LeagueVoice

August 26 is National Women’s Equality Day because it is the date women won the right to vote, with the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution.  2010 is the 90th anniversary.  When one googles “90 years of women’s suffrage,” 250,000 results are returned.  Goodness.  A cursory review of the first few pages of results indicates virtually all the articles are about how women do not have equality.

“We have this tendency to celebrate, but I don’t know if I’d celebrate that it took that long to get women the right to vote,” said Paula Xanthopoulou, a former member of the Miami-Dade Commission for Women.

Good point, Ms. Zanthopoulou.  Contrary to the League’s giddy August 26, 2010 press release, complete with topical ecards to mark the occasion, the League might serve women better by exhibiting constructive crabbiness.   Why did it take so long for women to have the right to vote? 

Why is it that as of 2009, women only earned about 77% of their male counterparts’ salary, with black women earning only 68.9 cents for every dollar earned by a white male and Hispanic/Latina women 60.2 cents, according to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research?

Why, at a Ramadan fast-breaking party tomorrow night attended by a group of highly educated people, will women and men be segregated?  (Why am I going? For business reasons.  Yes, I deeply regret having agreed to it.  No, I am not required to wear a burqa. Do I feel my presence effectively will be condoning the massively sexist policies and practices of many cultures?  Yes.)   

Why was the presiding justice of the 9th Circuit District Court of Appeals engaged by the question of whether women lawyers should wear peep-toe shoes to court?  Good news:  The distinguished justice believes it is acceptable to wear them to the office.  Consensus is that the shoes are far to distracting to men to be suitable for court.  Can you imagine?  Men who get to position of judge are so mentally fragile that an inch of a woman’s toes distracts them.  Impressive.  Equally impressive is that women cared enough to ask the question.

Why did an undeniably accomplished lawyer tweet this week that she wishes she were a guy?  This same lawyer told me the number one question women lawyers have for each other is what to wear to the office.  I fed her rightly righteous rage with the shoe story. 

Why isn’t the League of Women Voters spending the next two years studying women’s equality,  rather than the role of the federal government in education, which feels a bit distant from our core competency and concerns.  There are any number of facets of women’s equality we could study that have an unambiguous connection to women voting.  For example:  women’s access to the political process; increasing the number of qualified women as elected officials; increasing the number of women in influential governmental policymaking positions (at all levels). 

Let’s not be too happy about this 90th anniversary.  It doesn’t do us any good.  Time for activism, which seems to be fed best by rage.  LLII.

The Clay Theatre on Fillmore is closing on the 29th.  It’s been losing money. 

The League has a position supporting economic growth.  What reasonable person would argue that a for-profit business running at a loss for some time should operate nonetheless if all the indicators point against revival.  As the SFGate article says, people are more inclined to go to multi-plexes for comfy chairs, never mind the insoluble  popcorn trucked in from Salinas.  Or they prefer to stay at home with their Netflix deliveries.  Very reasonable, those Netflix deliveries.  Still, isn’t there something to be said for hearing a babel of languages in the Clay, waiting for the film to begin? Or the charged dialogues and debates of the people in the rows behind about whatever was in the Times that morning?  How about the comments after the movie, made all the more intriguing when you catch only snippets on the way out.  Spilling out onto Fillmore, the adventure continued, regardless of the time.  There are always dialogues and debates on Fillmore, not to mention dogs and organic coffee.  All the better if something in the vintage shops – or the peculiar Marc Jacobs shop – catches your eye.  More dialogue and debate ensue. 

Ultimately it comes down to community.  It helped that the Clay showed some of the most interesting movies in town, but that wasn’t the end of it.  Going to the Clay was a package deal.  Plentiful muni service.  All those shops, cafes, coffees stops, and even an independent bookstore.  People talking.  Even solo, you were never alone.  The movies usually were of the sort that made you smarter for a little while, primed to observe and absorb Fillmore.  The community will be worse off for losing the theatre.  We will lose an element  that fostered community the way watching a film at home or on a computer screen never  will do.  It’s a pity. 

