A People’s Economic Vision for San Francisco

The Guardian Forum: Issues for the next mayor

Announcing a series of panel discussions and participatory debates framing the progressive issues for the mayor’s race and beyond
Issue One: Economy, Jobs and the Progressive Agenda

• Calvin Welch, Council of Community Housing Organizations
• Fernando Marti, Community planner; Community Congress 2010
• Lenny Goldberg, economist and founder, California Tax Reform Association
• Shaw San Liu, Chinese Progressive Association

June 9th • 6 pm – 8 pm
University of San Francisco Lone Mountain Campus, Room LM 100
Turk & Balboa, Accessible on the 31 Balboa • Mobility Assistance Available

The Guardian Forum: Issues for the next mayor

Upcoming programs:
June 9: Economy, Jobs and the Progressive Agenda
June 21: Budget, Healthcare and Social Services
July 14: Tenants, Housing and Land Use
July 28: Immigration, Education and Youth
Aug. 25: Environment, Energy and Climate Change

Cosponsors:
• Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club
• San Francisco Tenants Union
• SEIU Local 1021
• San Francisco Rising
• San Francisco Human Services Network
• Council of community housing organizations
• Community congress 2010
• Center for Political Education

All events are free. Sessions will include substantial time for audience participation and discussion.
Please join us!

Guardian Forum 2011

Tonight at the Grassroots Democratic Club

With the recent developments from the Federal Congress to our own Board of Supervisors, we are challenged to think big and differently, to develop a new relationship between communities and local government. The 2010 Community Congress sought to redefine the role of local government towards an idea of the public sector as an economic starter in local communities, using public resources to create economic opportunities in the hardest-hit communities of our city, and to stimulate locally-based economic alternatives.

The Community Congress hits the ground running in 2011, with a round of outreach, feedback, and refinement, as we prepare for the upcoming budget and revenue battles and the Mayoral elections of 2011.

Please join us for our first presentation of the year with the Grassroots Democratic Club, tonight, Wednesday, January 12, 2011, 6:00 pm, at Dolores Street Community Services (938 Valencia Street).

Community Congress Action Agenda

Downloadable PDF: SF Community Congress 2010 – Immediate Action Agenda

AN OPEN INVITATION

The 2010 Community Congress engaged hundreds of San Franciscans from diverse corners of the city, who united to craft a platform for proactive progressive change. Our goals are ambitious yet practical, and vitally needed in this historic moment: San Francisco is saddled with double-digit unemployment, deepening inequality and entrenched homelessness, structural budget deficits, and an unsustainable and inequitable model of economic development.

As progressives, we are firmly committed to preserving the social, racial, and economic diversity of San Francisco; to the principles of social equity and inclusion; and to ensuring that those who currently live in San Francisco can remain here. The proposals that emerged from a 9-month process, culminating in a weekend-long Congress this August, are motivated by the desire to fundamentally transform and democratize the relationship between people and their government. Through this revitalization of the public sector and other means, we aim to expand economic opportunity for low- and middleincome people, working class and immigrant families, and the artists and other creative workers who contribute to the richness and living history of San Francisco.

We are aware that we need a proactive movement that says “yes,” instead of “no.” So this August hundreds of San Franciscans adopted an inspiring platform of politically actionable proposals, ranging from the creation of a municipal bank and worker-owned co-ops, to robust expansions of affordable housing and local hiring, to reshaping the city’s health and human services delivery system. We invite you to read the full platform and join this evolving dialogue — just the beginning of our longterm effort to transform and reshape the San Francisco policy landscape in favor of economic and social justice and truly community-driven planning and development. Our goal is no less than to create a lasting, broad-based, representative movement to democratize San Francisco’s economy, policy-making, and politics.

Please join us.

IMMEDIATE ACTION AGENDA

1. Establish a Municipal Bank of San Francisco.

2. Establish a publicly owned Municipal Development Corporation to undertake large-scale production of goods and services.

