Police Contracts and Police Reform in San Francisco

 I like the tone of this letter.  My response follows it.

Dear Members of the Board of Supervisors,

Please do not approve the Police Officers Association contract without requiring real departmental reform as a condition of its acceptance.  As of March of this year the SFPD has only implemented 40 of the 272 reforms outlined by the Department of Justice. 

We urge you to consult with legal counsel in the City Attorney's office regarding the role and responsibility of the Board of Supervisors in the Collective Bargaining process. We also urge you to review the successes of other municipal governments in this country that have negotiated significant Police Reform through Collective Bargaining.

We believe Collective Bargaining is one of the pillars of economic democracy and workers rights, and we support the right of police officers and other public-sector employees to be represented by unions (or associations) that negotiate fair and equitable wages and benefits, hours and work schedules, and safe, healthy working conditions.

As the governing body of our city, the Board of Supervisors has a moral and fiduciary role to play in Collective Bargaining. We support police officers and related personnel--like other public-sector employees--receiving collectively bargained fair and equitable wages and having reasonable working hours and safe, healthy working conditions. We believe the Board of Supervisors has a moral responsibility and the authority under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (MMBA) and pertinent statutes to effect significant Police Reform through the Collective Bargaining process.  And the people demand justice.

We believe additional reform will result from legislative and court victories--and millions of people in the streets demanding police accountability and an end to systemic racism.  The time is now to demand reform.  Too many lives are at stake for us to pass on this opportunity.

Respectfully,

Peter Miller, SFTWA

Frank Martin Del Campo, SF LCLAA

Rodger Scott, AFT 2121

Ruach Graffis, SFTWA

Barry Taranto, SFTWA

Allan Fisher, AFT 2121

Karl Kramer, SF LCLAA

Edward Escobar, AIW

Alice Lindstrom

This looks like a really good letter.  I'm curious about this part:

"SFPD has only implemented 40 of the 272 reforms outlined by the Department of Justice." What are the 40? What are the 272?

I really appreciate the fact that you're speaking of police reform rather than the incendiary "police defunding"--especially after seeing that 56% of the Black people in Oakland (I realize this is SF) say they want more police in their neighborhoods. I've read that nationally it's 81% of Black Americans who want the same or more police presence in their communities.

Tina Martin

More Parklets

 

I'm so impressed by how restaurant workers manage in this pandemic, so I always over-tip. (Let's give them $20 bills instead of adding it to the tab so we can be sure they get it!) Once again we have that parking meter but table and food where cars used to be. I was especially happy to have Jonathan at the table--masked and unmasked!

Parklets in San Francisco

 Signs of the Times! I celebrated with Vilma in the morning and Beth and Shehla in the early evening--both at parklets. The first place, Brenda's on Divisadero, did everything by scanning--no touching of menus. Beth, Shehla, and I had a parking meter at our table, but we didn't have to feed it--just ourselves! Delicious food, wonderful friends both places--and very brave people doing their best to stay in business during these hard times.

Stern Grove after 4:00 PM

 During this pandemic period, I've walked through Stern Grove to and around Pine Lake several times, at different times of day.

Thursday, we limited our walk to an hour so I could attend a Zoom meeting for Voices of Public Transportation at 5:00.

Here's how Stern Grove looked--and there were even people doing the salsa on stage--not professionals but people who just wanted to dance and had found the perfect open space outdoors--couples keeping their social distance from other couples!

Following Portals of the Past to Caselli and Douglas: Nobby Clarke Mansion

 Tuesday morning Maxine and I had a beautiful walk to the 45-room Nobby Clarke Mansion that Gary Kamiya wrote about in Portals of the Past. There's a fascinating story behind this house, and the route from Noe and 26th to Douglas and Caselli is a beautiful one. I'm so grateful that my house is much less grand. Imagine cleaning that place! On the other hand, it would have ample space for all my clutter!

https://www.sfchronicle.com/chronicle_vault/article/It-s-one-of-S-F-s-strangest-houses-Its-15689883.php