There was a report on NPR this morning about villages,  a euphemism for programs to help the elderly live in their homes as long as possible.  Villages can only exist if there is community.  On the one hand, our leisure habits and the economy are degrading community.  On the other, the needs of our older neighbors demand strengthened, active community.  Let’s hope the middle generation, currently withdrawing from community in favor of its singular leisure habits and distancing social media, doesn’t lose the skills required to navigate the natural frictions of life and therefore ultimately become aliens in those villages grounded in community being crafted for their well-being.  

Stay acclimated.  Go to a neighborhood movie theatre.  Mix and mingle in the surrounding community before and/or after.  Think of it as an investment in your quality of life, all your life long.

Did you know that the U.S. ranks 29^th in life expectancy even though Americans spend $2.5 trillion annually on medical care, nearly half of all health dollars spent in the world? The League members and friends had an opportunity to learn some of the facts about American healthcare on Tuesday, August 17^th when they viewed the PBS documentary Unnatural Causes. In chilling detail the video showed that poor health in the U.S. is often related to poverty and to the wide disparity of incomes between the rich and poor. The wealth of the top 1% of the population in this country is greater than the combined wealth of the bottom 90%. This gap in prosperity is wider here than in any other developed country—and it shows up in healthcare.

Interest in this subject was obvious as a large number of people from the League and from the Older Women’s League (OWL) as well as the San Francisco Political Committee and KQED showed up to view the film and to engage in discussion about the issues. Ellen R. Shaffer, a health activist, led a discussion after the showing and guests raised issues about what we as individuals and groups can do to improve the situation. There were suggestions that California could move ahead and provide more healthcare even though there is not enough support nationally to make the movement country wide. Racism was mentioned as a reason why African-Americans have a higher mortality than whites in this country. An estimated 83,000 preventable African American deaths are attributable to the Black-white mortality gap.

Boardmembers Maxine Anderson, Jolinda Sim, and Patricia McGovern at healthcare meeting

Discussion was lively at the meeting and the wine-and-cheese reception that accompanied it.  

Karen Clopton, League president, and member Jane Morrison at healthcare meeting.

On Friday, August 6, the Ballot Simplification Committee worked late and finished its task for the November election. The morning started with a revised list of ballot measures and letters; this replaces the one we got yesterday, so letters used in Thursday’s post need to be changed. The new listing of letters and titles is posted on the Election Department website.    

The first order of business was to go through the remaining Requests for Reconsideration that had been sent to the Committee. The Charter Amendment concerning the City Retirement and Health Plans generated two lengthy requests—one of them from the S.F. Labor Council was 7 pages long (Requests for Reconsideration are posted at www.sfelections.org/bsc ). The Committee spent more than three hours reviewing suggested changes, listening to advocates of various changes in wording, and making a few adjustments to the text. After hearings were completed, a new draft text was adopted. Then the Committee took a break for lunch.

The afternoon session began with a review of the “Words You Need to Know” section of the Voters Guide. The new words to be added had been identified as the ballot measures were reviewed. They include terms the average voter might not understand, such as the definition of a “Municipal election” and “Legally-recognized caregiver”. The Deputy District Attorney had suggested definitions for the words or terms and the committee, reviewed and made changes. They also reviewed the words included in the Voters Guides of the last four elections and decided which ones are still needed and which are unnecessary this year.

An unscheduled appearance by the originator of one of the ballot measures required another lengthy discussion about the possibility of last-minute changes. The Committee decided it could not reopen a review of the measure in the absence of a formal Request for Reconsideration filed during the allocated City time limits.

The Committee thanked their indispensible support team: Mollie Lee, Deputy City Attorney, and Barbara Carr, Clerk, for their knowledgeable and cheerful help. They then celebrated the completion of their work by going to a nearby Chevy’s for a drink.

Today the Ballot Simplification Committee completed the last ballot measure for the November 2, 2010 election . As another mark that the Voters Guide material is nearing completion, the ballot measures were given their official letters today. The list is of measures including the letter and title is given on the Elections Department website.

If you ever wondered why the measures are arranged the way they are, here’s the procedure. First the propositions are separated into groups according to the type of measure. Propositions placed on the ballot by County Agencies such as this year’s Vehicle Registration Tax go first in the list. Then come the Bond Measures, then the Charter Amendments, the Ordinances, and finally the Declarations of Policy (there are none of those on the ballot for November). Within each category, the order is randomly assigned with the exception (in this city there is always an exception) of ballot measures that directly oppose one another; these are placed one after the other. An example of that this year would be the two hotel tax measures, which are now measures M and N.

