of that money. Research I have done for Women’s Energy Matters, as a public interest advocate in CPUC energy efficiency proceedings since 2001, shows that independent (non-utility) energy efficiency programs save far more energy per dollar than California’s investor-owned utilities – and produce far more local jobs and economic benefits. This is not widely known because relentless self-promotion by California utilities and their sycophants has fed a national legend about California’s supremacy in energy efficiency — which was true under Gov. Jerry Brown’s first administration but was long since lost. Hopefully things will improve now that Brown is returning to Sacramento — but we should take nothing for granted. He’ll need to hear from a lot of people that what’s going on now is unacceptable. The good news is that energy efficiency is becoming a bigger part of the energy business all across the country, and we need it to become much bigger still to make a dent in climate change. The best of all EE programs are ones that reward the diligence and creativity of EE contractors like Gifford appears to be. While I have not yet had an opportunity to review his case, I greatly admire his willingness to call attention to a hole in the heart of the system that certainly seems like it needs to be addressed. We need more transparency and objective standards to stem the phony green-washing and outright corruption that threatens to undermine this essential service. Barbara George Fairfax, CA www.womensenergymatters.org

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[Sustain] Lawsuit Challenges Validity Of LEED 'Green' Building Certification
by Eric Brooks 28 Dec '10

28 Dec '10

http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/through-prediction-performance-how-… Lawsuit Claims Major "Green" Building Certification Makes False Claims on Energy Savings <http://www.baycitizen.org/blogs/citizen/through-prediction-performance-how-…> By Jim Gunshinan <http://www.baycitizen.org/profiles/jim-gunshinan/>|December 17, 2010 12:31 p.m. <http://media.baycitizen.org/uploaded/images/2010/12/through-prediction-perf…> Henry Gifford, a mechanical systems designer and principal at Gifford Fuel Savings, Inc. <http://www.energysavingscience.com> in New York City, is suing the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) <http://www.usgbc.org> for millions of dollars. Gifford, in the class action suit, claims that the USGBC has committed fraud in the selling of its Leadership in Energy Efficient Design (LEED) program, and has unfairly kept work away from people like him who are not involved in the program. (Photo of Henry by Travis Roozee.) There is a LEED for New Construction (NC), LEED for Homes, and LEED for Existing Buildings (EB), among other certifications. The rub for Gifford is that LEED is a very popular and widespread program---some municipalities require LEED certification for new city buildings---that makes claims about energy efficiency that it can't back up. The claims of energy saving attract builders and developers to seek LEED certification, and people in architecture firms, building energy consultants, and others in the building industry have rushed to become LEED approved providers; that means they are able to help builders meet the building requirements and fill out the paperwork needed to apply for certification. Buildings with LEED certification draw higher rents and people with "LEED AP" after their names make money shepherding builders through the certification process. The issue hinges on a study commissioned by the USGBC in 2008. The New Buildings Institute (NBI) study compared buildings that are LEED certified with similar buildings that are not certified. NBI claims that LEED buildings use about 25-30% less energy than conventional buildings. But according to Gifford, who examined the data from the study, LEED buildings actually use about 29% more energy than conventional buildings. Gifford has legitimate concerns about how NBI gathered, sorted, and analyzed the study data. For example, the data on LEED buildings was submitted by a small percentage of LEED building owners; those who take the trouble to keep records and who want to share information on how their building performs. In another example, the mean energy use of one set of buildings is compared to the median energy use of another set, possibly skewing the results in favor of the LEED buildings. The USGBC counters that they do not guarantee energy savings. They model energy use using a software program and only certify that a buildings meets its design specification---sustainable wood, recycled steel, interior building material that doesn't off-gas noxious chemicals, and so on---with predicted energy efficiency only a part of the requirements for certification. Gifford has been a thorn in the side of the USGBC for years. His criticism, along with that of others, has pushed the USGBC in the right direction. The LEED EB program requires that buildings actually perform; that they save as much energy as is predicted through the modeling software. USGBC is encouraging LEED NC building owners to take part in the LEED EH program; they are also asking LEED NC building owners to submit energy-use data that can be used to a study the effectiveness of the program. But this is not required for LEED NC certification. Gifford is afraid that in the future someone will do a thorough study of green building performance energy will be so important that we will start to measure it," writes Gifford in a recent Press Release. "And I predict that when that happens, building energy efficiency will start to be measured by building energy use. At that time, the currently popular systems based on computer predictions of energy use will be shown to be useless, and abandoned."

