Hope Johnson
Photos by Luke Thomas
By Hope Johnson
April 1, 2009
Where is Waldo, anyway, our perpetually blue-suited, fancy-haired Mayor?
Seriously, Mayor Newsom, some leadership is in order here on your intended policy toward adherence to San Francisco’s Sanctuary Ordinance. You know, here, in San Francisco, where you were elected chief bureaucrat to respond to citizenry concerns?
Mayor Gavin Newsom
And, notice, Gavin, I’ve taken the liberty of referring to you as “Mayor,” not “Governor.” There’s only one governor and it’s not you. Slowly open your eyes and bring your mind back to San Francisco where we pay your salary.
Last Wednesday, the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee (DCCC) addressed ongoing community concerns over SFPD racial profiling in the Mission.
The DCCC passed a resolution demanding Mayor Newsom “redirect law enforcement efforts away from criminalizing the immigrant community,” especially in light of San Francisco’s long standing Sanctuary City Ordinance, adopted in 1989.
Concerns arose last summer following Newsom’s policy change around sanctuary protections. The main change was an emphasis on reporting to ICE undocumented juveniles convicted of felonies. While intended to remove protections from convicted criminals, the change may provide leeway for law enforcement to combine the Sanctuary Ordinance’s clause – allowing reporting to ICE on merely booking a suspect with use of racial profiling to arrest people suspected of illegal immigration based on race alone.
Critics of the resolution need also consider that racial profiling, basing the likelihood of a person committing certain crimes based on skin color, is real, well-documented, and necessitates immediate action.
Regardless of one’s views on illegal immigration, racial profiling is not permitted in this country. The U.S. Constitution prohibits the practice under the Fourth (no search without probable cause) and Fourteenth (equal treatment under the law) Amendments.
The Sanctuary Ordinance expressly prohibits racial profiling: “No officer, employee or law enforcement agency of the City and County of San Francisco shall stop, question, arrest, or detain any individual solely because of the individual’s national origin or immigration status.”
Statements to the media by the Mayor’s office and other elected officials supportive of the Mayor in response to DCCC and citizen concerns have been unsatisfactory, to say the least, and cause for unease at a potential racial profiling trend in San Francisco.
Newsom spokesperson Nathan Ballard’s inadequate responses have included his opinion that the SFPD does not racially profile and the DCCC is asking the SFPD not to follow federal law.
Scott Wiener, DCCC member and District 8 supervisoral candidate endorsed by Newsom, dodged local responsibility, blaming federal policies and dismissing DCCC concerns as “petty San Francisco politics.”
DCCC member Scott Wiener (left) with DCCC chair Aaron Peskin.
San Franciscans deserve a better approach to addressing citizen concerns. Research and investigation are required to determine the extent of alleged racial profiling in the Mission; opinions and political rhetoric won’t lead to enlightened public scrutiny.
How about it, Mayor? May we hear from you directly? Where’s our open dialogue or call for investigation?
Do Electric Sheep Dream of Public Power?
Powerful PG&E power money has overpowered San Francisco public power utility and clean power propositions.
Media silence on any issue may be welcome relief after last November’s noisy election, but don’t allow the silence to lull you into a false sense of security.
Now is the time to keep your eye, and the pressure, on PG&E.
Last Tuesday, Belmont City Councilman William Dickenson requested the City Council discuss forming its own municipal electric utility system. Dickenson has battled PG&E over his plan for Belmont to install solar panels producing more power than the city needs, profiting the city.
And that makes sense. PG&E plans to raise rates and use the extra cash to install its own solar panels. Not benefiting cities, or counties, or you, or anything that has to do with you.
Lest one starts believing PG&E’s latest ‘we’re-oh-so-green’ hype, know the utility will also be eligible for federal tax credits covering renewable energy projects that provide funding for 30 percent of each solar project’s cost.
They want to have their cake and eat it, too! We taxpayers fund these projects and indentured servant electricity users (us) pay ever increasing rates to PG&E.
Ask not what PG&E can do for you but what you can do for yourself. Why not form our own San Francisco power district and take back the benefits ourselves?
Many cities in California already do, including Sacramento, Alameda, Palo Alto, Anaheim, Burbank and Los Angeles.
The trend is toward turning up the pressure cooker now. More cities pressuring PG&E at the same time equals better chances of public power success.
As more cities join the quest for utility choice, let’s play a new game: how many fires does it take to get to the center of the PG&E tootsie pop while also battling lawsuits over illegal tactics used to break up public power co-ops?
Stay tuned.
Fun Fact
The petition found on Facebook against renaming 3rd Street after Willie Brown is growing hefty with signatures and receiving mainstream media attention.
The Hunger Site
April 4, 2009 at 10:59 am
The history of federated republican democracy is characterized by give and take between the levels and branches of government.
-marc
April 3, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Hi, Hope, thanks for your response to my comment. I agree that your article speaks about racial profiling, but it uses SF’s Sanctuary Ordinance as a platform from which to address the issue. As I understand your article, you believe that Mayor Newsom’s recent change to SF’s Sanctuary Ordinance to permit the reporting of undocumented immigrant youth convicted of crimes to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may lead to increased racial profiling. If my understanding is correct, it seems to follow that the wording, interpretation, and application of the sanctuary ordinance are prime causative factors in the rise and fall of incidences of racial profiling.