The last proposition to be considered by the BSC was Proposition O Real Property Tax. This deals with the tax charged by the city on the sale of real estate valued at $5 million or more. The tax currently ranges from 0.5% to 1.5% depending on the sale price. Long term leases, those for 35 years or more, are also taxed at these rates. Proposition 0 would increase the tax to 2.0% for properties valued between $5 million and $10 million. Properties worth $10 million or more would be taxed at 2.5%.

After receiving public comment on the wording of the measure, the BSC came up with wording it considered satisfactory, but appeals for reconsideration may be made for 24 hours after a completed version is adopted. It’s quite likely there will be an appeal on this one that the committee will have to consider tomorrow.

After the ballot measures were completed, the committee moved on to consider the requests for reconsideration that have come in during the last few days. The first appeal taken up today was on the Hotel Tax proposals. The appeal suggested that the wording of the “Way It Is Now” be made the same for each of two measures and the committee did that.

Another appeal was presented for the Vehicle Registration Fee for a change and clarification of the description of the way the tax funds would be used. The committee adjusted the wording on this measure too.

The most contentious issues today were related to Propositions M L: Sitting or Lying on Sidewalks and Proposition NM: Community Policing and Foot Patrols. Although the titles do not indicate this, the two measures conflict with one another. If Prop M should be adopted with more votes than Prop L, Prop L  would not take effect. If, on the other hand, Prop  L should be adopted with more votes than Prop  M, then both measures would take effect. The committee struggled to find neutral language that would explain to voters the substance of each ballet measure and the effect of their passage. Proponents and opponents of each measure, including Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, appeared before the committee. The final draft was prepared and approved by the committee, but it is not likely to satisfy either group completely. Voters can expect to see many ballot arguments and ads for each of these dueling measures before November 2.

Tomorrow will be the last day of BSC meetings for the November 2 election. It is going to be a lively and interesting election. If you or any of your friends are not yet registered to vote, be sure to do that within the next few weeks. If you are going to be away for Election Day, there are many opportunities to vote early or to vote by mail. This is an election you won’t want to miss.

The Ballot Simplification Committee spent its entire meeting today going over a proposition that would change the rules governing retirement and health benefits for city employees and retirees. It was a busy meeting with about 15 visitors watching the committee and making presentations during the public input portion of the meeting.

The City and County of San Francisco provides pension and retirement benefits and health benefits to employees through its Retirement System and its Health Services System. The Unified School District, Community College District and Superior Court also participate in either or both of these systems. Sheriff’s Dept. employees and a few other groups participate in the California Public Employees Retirement System instead of the City’s system.

Most City employees contribute 7.5% of compensation into the City’s Retirement System. The City averages the amount paid by California’s 10 most populated counties to set the amount that the City and other participating employers contribute to the Health Services System. Participating employers pay the balance to keep that system funded. Under some collective bargaining agreements, the City pays additional costs for employee medical, vision and dental coverage.

Proposition _ is a Charter amendment that would increase employee contributions to the pension and retirement system, decrease employer contributions and alter rules for arbitration proceedings about the City’s collective bargaining agreements.

The changes in the contribution requirements are complicated and I won’t go over them all here. It’s enough to know that the committee more than doubled the number of words it aims for. Instead of 300 words, this ballot measure will take almost 800 words in the voters’ guide.  The measure has different rules for various groups of City employees because of the variety of agreements won in collective bargaining over the years. In future negotiations, the City will pay only the 10-county average and will not be allowed to agree to pay any additional costs for employee or dependent health coverage.

If a court rules that any part of Proposition _ is invalid, the compensation for affected employees will remain the same for five years. If the City or an arbitrator awards an increase in wages or benefits for covered employees, the increase shall first be subject to voter approval. If approved, Proposition _ will take effect on January 1, 2011.

For the complete draft of the City Retirement and Health Plan proposition, go to www.sfelections.org/bsc This proposition is going to require some study before deciding the best way to vote, and citizens can expect to be bombarded by arguments for and against this important amendment.