A French Friend Asks for Feed Back from Us Bay Area Folks

After hearing the good news that Biden was the predicted winner of the presidential race, a good French friend, Annie,  sent a message to three of us Americans and two French friends living in the Bay Area, where Annie and her family lived between 1999 and 2003 or so.  Here's her message and my response:

 Finally!!! 
> I want to share your relief and rejoice with you, mostly for your new gorgeous vice president!! 
> 😉👍😍🙏😀💐😊💕😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘😘
> 

So nice to celebrate with you, Annie, and the others included in this message!  Hours before the election, I'd gotten good wishes from Jutta in Germany and Daan in the Netherlands--two friends I've known since 1963, when Jutta was my penpal, and 1972, when I met Daan in Amsterdam on my way to Madrid.  They said they hoped the Democrats would win and that there wouldn't be violence.  

I got the good news from Jonathan, who texted our little family in the Bay Area at 8:49 am PST yesterday.  What a relief!  I was on my way to a rally called, aptly, "Count Every Vote" at the Embarcadero and wanted to take a walk before joining the rally.  I feel that we've gone from Attila the Hun to Mr. Rogers, but of course Trump has not gone yet and continues making threats.

Not to dampen spirits, but some of the Senate and House races have been disappointing, as have some of the state propositions.  Poor Biden!  He's going to have a recalcitrant Senate to work with, and even though the Democrats flipped two house seats,  the Republicans flipped four.  (If this has changed, I think Nicole can fill us in.)  There are still more Democrats in the House than in the Senate, but it's a narrower margin

Prop 15, the one so many of us worked on for so long, did not pass.  It would have brought the schools and communities $11 billion by closing the loophole in Prop 13 from 1978 that helps the richest commercial property owners not pay their share of taxes.  Those opposing it used scare tactics that were dishonest and misleading. 

Prop 16, to make it lawful to bring back affirmative action, was voted down.  I think it was from the NYTimes podcast that I heard people wondering, "What's happened to California, which was once so progressive?"  But San Francisco voters once again voted to tax ourselves in several different ways to support the public good.  

I was campaigning for Anita Martinez for CCSF Board of Trustees (still too close to call), and a man saw the sign I was carrying.  He said, "I wouldn't vote for any of those damn people!  I have to pay $449 in four parcel taxes on top of the $4000 I pay for my house taxes.  Damn them."

I thought, "Oh, how grateful I am that I have a roof over my head and even own it.  I'm so glad that I am in a position to pay parcel taxes."   Of course, parcel taxes aren't really the solution.  We should have income taxes that are really fair, but unfortunately Americans have been trained to think of taxes as an infringement on human rights.  

Anyway, I appreciate your asking, Annie, and it's nice to be joined together  with Debora, Nicole, Francoise, and Christiane--like (well, not quite like ) old times!

Love to you all and hope for the world and our nations.

Tina

Downtown San Francisco for "Count Every Vote," but Took in Joice Street and the Embarcadero

 

How Jim Herlihy's novel "Deceit and Dirty Money" Relates to My Son's Change of Jobs and Cities

 I miss my every other day workouts at the Stonestown YMCA--the people as well as the exercise!  I was lucky to have two good conversationalists --Jerry on my left, Jim on my right.  

One of the things Jim mentioned to me on one of those mornings before March 16, 2020 was a novel he'd written that was published in 2000.  Since the Y closed, Jim has started a podcast--The San Francisco Experiment---which I've listened to scores of times, and now I'm reading his book Deceit and Dirty Money.  It's a page-turner, and it's especially fun to be reading it now because one of the characters, Chris Callen, is changing jobs and moving from New York City back to San Francisco at the same time  my son is doing that!

 "He had a lot to do before leaving...First the run:  one last time through Central Park...."

My son lived a block from Central Park and went running there too--an important part of his life.

Strangely enough, Chris Callens hasn't given notice on his apartment, and he has a car he has to ship.  But when he gets to San Francisco, he says, "Slow down.  I want to remember this moment.  My return to San Francisco...I love this town and now I'm back."  

