Audrey Joseph Wins Audrey Joseph Award from SF Pride

Two years ago, the board of the San Francisco Pride nonprofit found themselves at the center of a huge controversy about the rescinding of a grand marshal honor to WikiLeaks heroine Chelsea Manning. Out of that mess came a slate of alleged reformers running for seats on the board and in September 2013, many of those folks were elected to the board.

I put in a good deal of time attending SF Pride meetings and functions. Last fall after being rebuffed in trying to bring transparency to the amounts paid by corporations to have marketing floats in the Pride Parade, opening the process of determining the contingent line-up so that law enforcement officials and elected officials aren't always in the front of the Parade and allowing members to run the monthly members' meetings, I disengaged with the group.

Sure, the reformers rectified the mess over Manning and she was a grand marshal in absentia last year, and military recruiters have been booted out of the Pride Celebration in Civic Center, and other cosmetic changes made, but the basic corporate-pleasing and politician-dominated way of doing business, and make no mistake SF Pride and related activities in June are big business, still prevails.

No need for me to waste time at SF Pride meetings where the board controls the agenda, only to see further corporatization of the LGBT agenda, last year the board accepted a $100,000 donation from Airbnb as they were facing massive criticism over contributing to our affordable housing crisis, police officers and members of the district attorney's office among the first 20 parade contingents, and members treated as nuisances or only to be used in volunteer capacities and no genuine influence over the nonprofit's agenda.

Minutes of members' meetings show board dominance, window dressing discussions about grand marshals and merchandising of SF Pride, and a lot of talk about board concerns, and a handful of members in attendance. Contents of the April membership minutes show about 98% of comments were from board members and I believe, hard to tell since this is no attendees' list of members present, that only one member, Rick Gerharter, spoke at the meeting.

This week, the board announced this year's grand marshals and it's 17 or so individuals and nonprofits and as if there aren't enough honorees to dilute the impact and meaning of being a grand marshal, a new category has been created.

It's the Audrey Joseph Entertainment Award given to an outstanding community leader who has used artistic expression to advance the LGBT agenda, and the recipient of it is none other than Audrey Joseph. She's been the producer of the main stage at the Pride Celebration hoopla in Civic Center for year and most folks agree she done an admirable job, even if she's not addressed the homogeneity, volume and loud bass-driven electronic dance music complaints.

I'm so pleased not have squandered any of my time as the board deliberated the grand marshal matters at membership meetings, just to see another award, yawn, created to stroke an ego or two.

This year, as in so many, Mike and I will mark our queer pride in personal and meaningful ways of value to us. We don't need nor want to be told about pride from corporations looking to expand profits and elected officials climbing the political ladder.

While the board members responsible for the Manning mess are long gone and new directors have come and gone, SF Pride is still an organization in need of deeper, authentic membership driven forces having real influence over the nonprofit. Otherwise, it's the same old same old, but different board members. That not progress in my queer rule book.

300-500 New SRO Units for SF Homeless People?

Here's another public record from Mayor Ed Lee's office related to his Potemkin Village of a homeless Navigation Center, located on Mission Street near 16th, that raises a number of questions about where exactly the City plans to transition clients of the center who want housing.

The mayor's homeless czar, Bevan Dufty, disclosed in January to a contact at the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection that he and the mayor were "aiming to ramp up the leasing of 300-500 SRO units on a scattered site basis. We will be looking in Mission, North Beach and Chinatown to expand leasing in areas we haven't had a strong presence."

Some questions for the mayor and Dufty. Why have you waited until an election year to ramp up this leasing? How exactly do you plan to lease hundreds of SRO units, when they're all full of folks, some just off the streets themselves? What is the number of current SRO residents who have or will lose their residency to attain this ramping up? Is it true the City hasn't penetrated into those three neighborhoods for SRO housing?

I'd also like to know when Lee and Dufty will release figures on number of clients sleeping nightly at the Navigation Center, those transitioning out to a shelter or SRO housing or taking advantage of the Homeward Bound program and leaving San Francisco, and stats for folks returning to the streets.

My belief is that the City should share this data regularly with taxpayers and it shouldn't take a public records request to obtain the data. Do you agree?