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[Sustain] Video: The Neoliberal City: Capitalism's Need To Perpetually Demolish & Hyperdevelop Cities
by Eric Brooks 21 Dec '10

21 Dec '10

Hi all, Now that we all have some holiday time, Here's the YouTube address for a speech by David Harvey that explains neo-liberal capitalism's dependence on economic pumping of cities as redevelopment bubbles, including its constant need to unnecessarily parasitize cities and their communities by purposely defunding, decaying, driving out, demolishing, and rebuilding them. This speech shows -spot on- why we find ourselves continuously fighting gargantuan battles against rapacious developers over and over again; required viewing for anyone who wants to truly understand what we are up against, and then start developing ways to counter it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfd5kHb-Hc8 cheers Eric B

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[Sustain] Final Hearing! New Mayor Now! This Tue Tell Supes Unite On Nominee & Appoint! AND Ask Tom To Run!
by Eric Brooks 06 Dec '10

06 Dec '10

Hi all, Final Hearing! New Mayor Now! This Tuesday Tell Supes Unite On Nominee & Appoint! AND Ask Tom Ammiano Today To Step Forward As A Nominee! See petition at http://tinyurl.com/23r7pul TURN OUT! This Tue Dec 7, 3pm, Rm 250, SF City Hall - On Both Polk & Van Ness between Grove & McAllister (from Civic Center BART/Muni cross United Nations Plaza to City Hall) Public Comment will be taken at this hearing! This Tue Dec 7, 3pm is our moment! This is our chance to demand that our elected Board of Supervisors (the peoples' body) avoid back room political games, unite around one mayoral nominee who reflects the progressive goals and values of the majority of San Franciscans; and to appoint that nominee NOW so that our new mayor has as much time as possible to prepare for office and face San Francisco's unprecedented budget and economic crises. It is also vital that you tell the supervisors what San Francisco needs in the person that they will choose, and what programs you insist that our new mayor support in these tight budget times. RECRUIT TOM AMMIANO! Most of us know well that one of the best proposed candidates to become the new mayor and support the most crucial programs, aspirations and values of San Franciscans is Assemblymember (and former Board of Supervisors President) Tom Ammiano. SIGN THE PETITION ASKING TOM TO STEP FORWARD AT: http://www.change.org/petitions/view/san_francisco_needs_tom_ammiano_to_be_… SPREAD THE WORD! Forward this email! AND: See/Share this event on FaceBook at: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=175743379122054#!/event.php?eid=17574… and on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/OurCitySF Background- Because San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has won the Lieutenant Governor's race, and will take that office in early January, the Board of Supervisors must appoint his replacement. But Downtown big business and real estate developer interests allied with the current mayor, are maneuvering behind the scenes in private meetings with City supervisors, to convince them to back down, not make this choice, and instead delay the decision so that it will be made by the far less experienced newly elected Board of Supervisors in January. This is extremely alarming. San Francisco is in the midst of one of the worst budget crises in its history, and it is vital that the current Board of Supervisors make a choice this month for Mayor Newsom's replacement, so that the new mayor can begin working right now to assure the best possible budget deal for the upcoming year. We cannot afford a full month delay during which secret backroom politics, influenced by corporations and developers, will determine how our mayor is chosen. To avoid this very bad outcome, Supervisors John Avalos, Chris Daly, and others have put forward a motion that the Board of Supervisors select the new mayor this Tue, Dec 7, in an open hearing at 3pm, during which the public will be able to speak. The motion will make sure that the Board makes a choice for mayor immediately and in front of the people of San Francisco. So turn out Tuesday Dec 7, City Hall, Rm 250 (main chamber) 3pm to support this motion and to tell the supervisors the type of mayor that San Franciscans need to face the deep challenges facing the City.