I used to visit my son in NYC in September, so I couldn't resist writing a reference to this in the book over the sentences describing May as "one of the few times of the year New York's climate is pleasant."

Hoping for a Positive Outcome Peaceful Election

 This morning I got a message all the way from Germany, where my penpal from 1963 lives.  She and her husband were concerned about our election and expressed

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hope that the Democrats "may come to the White House  without dangerous protestations in the street."

I told her that that was our hope too.

Ready, Get Set, Go!

As an editorial in this Monday's SF Chronicle pointed out, "Our election preparations have become considerably less distinguishable from our disaster preparation."

There's an open letter that, for some reason, we're supposed to keep confidential, so I'm not identifying it, but it's asking our city, county, and state leaders what they plan to do to assure a fair election if the Trump people turn violent.  I pointed out that it's not just the Trump people.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Punches-thrown-as-left-wing-protesters-show-up-at-15655621.php#photo-20124414

My comment:  Please add my name.  

I was listening to a podcast in which several people were being interviewed.  It was quite apparent that the Right-Wing fears violence from the Left, too, and 46% of the new gun owners are people who've never before bought a gun.  

I'm so glad that this open letter specifies "non-violent action."

I think it was in Sunday's  SFChronicle that this observation was made:  

"Our election preparations have become considerably less distinguishable from our disaster preparation."

  

Tina Martin

New San Francisco Vistas for My Son!

 It's 10:07 am on Sunday, November 1, 2020, and my son is due to land in San Francisco at 11:30 am.  

After being sure I'd see him in the summer here in SF, and then finding out that the pandemic wouldn't be gone right after we spent Easter at Puerto Backyarda, I knew at least I'd see him in NYC in September.  Nope.  I started to doubt that I'd see him at all this year.

I knew he was looking for a job that required the same skills but didn't have the same responsibilities as the one he had in NYC, but I didn't know he'd gotten a job offer in the Bay Area until early October, when he let me know.  After living in NYC for more than eleven years, he accepted the job, gave notice at his place of work and on his apartment, looked at about a thousand Bay Area places online and then got the one he wanted the most, arranged for movers, and got airlines ticket that's bringing him here today!

 I first found out that he'd be moving to San Francisco when a new book by Gary Kamiya (with illustrations by Paul Madonna) was coming out, Spirits of San Francisco.  Jonathan and I had read Gary Kamiya's book Cool, Grey City of Love:  49 Views of San Francisco in 2013, when we first discovered Grandview Park and other wonders of the city described in the book.  So I let him know when I heard that Gary Kamiya and Paul Madonna were appearing online at the Commonwealth Club.  He said it sounded interesting, but he wanted to spend the last couple of days with Diana, the girlfriend he'd be leaving behind for now.

By this time, I'd made two pilgrimages to his place--one by myself from 555 California Street, where we had a rally for Prop 15, and another from the Ferry Building, where Erika joined me.  We met a charming young woman who took us to a higher point where we could see the balconies overlooking the Bay.  She mentioned what I'd already heard from Jonathan: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived in his building briefly in 1940. .

So that was the question I put in the chat box:  Do you have anything in your book about places where Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo lived?

They didn't get to my question.  

 I bought the book  this past Thursday, at Bookshop West Portal.  On Friday morning, when I sat down to start it, I looked more closely at the cover picture, which looked so much like Calhoun Street--the extension of Union Street where Jonathan would be living.  So I looked at the index and found 9 pages about the history of that street.  Sure enough, it was the one on the cover of Spirits of San Francisco.

The "spirits" include "the haunted balcony" and a character from the Gold Rush days, Doc Robinson.  There have also been movies made there at the intersection.   

What a welcoming gift for Jonathan!   I wrote an inscription to him, underlined key passages (because we know from the book Marginalia that that increases the value of a book), and got it in the mail on Friday.  I hope he'll receive it on Monday, but maybe he'll get it on Tuesday, Election Day!  

We're hoping for good things to come!  I just this moment got a message that Jonathan has safely landed.  (It's his wish that I not be at the airport and that he have the chance to settle in before we meet tomorrow.)