3. Create a Charter-based “San Francisco Health and Human Services Authority” to ensure that our public sector and community-based service system meets the needs of vulnerable populations by conducting long-term comprehensive program and fiscal planning, developing and implementing all health and human service policy including controlling the budget, and monitoring and holding accountable all relevant parties in the service delivery arena.

4. Reform the Rent Board Commission to increase tenant representation and give Supervisors an equal share of Commission appointments.

5. Pass the Right to Remain Act to protect public housing residents’ rights during Hope SF redevelopment.

6. Amend San Francisco’s General Plan to link approvals of new market-rate housing construction to the creation of needed permanently affordable housing and include affordability as a criteria in classifying transit-oriented development.

7. Direct a portion of developer fees on downtown buildings to support community arts.

8. Consolidate existing municipal arts programs into a new Department of Cultural Affairs.

9. Direct City departments to prioritize worker cooperatives when purchasing goods and services.

10. Require all future approvals of large-scale development projects to pay the local living wage, follow local hiring mandates, and provide funding to local worker center organizations to conduct oversight of fair hiring and remuneration standards.

11. Step up implementation of San Francisco’s Transit First policy by enforcing transit-only lanes on congested arterials during the morning commute.

12. Use local hiring programs to employ loaders at heavily-used Muni stops during certain times of the day to facilitate rear-door loading and encourage people to move to the backs of buses.

13. Concentrate on optimizing the effectiveness of Muni’s 70 existing lines by such actions as eliminating the many obstacles to consistent, reliable service.

Towards a Progressive Agenda for SF

A Progressive Vision for the November Elections and Beyond

Wednesday, September 22nd, 6:30-8:30pm
522 Valencia St. (Btw 16th St. and 17th St.)

What is our progressive vision for an economically just city? How do electoral strategies play into the broader movement for building grassroots power, developing people’s consciousness, and creating more democratic structures? Will progressives be in a position to shape the mayoral race in 2011?

“Towards a Progressive Agenda for San Francisco” will bring together San Francisco Rising, SF Jobs with Justice, and the “New Deal for the City” Community Congress, to engage in a lively roundtable discussion about how these projects complement each other, in the context of the city’s ongoing fiscal crisis, the November 2010 elections, and beyond. We will discuss, among other topics, progressive revenue measures in November; developing labor-community alliances through Jobs with Justice, a platform for low-wage workers; the Congress’s economic development and budget reform agenda, and bringing a progressive vision to the critical District races in 6, 8, 10. Finally, we will hit some tough questions about developing strategies for common work, keeping elected officials accountable, and looking to the future. Panelists include:

• Chelsea Boilard and others with San Francisco Rising, an electoral alliance comprised of Chinese Progressive Association, Coleman Advocates, the Day Labor Program, Filipino Community Center, Just Cause::Causa Justa, Mujeres Unidas y Activas, People Organized to Win Environmental and Economic Rights (PODER), and People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), and South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN);
• Gordon Mar with SF Jobs with Justice; and
• Debbi Lerman and Calvin Welch with SF Community Congress, which convened in August 2010 to develop a locally actionable legislative agenda that might be taken up by progressive candidates for Supervisor in 2010 and Mayor in 2011.
• Shaw San Liu with SF Progressive Worker Alliance, an alliance of low-wage worker organizations in San Francisco, including Chinese Progressive Association, the Day Labor Program and Women’s Collective, Filipino Community Center, Pride at Work, People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), and Young Workers United.

This is the second in an ongoing CPE series on building a San Francisco progressive agenda, following our July 2009 event about the history of District Elections and the broader movement to shape a progressive agenda.

$5-$10 Donation Requested. No one turned away for lack of funds. 522 Valencia St. is not wheelchair accessible.

San Francisco left seeks to channel spirit of ’75

From SF Public Press: http://sfpublicpress.org/news/2010-08/san-francisco-left-seeks-to-channel-spirit-of-%E2%80%9975

By Mineko Brand, SF Public Press — Aug 17 2010

It could have been the plot of a science fiction novel, or perhaps “Rip Van Winkle.” Thirty-five years after its first meeting, the Community Congress awakens in 2010 to find its city and the world transformed — and perhaps a new reason for being.

