Issue 306 ___Will you want to live in San Francisco - tomorrow ___September 2006

SFT BALLOT ISSUES AND CANDIDATE
RECOMMENDATIONS

Every election cycle, SFT Board of Directors interviews candidates and reviews issues and votes on what we recommend to our members. Here are our selections for November 8, 2006.

District 4: We did not agree on any candidates in this race.
District 6: Chris Daly was SFT choice. Daly as supervisor has a record of accomplishments that are hard to match. He has been innovative in proposing legislation on housing, environmental and quality of life issues.
District 8: Alix Rosenthal is challenging incumbent Bevan Dufty. Dufty has many impressive qualifications. However, we found Rosenthal’s qualifications more in tune with our philosophy along with her enthusiasm and fresh approach to problems facing our city.
District 10: Sophie Maxwell has been right “on point” regarding issues that are important for the city’s health.

The Board voted YES on the following STATE MEASURES:
1A – The Rebuild California will begin the process of making steady improvements over the next 10 years to sustain our economy and our quality of life for the long term.
1C – A $2.85 billion housing bond, including $1.5 billion for shelters and affordable housing, $850 million for infill incentives, $200 million for parks, $300 million for developments near mass transit and train stations.
1D – A $10.4 billon education bond, including $7.3 billon for K-12 construction and modernization, career and technical education, joint-use facilities, charter schools and to reduce overcrowding, $3 billion for UC, CSU and community college facilities.
84 – Bond measure for safety of our water supply and flood control as well park improvements. Clean Water Action is in favor of this proposition.
87 – A constitutional amendment to establish $4 billion program to reduce oil and gas usage by 25% by researching alternative energy sources. Will tax oil and gas producers to accomplish the program. They will be prohibited from passing on the cost to the public.
89 – Provide for public financing for candidates for State office. Places new limits on contributions to candidates’ efforts to support or oppose ballot measures. Increases tax rate on corporations and financial institutions. The increase will be from 8.84 percent to 9.04 percent. Financial institutions will be taxed from 10.84 percent to 11.04 percent.
NO, NO on the following State Proposition 90 – Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property Amendment. This measure claims to correct eminent domain abuses but cleverly conceals its real purpose: requiring local and State governments to recompense property owners and developers for new regulations such as zoning and land use controls, environmental controls and protections for our wildlife, coastline, open space, farmland and other natural resources, claiming lost revenue in the limitations imposed on their land. Under Prop 90 developers and corporations could demand huge payouts and intimidate governments from regulating property.

Vote YES on these LOCAL Ballot Issues:
A - $450 million School Bond– to upgrade and rehab 74 school sites.
D – Ordinance Prohibiting Disclosure of Certain Private Information by Contractors.
E – Ordinance establishing an additional 10% Parking Tax Surcharge.
F – Paid Sick Leave Ordinance for Employees
G – Small Business Protection Ordinance – amending the planning code to required a conditional use permit for formula retail use (aka, chains)
H – Tenant Relocation Funds Ordinance – for no fault eviction of tenants.
I – Policy Declaration that Mayor Appear Once per Month before Board of Supervisors and Public to Discuss Issues.
J – Policy Declaration of San Francisco calling for the Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard B. Cheney.
K – Policy Declaration on Senior Housing Needs.

NO POSITION
B – Charter Amendment Establishing Parental Leave for Officials – aka the ability to participate and vote in official meetings via teleconferencing.
C – Setting Salaries for SF’s Top Seven Elected Officials.

DOYLE DRIVE -- EIGHT LANE FREEWAY ON THE WAY?

A proposed new design for Doyle Drive -- a.k.a. the Southern Approach to the Golden Gate Bridge -- is now under consideration by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA). The board members of the SFCTA are the SF Board of Supervisors wearing different hats. Doyle Drive is currently six lanes. SFCTA are now proposing a seven lane design, saying the extra lane is a "merging lane" and not a traffic lane. Baloney!

Over the years, citizens have had to fight efforts to convert Doyle Drive into an eight lane freeway. (This was another of Sue Bierman's fights.) The proponents of the current proposed design will deny that this would set the stage for a future eight lane freeway. After that, pressure for a second deck on the Golden Gate bridge and still more freeways to and from it?

The SFCTA staff are using a questionable consultants report which sounds like what the highwaymen fed us during the freeway fights of the 50's and 60's. They were beaten back then, but they never gave up on Doyle Drive. Every decade or so they try to make it eight lanes.

Part of the justification for the seventh lane (so-called an "auxiliary lane"), is to provide an extra diverging lane at the entrance to the Marina District, supposedly to take care of extra traffic to the Marina. This lane is not necessary; real life examples contradict this “need”. The example of Washington Square in New York City shows that the traffic just disappears. Build it and they will come; don't build it and they won't come. The only place where a true merging lane would be justified is where cars heading north on Park Presidio go onto Doyle Drive. And there, even the consultants admit 500 feet would be sufficient. So the rest of the lane, about 3000 feet, could be eliminated, preventing the dumping of more cars into the Marina District. The SFCTA staff and consultants use the Highway Design Manual as justification, but they must understand that rural highway standards, as per the Highway Design Manual, are inappropriate in dense urban areas.

New Guardians for the Golden Gate A new book by Amy Meyer with Randolph Delahanty

They didn’t start out as a bunch of visionaries, Amy Meyer and her neighbors in the Richmond District. They just wanted to keep the Army from building a very big building on an almost unknown, almost empty and unkempt acreage known as East Fort Miley, between the Legion of Honor and the Veteran’s Hospital. This fort was the germ of what we now know and cherish, and share with the nation, the grand and extensive series of parks and open spaces up and down the coast called the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.
Bit by bit as it came together, Amy Meyer tells the whole story in a magnificent book, just published, New Guardians for the Golden Gate. With Randy Delahanty, Presidio historian, Amy recounts with style the history of how a circle of activists came together to save these former forts from development. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area now encompasses all the former military sites along the coast and inland, linked together with already designated local parks, into the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Later, the Presidio was added and named a National Park by Congress.
The final result of the military’s past presence all along the coast is now a brilliant gift of parks and wilderness open spaces to the people of the Bay Area and the nation, as far as the eye can see, and beyond. The book is wonderful reading and the accompanying photographs will transport you there. Soon you’ll be strapping on your hiking boots to visit grand open spaces that we almost lost.