My point, awkwardly made, perhaps, is that the legal status of an ordinance having such a powerful effect is a legitimate topic, if only in passing, and if only to provide contextual information.
April 3, 2009 at 10:53 am
Dear R.S.
Your discussion of the legal status of sanctuary cities is an intelligent account of the grey area surrounding that issue.
Please note, however, this column concerns racial profiling, which is consistently prohibited across ordinance, city, county, state, and federal practices.
April 3, 2009 at 9:28 am
I’ve always been curious about the legal status of sanctuary cities in the U.S. As far as I know (and I’m not a lawyer) sanctuary has no standing under federal or state law. If that’s true, an employee of SF who violated SF’s sanctuary ordinance by reporting illegal aliens to the federal government and was subsequently disciplined or fired would probably stand about a 100 percent chance of of having the disciplinary action reversed if the case went to court. And if such a case found its way to court, the ordinance on which the disciplinary action were based would most likely be declared unconstitutional on the face of it. I am aware of the political and moral aspects of sanctuary, but beyond that, the concept seems without legal foundation in this country.
April 2, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Let’s see, we’re paying people a whole pile of money to keep us safe, they think we’re “gorillas in the mist” because as conservative suburbanites our ways are strange and confusing to them so either they don’t do their job or they do it wrong.
Others come here to clean your damn toilets, pay their taxes and generally contribute to society.
I’d wager that cops have killed more San Franciscans in the past 20 years than the undocumented.
-marc
April 2, 2009 at 9:05 am
I love “progressives” its bad that cops live out of town but its OK for illegal aliens to come here?
Marc if I new you in person I would buy you some tin foil for your hat.
April 2, 2009 at 7:12 am
The culture of the SFPD is one of an occupying force given that more than 2/3 of them are commuter cops from the suburbs.
How would one know that most 911 operators are black? Did you racially profile them like you racially profiled the ethnicities of those who see 16th and Mission as a one-stop shopping for hard drugs, skanky sex and an open-air shitter?
The full rainbow of diversity visits its ills on our corner of the world, especially the blue.
I don’t get why the cops can’t find someone based on a description of their clothing, conduct and location, why race is required?
-marc
April 1, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I will give a free blow job to whoever kicks Scott Wiener’s scrawny ass in the District 8 election. I’ll throw in anal to the slate that bumps him off of the DCCC in 2010.
April 1, 2009 at 3:24 pm
@brian: that’s a 3 pointer.
April 1, 2009 at 1:29 pm
ah marc… So what you are saying is that the color of a person isn’t an indicator of what they look like?
“I was just mugged, they were lavender”
Its also a bizarre complaint because I think most 911 operators are black, they must be part of the conspiracy.
You should stop calling the police and call the La Raza legal office, (415) 575-3505‎, I’m sure they would be right over to round up the local miscreants who are playing jacks on your stoop or blocking driveway with their stick ball game. Do yell at those whippersnappers to stay off your lawn and shake your cane at them?
April 1, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Firstly the DCCC is a semi-elected group, who have no power beyond endorsing candiates and initivies, so passing resoltions is as effectual as passing gas. Why is this getting any press? Secondly can you not post any images of Aaron Peskin; he is possibly one of the most abhorrent and unattractive indiviuals that we can all do with out.
Despite numerous elections that the residence of SF have said they don’t trust our power supply to Local government. Lets put it on the ballot again and again; while we are at it lets try and ask that Wells Fargo be run by our brain trust at city hall. I also want all Pizza Delivery to be managed via. our 311 call center.
April 1, 2009 at 11:43 am
The first thing the cops ask for when I call them to have them come out to deal with the kind of disgusting conduct that the SFPD “contains” in the Mission is “what race is the person?”
We need to run public power campaigns of one sort or another in each and every election to force PG&E to spend tens of millions of dollars. Also, as a condition of doing business with the City, that is holding a franchise agreement or pulling a building permit, we need to impose campaign contribution limits as we do for others who contract with the City.
As far as Brown is concerned, he needs a memorial similar to Szoborpark in Budapest. Szoborpark is a memorial to the communist era in Hungary and contains statuary of the Soviet satellite era:
http://www.szoborpark.hu/images/koncepcio/klatkep.jpg
Note that the paths force one in circles, and they all terminate at a brick wall.
-marc
April 1, 2009 at 10:35 am
If they are going to rename a street “Willie L. Brown, Jr. Blvd,” shouldn’t it be Lombard Street?
For the painfully obvious reason.
April 1, 2009 at 10:28 am
The family that was killed by an illegal alien is still dead, when they come back to life we can stop reporting to the fed.
How one is supposed to prove a negative is beyond me, but this racial profiling whining from the usual whiners is a bit bizarre. When everyone is a victim and has that mentality in all areas of their world view, how do you prove the cops don’t racially profile?
Oddly though, as I live in the Mission I think its a safe bet that the majority of people drinking on stoops and acting up are Latino, being as the other residents in the Mission are carpet bagger’s, all of them upper middle class white liberals, I doubt their actions are what the cops are looking for. Let me note that I have spent plenty of time drinking on my stoop and lament the influs of white liberals as these people suffer from such angst and guilt that they vote for people like Campos, Quazada and Sanchez in district nine.