The Ballot Simplification Committee has only one more proposition to consider for the November election, one about a proposed increase in the Real Property Transfer Tax. That will be considered tomorrow and then the committee will move on to examine the requests for reconsideration that have come in. Most of the committee’s time on Thursday and Friday will be devoted to these requests.

Yesterday the Ballot Simplification Committee looked at two ballot measures that made changes in the Hotel Tax law. Today it dealt with two measures that propose very different approaches to maintaining pedestrian-friendly sidewalks in the city.

Current city law does not prohibit sitting or lying on sidewalks unless an individual is willfully disturbing pedestrian traffic. The ballot measure tentatively titled “Sitting or Lying on Sidewalks” would prohibit all sitting or lying on public sidewalks in the city between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. Exceptions would be made for medical emergencies, wheelchairs, children in strollers, lawful sidewalk businesses, authorized parades and a few other situations. Police would be required to warn offenders before citing them for violating the law, and penalties are set at fines of $50 to $500 depending on whether it is a first offense or a repeated offense. Repeat offenders could also be sentenced to up to 30 days in jail. The ordinance would require the Police Department to make written reports to the Mayor and Board of Supervisors about the effect of enforcing this prohibition. It would also require the City to have an outreach plan to provide social services to people who chronically sit or lie on public sidewalks.

The second proposition considered today does not appear at first to have any relation to the Sit-Lie ordinance. The “Community Policing and Foot Patrol” proposition requires the Police Department to adopt a written community policing policy governing police interactions with the community, focusing resources on high crime areas, and encouraging citizen involvement in combating crime. The proposition would also require the Chief of Police to establish comprehensive Foot Patrol Programs for all police stations. These programs would include designated foot patrols, MUNI patrols, reviews of foot patrol routes and regular community input and guidelines for foot patrol officers. The proposition would require the Police Department to report on the program to the Board of Supervisors twice each year.

Although the Community Policing proposition does not mention the issue of sitting or lying on sidewalks directly, it does include the provision that if the proposition is adopted it would override the Sit-Lie proposition. If both propositions are adopted by the voters, the provisions that take effect would be determined by the number of votes cast for each:

• If the Community Policing proposition receives more votes and the Sit-Lie proposition, then the Sit-Lie proposition will not take effect.
• If the Sit-Lie proposition gets more votes than the Community Policing proposition, then both propositions will take effect.  .

The League, as well as other voter education organizations, is likely to have a hard time explaining these two propositions to voters, especially if proponents and opponents of each bill mount ad campaigns to confuse the issues.

On November 2, San Franciscans will again be asked to choose between two dueling ballot measures. This time the measures deal with the city’s hotel tax. The Ballot Simplification Committee struggled today to draft ballot language that would make clear the differences between the two propositions.

Currently the city has a 14 % hotel tax applied to the cost of cost of renting a hotel room in the city. There is also a fee of 1% to 1.5% added on to this tax to pay for upgrading the Moscone Convention Center and promote San Francisco. Long term residents, those who rent for more than 30 days, are exempt from these charges.

One measure on the ballot this year would raise the hotel tax from 14% to 16% for the period January 1, 2011 until January 1, 2014. This ballot measure would also specify that the person who collects the rent must collect this tax and turn it over to the government. The measure also changes the definition of “long term residents” so that it applies only to individuals. (Ballot measures do not yet have final titles or letter designations, so I will refer to this measure as Hotel Proposition One.)

The second ballot measure (Hotel Proposition Two) being placed on the ballot comes from the mayor’s office. It would keep the hotel tax at 14%, but would make the other changes suggested in Hotel Proposition Two.  In other words, the tax would have to be collected by anyone who rents a hotel room, and also, the definition of “long term residents” would apply only to individuals.

If both Hotel Proposition One and Hotel Proposition Two are passed by the voters, the decision about raising the tax will depend on how many people vote for each. If Hotel Prop. One has more votes, then the tax goes up to 16%; if Hotel Prop. Two has more votes, the tax stays the same. The other provisions are the same in both bills, so they will go into effect if either or both measures are passed.

Voters may wonder what all the fuss is about and why the definitions are being changed. They are designed to close loopholes in the present tax code. As the law is written, travel agents (primarily online travel companies) claim they are not actually renting the hotel rooms even though they collect the room rent, so they do not have to collect the taxes. Both propositions would require them to collect the taxes and turn them over to the City government.