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[Sustain] Ikea: Stop palm oil candles and save the habitat of 130 orangutans
by Eric Brooks 26 Nov '10

26 Nov '10

info(a)regenwald.org wrote: Dear friends of the rain forest, the Swedish transnational home wares giant, IKEA, sells huge amounts of candles and tealights made of palm oil. But can you enjoy the cosy glow of candles knowing that to produce palm oil rain forests are irretrievably razed, appalling crimes are perpetrated on people living there and the world climate is ruined? Please take part in our campaign to save the rain forests by writing to IKEA, demanding they stop selling palm oil products. http://www.rainforest-rescue.org Heartfelt thanks and best regards Klaus Schenck Rainforest Rescue 22391 Hamburg 49 -40 - 4103804 http://www.rainforest-rescue.org/ http://www.facebook.com/StopAgroenergy

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[Sustain] Update On Mayor Selection Battle - Pretty Good News
by Eric Brooks 25 Nov '10

25 Nov '10

Hi all, On Tuesday Nov 23, we won most (though not quite all) of what we needed to ensure a truly public process and a fair vote on a nominee for interim mayor. The SF Guardian published this very solid synopsis of how it all came down. (Note my added blog comment below the report which fills in an important detail the Guardian missed.) http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2010/11/24/progressives-show-unity-board-appro… Progressives show unity as board approves mayoral succession process 11.24.10 - 11:41 am | Steven T. Jones | The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a process for replacing Mayor Gavin Newsom last night after the progressive majority stuck together on a pair of key procedural votes and some parliamentary jousting provided a preview of the high-stakes power struggle that will begin Dec. 7. Sup. Sean Elsbernd led the board moderates (Sups. Carmen Chu, Michela Alioto-Pier, Bevan Dufty, and Sophie Maxwell) in trying to dilute the voting power of the six progressives on the board (Sups. David Chiu, Chis Daly, David Campos, Eric Mar, Ross Mirkarimi, and John Avalos) and ensure they can't vote as a bloc to choose the new mayor. State conflict-of-interest rules spelled out by the California Political Reform Act and associated rulings prevent supervisors from voting in their economic interests, as becoming mayor would be. So Board Clerk Angela Calvillo and the Santa Clara County Counsel's Office (legal counsel in the matter after our own City Attorney's Office recused itself) created procedures whereby all nominees leave the room while the remaining supervisors vote. But as Daly noted, clearing several supervisors from the room would make it unlikely that those remaining to come up with six votes for anyone. He also said the system would deny too many San Franciscans of a representative in this important decision and allow sabotage by just a few moderate supervisors, who could vote with a majority of supervisors present to adjourn the meeting in order to push the decision back to the next board that is sworn in on Jan. 11. “The process before us is flawed,” Daly said. So Daly sought to have the board vote on every nomination as it comes up, but Elsbernd argued that under Robert's Rules of Order, nominations don't automatically close like that and to modify a board rule that contradicts Robert's Rules requires a supermajority of eight votes. Calvillo, who serves as the parliamentarian, agreed with that interpretation and Chiu (who serves as chair and is the final word on such questions) ruled that a supermajority was required. Although some of his progressive colleagues privately grumbled about a ruling that ultimately hurt the progressives' preferred system, Chiu later told the Guardian, “I gotta play umpire as I see the rules...We need to ensure the process and how we arrive at a process is fair and transparent.” Nonetheless, Chiu voted with the progressives on the rule change, which failed on a 6-5 vote. But Daly noted that supervisors may still refuse nominations and remain voting until they are ready to be considered themselves, which could practically have the same effect as the rejected rule change. “If we think that's a better way to do it, we can do it, but we don't need to fall into the trap and subterfuge of our opponents,” Daly told his colleagues. Elsbernd then moved to approve the process as developed by Calvillo, but