White SF Cops Question Black Male Driver On Market Street

As I was riding my bike on Market Street near Mason yesterday around 5 pm, I came upon two white male San Francisco Police Department officers on the sidewalk questioning a black male driver and his black female passenger.

Just a few moments after I began videotaping the scene, one of the cops noticed me and came over to order me out of the street.

The black man became aware of me and my camera and raised both arms and I believe he said, "Don't worry. I can breathe." Then the tall, thin police officer, whose gun and handcuffs and walkie-talkie were quite noticeable on his belt, put his hands up in the air.

Another passerby with an iPhone came from behind me and asked if he should also tape what was happening. I said yes because you never know what could happen in this kind of situation. We're all pleased no one was harmed or killed, and black couple were soon back in their car driving down Market Street.

There can never be enough monitoring of police officers and law enforcement authorities.

Union Square BID Giving $ to Sup. Christensen's Election?

Thanks to a public records request to Mayor Ed Lee's office, I've obtained the minutes from the Union Square Business Improvement District's Feb. 10th advocacy committee. The BID is quasi-government entity and aligns closely with businesses, and is supposed to be non-partisan and apolitical. However, the minutes that from committee meeting reveal otherwise.

In January, Lee appointed Julie Christensen to replace David Chiu on the Board of Supervisors after he was sworn in as a state assemblyman. She is up before the voters this November and is being challenged by former supervisor Aaron Peskin.

Here's what was reported in the comments and discussion in general section. The Union Square BID does not post minutes to their meetings page:

"Supervisor Christensen is up for re-election in the Fall of 2016 (sic). What can the BID do to support her? It was suggested that perhaps the BID can join with Fisherman's Wharf to contribute to the campaign. What can she do to have good P.R.? Suggestion: Make Hallidie [Plaza] a priority. Another opportunity for good P.R. is the upcoming US Conference of Mayors taking place this June in San Francisco. We can revisit with Supervisor Christensen to give a short list of BID priorities."

For what it's worth, her legislation aide, Gary McCoy, was the director of Scott Wiener's reelection campaign last year. Christensen may face a tough road ahead in keeping her seat on the board, as many supporters of Peskin will tell you. 

Since the minutes contain only vague brainstorming ideas and we don't know who made the suggestions, and the ideas may have been rejected since the February meeting, I don't think there any actionable course to consider against the BID as a nonprofit and supposed apolitical organization.

Still, it's important to hold the Union Square business interests and Christensen accountable and just shedding light on the comments is important to me. It would be good for this BID to post all of their minutes online and let the public scrutinize them. 

CHP Emails: Anti-Terrorism Cops Track #BlackLivesMatter Folk

The California Highway Patrol took its sweet old time finding and releasing hundreds of documents responsive to my public records request in December, for emails sent or received by key patrol communication officials.

Since I lacked the time and resources to engage with the CHP, I turned to Darwin BondGraham of the East Bay Express and asked him to followup and obtain the records responsive to my request. He's pored over lots of emails and has written a terrific story that you should read.

My message to anyone upset over what the CHP and East Bay law enforcement agencies were doing tracking #BlackLivesMatter activists on the streets and online, or interested in obtaining other emails and records, please file a public records request today. We need much more sunshine of law enforcement agencies.

(Armed undercover CHP officers patrolling an East Bay protest late 2014 over #BlackLivesMatter. Credit: Michael Short.)

Excerpts from BondGraham's piece in the East Bay Express:

On December 9, 2014, at 4:48 p.m., an internal email with the subject line, "Reminder for Tonight and this week: Do Not Advise Protesters That We Are Following Them on Social Media," circulated among dozens of California Highway Patrol commanders. The message read: "A quick reminder ... as you know, our TLO [Terrorism Liaison Officers] officers are actively following multiple leads over social media." The note continued, "this morning, we found posts detailing protesters' interaction with individual officers last night.

In the posts, protesters are stating that we (CHP) were claiming to follow them on social media. Please have your personnel refrain from such comments; we want to continue tracking the protesters as much as possible. If they believe we are tracking them, they will go silent." In recent years, police agencies throughout the United States have scoured social media as part of criminal investigations. But the police are also watching social media to spy on political protesters, especially those they suspect will engage in acts of civil disobedience. During the recent Black Lives Matter protests, local and state police agents monitored protesters on social media and activist websites. Several hundred CHP emails obtained by the Express show that social media is now a key source of intel for the police when monitoring political protests.