Many things in San Francisco have changed since the first such gathering in 1975. The first Community Congress was held that June and is credited for several major political changes to the city, including rent control and district elections.

Some of the same participants of the first meeting, as well as ample new blood, convened over the weekend at the University of San Francisco to hammer out what they called a progressive platform for a more just, equitable and sustainable city.

The list of problems was long: Muni, healthcare, affordable housing and tenant rights. A few solutions: promote cooperative businesses, establish a health and human services authority, reform the rent board to increase tenant representation, establish a municipal bank and place buses in separate transit-only lanes.

Only a few veterans from the first congress attended, including Diamond Dave Whitaker, the ubiquitous left-wing poet and self-described “local gadfly” (and one of the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s local heroes for 2010),  and Calvin Welch, co-founder of the Council of Community Housing Organizations. Welch was on the planning committee for both meetings.

1975 was a mayoral election year in San Francisco. Welch recalls that Mayor Joseph Alioto had been turned out, but not before presiding over an urban renewal program that displaced large numbers of low-income and minority residents. A host of problems plagued the city, including high unemployment, holes in the social safety net and high rent and property taxes. Welch and his collaborators wanted to coordinate a movement of liberals who represented a wide variety of backgrounds, expertise and communities. The conference drew one particularly high-profile attendee: George Moscone, who went on to win the mayoral race that year, taking office in 1976.

“We conceived of a process that would start around issue areas and then lead to a citywide community congress with the notion of bringing those folks together to agree on a common program,” Welch said of the 1975 inception. “We very self-consciously set out to try to create a network of people and a dialogue.”

District elections of supervisors were the centerpiece of this effort.

In early 2009 Welch and his late colleague Rene Cazenave began talking with people who had institutional bases in important sectors of the city to see if they could take the time to put another community congress together. It took more than six months of discussions.

Welch said the goal was to build trust and working relationships, and by those measures, things went well. There were no fistfights or major disagreements, and they even agreed on a platform.

But although the conference attracted about 220 people over the two days, some participants questioned how representative the group was of San Francisco as a whole, and how much momentum they were able to generate.

Welch expressed disappointment at the number of people and organizations that did not attend. No one is calling this a movement, instead saying the ideas are still in the inception stages, and that the real outcomes are contingent.

“The goal is to get people from different organizations to agree on a platform, and use it in the mayoral race,” said Corey Cook, a professor of political science at the University of San Francisco. “There’s some really smart people in the room.”

Photo by Mineko Brand/SF Public Press. Jabrim Raven Allen of the Good Neighbor Coalition presents his ideas before the economic develpoment panel facilitated by Karl Beitel, an analyst for the American Federation of Teachers, and Fernando Marti of Asian Neighborhood Design. Photo by Mineko Brand/SF Public Press.

Diamond Dave Whitaker, local San Francisco leftist poet and Pirate Cat Radio host, takes a moment to spin some rhymes between panels on Saturday. Photo by Mineko Brand/SF Public Press.

Calvin Welch, one of the lead organizers of the event, checked people in all day Saturday. Photo by Mineko Brand/SF Public Press.

About the Author

Mineko Brand

Mineko is interested in issues relating to social justice, underserved populations and local grassroots movements. She has a B.A. from UC Berkeley in English and Anthropology, and currently studies journalism, photo and video at the City College of San Francisco.

Community Congress envisions a new city

From El Tecolote: http://eltecolote.org/content/2010/08/commuity-congress-envisions-a-new-city/

By Charity Crouse :: EL TECOLOTE – Wednesday August 25, 2010

More than 100 activists gathered Aug. 15-16 to convene a Community Congress exploring ways to bring San Francisco together to address issues of community-based economic development, housing, health and human services and transportation.

What does it take to build a city where everyone can work, live and prosper together?, asked Calvin Welch at the Community Congress held Aug. 15 through Aug. 16 at the University of San Francisco. This question was tackled in 4 breakout sessions contemplating economic development, housing, health and human services and transportation in the city of San Francisco.