Daly instead made a motion to amend the process by incorporating some elements on his plan that don't require a supermajority. After a short recess to clarify the motion, the next battleground was over the question of how nominees would be voted on. Calvillo and Elsbernd preferred a system whereby supervisors would vote on the group of nominees all at once, but Daly argued that would dilute the vote and make it difficult to discern which of the nominees could get to six votes (and conversely, which nominees couldn't and could thereby withdraw their nominations and participate in the process). “It is not the only way to put together a process that relies on Robert's Rules and board rules,” Daly noted, a point that was also confirmed at the meeting by Assistant Santa Clara County Counsel Orry Korb under questioning from Campos. “There are different ways to configure the nomination process,” Korb said. “Legally, there is no prohibition against taking single nominations at a time.” So Daly made a motion to have each nominee in turn voted up or down by the voting board members, which required only a majority vote because it doesn't contradict Robert's Rules of Order. That motion was approved by the progressive supervisors on a 6-5 vote. Both sides at times sought to cast the other as playing procedural games, and both emphasized what an important decision this is. “This is without a question the most important vote that any of us will take as a member of the Board of Supervisors and one that everyone is watching,” Elsbernd said of choosing a new mayor. So after the divisive procedural votes played out, Chiu stepped down from the podium and appealed for unity around the final set of procedures. He said that San Franciscans need to have confidence that the process is fair and accepted by all, and so, “It would be great if we have more than a 6-5 vote on this.” As the role call was taken, Carmen Chu was the first moderate to vote “yes,” and her colleagues followed suit on a 11-0 vote to approve the process. At that point, the board could have begun taking nominations, but it was already 7 p.m. and both Daly and Chiu argued to delay that process by couple weeks. “We owe it to ourselves and this city to have a discussion [of what qualities various supervisors want to see in a new mayor] before we get into names and sequestration,” Daly said. He and other progressive proposed to continue this discussion to Dec. 7, but Elsbernd – who was visibly agitated by the discussion – suddenly moved to table the item (which would end the discussion without spelling out the next step), a motion rejected on a 4-7 vote, with Maxwell joining the progressives. The discussion ended with a unanimous vote to continue the item to Dec. 7, when supervisors will discuss what they want in a new mayor and possibly begin the process of making and voting on nominations. Anyone who receives six votes will need to again be confirmed during the board meeting on Jan. 4, a day after Newsom assumes the office of lieutenant governor. Comments: One Problematic Glitch Remains In Mayor Appointment Rules There is still one problematic glitch in the newly passed rules for the selection of the new mayor. Specifically, what the rules now say, is that nominations will be opened and a series of nominations will be taken. Then the supervisors will vote on those nominations one by one. HOWEVER, if more than one sitting supervisor is nominated in that first set of nominations, ALL of them will have to leave the room and not take part in ANY voting UNTIL their own nomination is voted on. So we still could get a situation in which most of the progressives supervisors are out of the room for a key vote on a specific progressive candidate. So the progressives will either have to tweak the rules as they begin so that candidates leave the room -only- during a vote on their -own- candidacy, or the progressives will have to agree to only appoint one progressive sitting supervisor in that first wave of nominations, and only one in all subsequent new sets of nominations. The latter option is tricky because the Brown Act precludes them from discussing it ahead of time. So they should just tweak the rule before they begin voting. Posted by Eric Brooks on Nov. 24, 2010 @ 4:01 pm

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[Sustain] SF Weekly, Guardian, Nail Key Flaws In Proposed Mayor Selection Process
by Eric Brooks 24 Nov '10