But the emails raise serious questions, say civil libertarians and some of the activists whose posts were harvested as intel. How do police monitor social media? Do they store data or track particular people? Are agencies over-reacting and wasting resources? And why are counter-terrorism police involved? [...]

The emails obtained by the Express from CHP were originally part of a Public Records Act request made by San Francisco resident Michael Petrelis. Petrelis said he asked for the records because he was concerned about CHP's use of less-than-lethal weapons and armed undercover agents.

Petrelis also said he is not surprised to see the extensive monitoring of social media by the police. "I come out of Act Up in NYC," said Petrelis. "The cops came to our meetings and they picked up all the lit. My experience in organizing is that cops are watching you," he continued. "In the Tech Age, you have to always think the cops are reading this."

Homeless Emergency Declared for Mission Navigation Center

Ok, who knew about this declaration of a homeless emergency by Department of Public Works boss Mohammed Nuru on Jan. 26th, so construction work could begin on the Mission and 16th Street Navigation Center? News to me.

A recent public records request to the Mayor's Office for documents out of his homeless czar's HOPE Office at City Hall related to the center, which I very much very as a PR stunt during an election year, produced the two-page emergency declaration you see here.

Here are the key sections of the declaration:

"An emergency exists in San Francisco due to the inadequacy of facilities to link over 6,000 chronically homeless individuals with needed services. Street homelessness is found to have profound health impacts on the individuals experiencing homelessness such as exacerbating disease, undermining addiction recovery, increasing vulnerability to violence and generally shortening life expectancies. [...]

"The need to provide [the Navigation Center] immediately constitutes an emergency involving the health, safety and property of the citizens of the City and County of San Francisco. [...]

"In order to move forward with the work on the Navigation Center at 1950 Mission Street, an emergency is declared to exist under the provision of Section 6.60 of the San Francisco Administrative Code."

This creative use of an emergency declaration to move City bureaucracy should be studied by homeless and affordable housing advocates to move their agendas forward.

Pacific Film Archive's Packed 'In the Mood for Love' Screening

My cinematic bucket list nicked off the 48th movie on Sight & Sound's 50 top greatest films of all time list. Proud to say I've seen each of those forty-eight movies in a theater and not on DVD or a monitor. Only two more flicks on Sight & Sound's list for me to see.

Last Wednesday, April 9, I caught Wong Kar-wai's lushly photographed and extremely pleasurable "In the Mood for Love" with dozens of regular costume changes for ultra-glam Maggie Cheung.

The newly-struck 35mm print I saw at the Pacific Film Archive seemed on the big screen to have just come from the processing lab, it was so fresh and luminous. The house was packed, with a decent number of under-30s in the audience.

Another hope-for-cinema episode at our cherished PFA, with an excellent choice unspooling on the silver screen and an appreciative audience watching Kar-wai make his movie-magic.

Don't let the fact that "In the Mood for Love" is on this important film-lovers list or hails from Hong Kong with subtitles deter you from seeing it. A fine, humorous and humane thwarted love tale, with terrific acting and an intriguing awaits you. See it!

Homeless Center Boss's Pay; Number of Clients; SRO Evictions

Mayor Ed Lee has created the Navigation Center (NC) on Mission Street near 16th to offer homeless people various services including a warm place to sleep at night and a secure location to store their belongings, and bring pets.

This pilot program is managed by Bevan Dufty, the homeless czar, and his HOPE office at City Hall, was funded by an anonymous $3 million donation, as the mayor's reelection campaign gears up for November, and I believe the NC is an election year Potemkin Village allowing him to point to the facility as evidence he's addressing homelessness.

Thanks to a public records request, Mayor Lee has released several informative responsive documents shedding light on the NC's operations thus far.

The newly-hired director of the NC is Julie Ledbetter, who previously worked for Mission Neighborhood Resource Center and the Mission Housing Development Corporation, and her annual pay is $113,000.