Welch and other organizers presented the parallels between the recent economic crisis spurred by budget deficits and the economic trends transpiring in the 1970s that saw a reduction of federal spending following urban renewal. These processes paved the way for increased private sector development and a concurrent displacement of much of San Francisco’s low-income and ethnic communities as the housing demographics of the city changed. The result has been that less than half of jobs in the city are held by residents today, whereas in 1960 nearly 80 percent of jobs were locally held, said Welch of the Council of Community Housing Organizations. The Congress, which followed months of planning by more than 100 community organizations, was inspired by a similar effort that happened in 1975.

“We’re trying to bring disparate issues together into a unified platform by creating long-term institutions that can take it to another level,” said Fernando Marti, community planner and one of the organizers of the event.

Marti led a discussion on Community-based Economic Development that considered among other things the potential of creating a Municipal Bank of San Francisco to be funded by $100 million of city reserves. Along with developing long-term revenue generating vehicles, such as ballot measures like the hotel tax included in this November’s election cycle, the bank would be used to invest in community-based businesses and worker-owned cooperatives, among other projects that would benefit low-income San Franciscans.

“North Dakota has a similar [state] program with its own bank,” said Marti. “Why not create a similar effort in San Francisco that would invest in green technologies?” Creating more local governance and consolidating current departments focused on workforce development would also be promoted.

Developing affordable housing is also a project for the Municipal Bank. Expanding the input of local residents into affordable housing decisions and creating early intervention programs to deal with homelessness was a theme of the report-back on Tenants’ Rights and Affordable Housing session. The session aimed to establish sustainable communities and that were beholden to local residents on new developments or conversions in their neighborhoods. Existing laws pertaining to vacancy control would be modified while those addressing utilities would limit increases.

Part of the vision for a healthy San Francisco spotlighted at the Health and Human Services session involved engaging local residents in the health care continuum as trained first-responders to local health issues and giving individuals and community organizations more power in determining where funding is allocated.

Poonam Whabi discusses worker collectives and cooperatives.

“We need a political entity that vets the conversation [on health and human services] and is accountable,” said Steve Fields of Progress Foundation.

The vetting process includes ensuring that the city balances more cost-effective local, community-based organizations for the provision of physical and mental health-related issues with higher-cost institutionalized care. The session also recommended the establishment of a chartered authority that would bridge the myriad organizations and departments already overseeing the provisions of basic needs and adhere to a 10-year plan. It would include a cross-section of service providers, users and city and department officials. Also emphasized was the importance of making sure that traditionally marginalized communities—such as youth, elders and people with disabilities—are included from the onset in defining the values upon which the authority’s work would be based. A public relations campaign would accompany the effort to highlight connections between the quality of living and public health concerns.

Public transportation was taken on with an emphasis on preserving MUNI’s 70 current routes. Participants voiced their concern with the use of the San Francisco Police Department in enforcing proof of payment for rides, but the convergence stressed the importance of allowing backdoor loading as a means for reducing waiting times for buses.

The conference closed with a document detailing a platform for moving forward that is meant to be a long-term project; the assembly agreed to meet again next year to discuss the impact that the city’s progressive community can have on redefining San Francisco’s future and follow-up on the conference’s results. In the coming weeks the conference will be making the its conclusions publicly accessible through their website www.sfcommunitycongress.wordpress.org.

Community Congress convened

Local progressives adopt policy platform they hope will inform future elections and agendas

From SF Bay Guardian: http://www.sfbg.com/2010/08/17/community-congress-convened

08.17.10  | Alex Emslie |

About 60 San Francisco citizens voted just before 1 p.m. on Aug. 15 to adopt a progressive platform of approximately 100 policy recommendations they hope will define the agenda of candidates and elected officials in coming years and offer a contrasting vision for the city to that of downtown corporate interests.