24 Nov '10

Hi again all, Both the SF Weekly and the SF Guardian just nailed incredibly deep flaws in the Clerk's proposed Rule for the Mayoral selection process. See.. Weekly: http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2010/11/board_of_supervisors_mayor_fac.… Guardian: http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2010/11/23/editorial-screwy-process-selecting-…

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[Sustain] CRUCIAL: Tell Mirkarimi & Mar Vote NO On Clerk's Mayor Appointment Process
by Eric Brooks 23 Nov '10

23 Nov '10

All, It is crucial that the supervisors vote -no- today on the Mayoral appointment rules process just proposed by the Clerk of the Board and advising attorneys. (See attached.) I have never seen a more convoluted process designed for failure in my life. It is nearly impossible to understand its pretzel-like implications at all, yet after reading it a couple of times, what does become clear is that there is no way in hell that the proposed process could lead to 6 votes to appoint a mayor. Especially the provisions requiring Supervisors to leave the room for various reasons and not be allowed to vote, and the necessity that Supervisors permanently remove themselves from contention during various points in the process will make it impossible to reach a successful conclusion. There are many other similar extreme problems with the proposed rule, too numerous to list; those are just the most obvious examples. If we are going to succeed in seating a progressive mayor quickly enough to face the budget crisis, we must get the four votes necessary to vote down this ridiculous rule. ACTION: CALL supervisors Mirkarimi 415-554-7630, and Mar 415-554-7410, right away and -before- 3pm today to insist that they: "Vote NO on the rule proposed by the Board Clerk for the Mayoral appointment, and instead proceed with existing Board rules with ongoing advice from the Santa Clara County Council." Daly, Avalos, and Campos are very likely already with us. Their numbers are: David Campos: 415-554-5144 John Avalos: 415-554-6975 Chris Daly: 415-554-7970

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[Sustain] Pittsburgh Challenges Corporate 'Rights' & 'Personhood' Bans Gas Drilling
by Eric Brooks 21 Nov '10