The current definition of “long term residents” includes many businesses that rent blocks of rooms for the use of their employees or others. It also includes nonprofit organizations that rent blocks of rooms to provide housing for homeless people or others. Both propositions would put an end to their exemption from the hotel tax.

In 2009, the California legislature gave local congestion management agencies permission to ask voters to approve an additional $10 vehicle registration fee to pay for projects related to transportation. The San Francisco County Transportation Authority has proposed an amendment to City Regulations to add a $10 fee to the annual registration fee for all vehicles registered in San Francisco on or after May 2, 2011. Proceeds from this fee, which are projected to amount to about five million dollars annually, would be used for street repairs and reconstruction with the focus on streets with high bicycle and transit traffic; pedestrian safety, including crosswalk improvements, sidewalk repairs, and lighting; and transit improvements including bus stop improvements and traffic signal upgrades, 

The second proposition discussed by the BSC would change the City’s Code of Conduct to prohibit elected City officials from also serving on a political party central committee. The central committees are powerful groups, usually elected by party members, which raise money and support campaigns for the party’s candidates and for ballot measures.  Currently recognized political parties are the Republican Party, Democratic Party, American Independent Party, and the Peace and Freedom Party. They are subject to a different set of ethics and campaign finance regulations than the ones that apply to City officials. At the present time, elected City officials can hold a city office and at the same time be a member of a central committee. This year’s ballot measure would eliminate dual memberships in the future.

The Ballot Simplification Committee has now discussed nine ballot measures and has approved the ballot language for them. All of the approved measures are posted on the BSC section of the Department of Elections’ website  www.sfelections.org/bsc  The committee is scheduled to meet from Monday to Friday next week to consider the remaining ballot measures for November 2. Check back here on Monday to see the next update!

San Francisco’s transit system, MUNI, appears on the ballot at almost every election because so many details of its procedures are spelled out in the City Charter. This year’s MUNI proposition concerns the way employees’ salaries and benefits are set.

 The city’s Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) oversees MUNI, the city’s Municipal Railway transit system. Its employee benefits are governed by several requirements in the Charter:

• MTA must pay MUNI drivers at least as much as the average salary of transit drivers in the two highest paying transit systems in the country. To calculate this figure, the MTA looks at the salaries of drivers in cities with populations over 500,000.

• If the benefits provided to MUNI operators are worth less than benefits in comparable transit systems, MTA places an amount equal to the difference in a trust fund.  The money is then paid out to MUNI drivers, usually annually.

• MTA must pay most managers and employees incentive bonuses if MUNI achieves certain service standards.

For most city employees, if the City and the unions are unable to agree in collective bargaining, disputes are subject to binding arbitration. The MTA’s negotiations with transit operators are not subject to binding arbitration.

The new proposition eliminates the current formula for setting salaries and instead allows MTA to set salaries and benefits through collective bargaining and binding arbitration.  The trust fund would be eliminated, but MTA’s contribution to drivers’ health coverage must be at least equivalent to the City contribution for other employees.  Bonuses for managers and employees would be optional. The ballot measure would also eliminate the informal agreements which now govern some working conditions unless they were approved in writing and included in collective bargaining agreements.

The second ballot measure discussed by the committee today also deals with a familiar topic—seismic retrofitting. This bond measure applies only to a specific category of buildings—soft-story buildings that contain affordable housing units. Soft-story buildings are multistory wood structures where at least one floor has large outside wall openings such as garage doors. There are about 125 of these soft-story buildings with affordable housing units funded by government agencies and another 31 single-room occupancy buildings. Together these groups include 8,247 affordable housing units.

The Earthquake Retrofit Bond proposition would allow the City to borrow up to $46,150,000 by issuing general obligation bonds to fund loans or grants to pay for seismic retrofitting of these buildings. The proposition would allow landlords to pass through fifty percent of any increase in property tax to tenants. As with other City bonds, the expenditures would be subject to independent oversight and regular audits.  

The latest estimate of the number of ballot measures that will come before voters on November 2, 2010, is 15 city measures and 10 state measures. There still may be changes in the number of City measures; check back to this blog for updates.