Sunday’s culmination of the 2010 Community Congress represented almost a year’s work by some 400 San Franciscans and dozens of community-based organizations, according to the Congress’ draft recommendations. The congress convened all day Aug. 14, at the University of San Francisco’s Fromm Hall, where participants engaged in breakout groups aimed at addressing four distinct local policy categories: health and human services; Muni and public transportation; affordable housing and tenant rights; and community-based economic development.

Recommendations in the four areas were drafted prior to the congress and published by the Guardian (see “Reinvention of San Francisco,” Aug. 4 and “Ideas that work: a plan for a new San Francisco,” Aug. 11), but planning group coordinator Calvin Welch said between a one-quarter and one-third were rewritten and amended during the breakout sessions on Saturday and by the congress as a whole on Sunday. Representatives from the breakout groups are working to finalize all the last-minute amendments and hope to post a final document by on the congress’ website (www.sfcommunitycongress.wordpress.com) by Aug. 20.

“This is a group of left-progressive people trying to articulate a left-progressive view for the city that is distinct from the cynicism of the [San Francisco] Chronicle and [Mayor] Gavin Newsom’s message,” Welch told the Guardian after the vote.

Gail Gilman facilitated the final adoption session on Aug. 15, passing a microphone to those who wished to speak or propose amendments while pushing the group to stick to the schedule. “I think we produced a solid progressive platform that will gain traction in the upcoming supervisors race,” Gilman told the Guardian outside the congress. “We’re hoping to have actionable items implemented over the next five years.”

Some of the congress’ ambitious agenda had to be put on hold, either because consensus couldn’t be reached or groups simply ran out of time. The Muni group’s recommendation to delay the Central Subway Project and use those funds to address “Muni’s backlog of operating, maintenance, and capital improvement needs” was tabled, as was decentralizing control of expenditures in health and human services out of the mayor’s hands. However, several agencies that the congress hopes to create, including a “canopy” entity to manage San Francisco’s public health system, would have direct budgetary control over city departments.

Health and human services group coleader and Bayview-Hunters Point Foundation Executive Director Jacob Moody told the crowd about a question posed early in the congress that informed his group’s recommendations: How do we create a city where people can live, work, and prosper together?

Welch admitted that some of policy recommendations would be difficult to realize and would draw the ire of powerful political groups in San Francisco, but he insisted that creating a municipal bank, an economic redevelopment agency, and a health and human services planning agency, and implementing several of the Muni group’s recommendations, were actionable in the short term.

“Some others would need to wait until the election of a new mayor,” Welch said. “I hope we can get some mayoral candidates to endorse some of these proposals.”

Sunnydale/southeast neighborhood community organizer Sharen Hewitt said that although there were often disagreements at the congress, the most important aspect of the event to her was that everyone learned from the perspectives of others.

“Tension is not always bad,” Hewitt told the Guardian at the event. “Everybody came here with biases and interests. Everybody needs to leave here with more. I’m damn near 60 years old and I grew half an inch today.”

Sunday’s congress and policy platform were modeled after San Francisco’s first Community Congress, which took place in 1975. But Welch told us this congress was entirely new. “To the extent that there is a historical aspect, 35 years ago we tried to figure out a way to bring people together. And 35 years later, young people want to do the same thing.”

“Diamond” Dave Whittaker, a modern Emperor Norton-esque San Francisco personality, closed the congress with a poem. “The basis of real social change is happening here,” he said. “And we need to continue casting a wider net, finding the thread, and letting it flourish.”

Final ratified platforms!

We are slowly recovering from the Community Congress, and finally updating the blog with the final ratified documents. Again, thank you to the 200 or so people who spent an entire weekend developing this step in a progressive agenda for San Francisco. Up today on our blog you can find the Economic Development and Health & Human Services platforms, as ratified by the full Congress on August 15 2010. Housing and Public Transit will be up shortly. Over the next two weeks, we will develop short framing introductions to describe the positions taken, and distill the recommendations (over 100) into a few major bullet points for Supervisor candidate forums. Stay tuned for upcoming candidate forums in Districts 6, 8, and 10, where we will ask candidates to take positions on the Congress platform.