Dufty received an email about the March 12th NC coordinating meeting from a staffer at the Human Services Agency (HSA) regarding number of homeless people reached, 60 total, who expressed interest in the center. Figures were also given about baggage info. I wonder how much of those 60 folks have made their way to the NC.

Via a tweet, Dufty informed me today that 16 clients accessed the NC in its first week and the number jumped to 31 a week later.

A March 12th email from HSA complained about the Hospitality House homeless shelter nonprofit displeased they had to evict their clients from two SRO hotels, in order to make units available to Dufty and Ledbetter at the NC.

On March 18th, the director of housing and homeless programs at HSA, Joyce Crum, wrote to Dufty explaining the pre-trial diversion office of municipal court needs shelter beds to offer homeless defendants not taken into custody at hearings.

Crum writes that HSA is "not carving out any additional shelter slots or housing slots because they are all going to the Navigation Center."

So, a few formerly homeless people who were being housing in an SRO were "moved out" to make their units available to the NC and HSA admits no new shelter or housing units are being created. This plays into my scenario that Mayor Lee isn't actually creating lasting or genuine solutions to the homeless problem, and the Mission and 16th Street Navigation Center is little more than Potemkin Village gloss.

Seniors Act Up at SF Housing Authority Hearing

The obstacles blocking full transparency for the San Francisco Housing Authority are Mayor Ed Lee and every member of the Board of Supervisors. For all their talk about how wonderful the tech explosion is for the City and accountability to taxpayers, neither the mayor nor the supervisors have endeavored to wire every hearing room at City Hall.

Leaders at the SFHA and the San Francisco Fire Commission very much want their meetings made available for viewing by the public via all the media platforms available through SFGovTV.

But because our elected officials have not budgeted City funds nor asked for tech assistance from business leaders to install video cameras in hearing rooms at the People's Building, and hire enough staffing (perhaps graduates of City College's excellent new media courses) necessary to operate them, there's a waiting list for commissions to be assigned a wired room.

At the April 9 meeting of the SFHA, I was reminded by agency leaders that they'd be pleased to have their meetings on SFGovTV and I requested that they lobby Mayor Lee to upgrade all meeting rooms. During public comment, I pushed for TV transparency and suggested the agency's web site get a serious overhaul and made more user-friendly.

Right now, there is no page on the SFHA site just about elevators in public housing projects. Much time was taken up on April 9 about the status of elevators, which are broken and under repair, and efforts to modernize them, and the horrors of residents getting stuck in malfunctioning elevators.

I was shocked to learn SFHA depends on third-party mechanics to deal with stuck elevators, and they malfunction outside of weekday business hours, and the repair folks don't live in the City. When they're called in to get residents free from broken elevators, especially on weekends and holidays, their long travel time adds to the agony of those in the elevators.

Here's my video from the meeting. Glad I was there to see a few seniors acting up at the mic, speaking truth to power, and demanding better services from SFHA.

Today's Housing Authority Meeting Won't be Televised

The battles and crises over all the complex housing issues of San Francisco are of deep concern to many, yet a City agency with tremendous power and a lot of real estate, the Housing Authority, is not fully transparent. This must change.

Today's SFHA meeting is at 4:00 pm in Room 408 at City Hall and the agenda for it is posted here. Unfortunately, it won't be televised on SFGovTV and part of the reason for this lack of transparency is the meeting room is not wired for TV.

As I know from my successful campaign persuading the SF Fire Commission to move to City Hall and hold their meetings in a room properly wired, this commission and the SFHA may desire airing, streaming and archiving for vid-on-demand viewing via SFGovTV but not enough rooms at City Hall are wired.

Stop and let this sink in. In the midst of a tech boom, with dozens of super-wealthy tech titans pushing their agendas with pals at City Hall, and TV wiring costs amounting to mere peanuts to the City budget and billionaires, The City That Knows How doesn't know how to camera-equip every hearing room at the People's Building and have _every_ commission and agency holding meetings there and on TV and the web.

How can San Francisco have a robust and fully effective public discussion about housing matters, especially for the poor and low income populations, if the public Housing Authority isn't broadcasting their hearings where they set public policy?

I plan to attend today's hearing and raise these issues, and will report back possibly with video footage.