21 Nov '10

Pittsburgh becomes first city to ban natural gas drilling by directly challenging corporate 'rights' and 'personhood'. http://paulcienfuegos.com/node/65 *Paul Cienfuegos <http://paulcienfuegos.com/> * Workshop Leader, Lecturer, Writer, Bookseller, Engaged Citizen Home <http://paulcienfuegos.com/> > Blogs <http://paulcienfuegos.com/blog> > Paul's blog <http://paulcienfuegos.com/blog/3> > Open Letter to Communities Working to Stop Fracking (November 16, 2010) Submitted by Paul on Sat, 11/20/2010 - 22:19 This morning, the Pittsburgh City Council became the first municipality in the United States to ban natural gas extraction within its boundaries. The ordinance isn't just a ban -- it consists of a new Bill of Rights for Pittsburgh residents (which includes a right to water along with rights for ecosystems and nature), and then proceeds to ban those activities -- including natural gas extraction - which would violate those rights. But it doesn't stop there. The ordinance seeks to undo over a hundred years' worth of law in the United States which gives corporations greater rights than the communities in which they do business. Those rights come in two primary forms -- first are corporate constitutional rights and powers (including court-bestowed constitutional rights of persons, or "personhood" rights), and second, are corporate rights that have been codified by statewide laws (like Pennsylvania's Oil and Gas Act), which liberate the corporation from local control in individual issue areas. When a community makes a decision which runs afoul of either of those corporate rights frameworks, corporate decisionmakers use the courts to throw out the community's decision. If a municipality bans a State-permitted activity, it gets sued for "taking" the corporation's property as a constitutional violation. If it attempts to legislate in an area in which the State has created a regulatory program which permits the activity, the community then gets sued by the corporation for violating preemptive state law. And why wouldn't they? After all, corporate lawyers created the very rights-frameworks that they use the courts to enforce, concocting many of those doctrines precisely to restrict community lawmaking as far back as the late 19^th century. In fact, those frameworks have been so effective that we rarely even dream about what our communities would look like if we actually called the shots. We even question ourselves as to whether we should have that power or not. And so we turn away from that grim reality, and instead attempt to use other tools that have been given to us which respect and incorporate those rights-frameworks. We attempt to use zoning laws to ban certain activities and learn that banning through zoning violates corporate constitutional due process rights. Turned back on that front, we then negotiate with the corporation - and beg and plead with state regulators - so that the corporation causes a little less harm to our communities. As second-class citizens, our rights made secondary to the privileges of corporations, we look for solutions to the ignoble status we've been relegated to. Our work plays out within a very small box of "allowable activism" bounded on all sides by rights-frameworks which protect a relatively small number of corporate decisionmakers. What does this have to do with fracking in the Marcellus shale formation? Everything. The rationale behind the Pittsburgh ordinance is a simple one. If we respect and comply with those frameworks of law -- playing within the sandbox that has been constructed for us - we'll get drilled. It's as straightforward as simple arithmetic. Which brings us to another logical conclusion: if we want to stop the drilling, we must therefore undo those false corporate rights frameworks. Over a hundred other municipal governments across Pennsylvania have joined Pittsburgh in reaching that revelation -- that the only way to stop agribusiness factory farms, sewage sludge dumping, corporate waste disposal, and natural gas extraction is to frontally and directly challenge those layers of corporate law which have removed any vestige of community self-government. As with the passage of similar ordinances by municipalities in Pennsylvania over the past several years, which have dealt with an array of issues, the Pittsburgh ordinance will result in a lot of hand-wringing by statewide environmental groups, which have made long careers out of not coloring outside of the lines. As they see it, their job is to work within existing law and do their best to limit environmental damage. That's why they call for more zoning laws (even though horizontal drilling defeats the purpose of zoning the placement of drilling pads, for example), or a severance tax (which ironically, encourages even more drilling to produce more revenue). It's why they talk about "responsible" drilling and natural gas as a "bridge" to a sustainable energy future. It's why they've talked themselves into seeing drilling as inevitable, and that the best we can do is simply to endure it. In doing so, they've condemned our communities to the same kind of damage that the gas corporations are forcing upon us. They may be nice people, but they're not our friends in this mess. They're too obedient in a situation that demands widespread disobedience. Stopping the drilling means coming face-to-face with the reality that this country isn't what we thought it was. That the rights-frameworks claimed by the corporations are not just a tragic mistake, but are the underlying reality demonstrated by our existence in a system in which the legal system serves corporate production but not community democracy. These local ordinances intend to turn that structure upside down -- subordinating corporate "rights" and corporate production to local self-governance and the rights of nature, rather than the other way around. For that reason, if we truly believe in economic and environmental sustainability, variations of the Pittsburgh ordinance must spread to a thousand other communities in the path of the Marcellus shale drillers. And then it must spread to a thousand more. More importantly, perhaps, communities need to jettison corporate lawyers and lobbyists from their municipal meeting rooms. We need to stop listening to environmental lawyers who tell us that there's nothing that we can do. We need to take a collective stand to reject corporate-imposed energy policies and replace them with local ones of our own making. We then must be prepared to disobey courts and legislatures who inform us that we can't have sustainability because it interferes with corporate prerogatives. It's time. After all, what's left? After ripping up our communities, there will be a new scheme to extract something else, and another one after that. It's time to shut down the machine. It's time to use our municipalities to engage in collective civil disobedience through community lawmaking. As Frederick Douglass wrote over a hundred years ago - /If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation...want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. . . Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress./ It's time to use our municipal governments to demand an end to all activities and policies that are harmful to our communities and the natural communities upon which our lives depend. It's time to undo a structure of law that authorizes corporate minorities to run roughshod over community majorities. Isn't that what democracy is supposed to be about? /From The Staff of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF.org)/

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