There’s a No on 98 outreach tomorrow in the Marina. The San Francisco No on 98 campaign is on track to distribute 100,000 pieces of literature before the election (which is in 25 days!), but they need your help. If 98 passes, none of the rest of the work we do in California matters at all.

Reminder—help save rent control and get the NO on 98 word out in the Marina Saturday, May 10, 11 AM. Meet at the Marina Library, 1890 Chestnut (at Fillmore) to get literature and a precinct map.

There’s less than 25 days left to election day, so we need your help to save rent control!!

FLUNK THE BUDGET - Protest Potluck Sponsored by the 2nd District PTA

Date: Friday May 9, 2008
Time: 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Where: McAllister Conference Room
at 555 Franklin Street

Grab a potluck dish and your cellphone and head on down to 555 Franklin on Friday, May 9 to remind our legislators that they MUST Flunk The Budget!

This coming Friday evening, the Second District PTA is coordinating a Potluck Protest against the Governor’s plan to drastically reduce funding for education. This is another URGENT reminder to Sacramento as they prepare to work on the 2008-2009 Budget.

The League of Young Voters also released their voter guide for the June election. It’s an interesting one, for a couple reasons.

First, they make a point about Prop E I hadn’t seen emphasized before:

In addition, all current commissioners will be booted out on August 1 unless they can approved under the new criteria. Tow of the existing commissioners look like the fit the new frame- one’s a solar guy and one’s got some crazy public utilities background. The other two have bios that seem to be more about political connections than PUC experience, so it looks like E would kick them out and put 3 board-approved folks in.

It’s great to see them break down the effect on the current members. I’d still like to see some board-appointed members of the PUC, but this seems like a little step forward.

Here are the endorsements for the Bernal Heights Dem club:

United States Congress: no endorsement
California Senate: Carole Migden
California Assembly: Tom Ammiano
State Propositions:
98: Property rights: No
99: Eminent Domain reform: Yes

Local propositions
A: School Parcel Tax: Yes
B: Public Employee Retirement Health Care: no recommendation
C: Forfeiture of Retirement Benefits (Moral Turpitude): no recommendation
D: Diversity on City Boards and Commissions: Yes
E: Public Utilities Commission reform: Yes
F: Affordable Housing at Lennar Project: Yes
G: Lennar project at Candlestick Point and Hunters Point Shipyard: No
H: Mayor’s reform proposal: no recommendation

From the Campaign to re-elect District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi

May 8, 2008

What: Board President/Supervisor Aaron Peskin, Assemblymember Fiona Ma, Former Mayor Art Agnos, Public Defender Jeff Adachi, Sheriff Mike Henessey, President Sf Board of Education Mark Sanchez, Professor Elahe Enssani, Bijan Sartipi, Commissioner London Breed, Commissioner Min Paek, Commissioner Steve Nakajo, Sunshine Task Force Member Bruce Wolfe, Melissa Emergui, SF Labor Council President Tim Paulson, Khaled and Musa Dajani, Paul Osaki, Sandy Mori, Michael Johnson, Jeff Maruyama, Mehran Esmaili, Alexis Wong, Felix Levy, Angelo Quaranta…

… cordially invite you to join them in honoring Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi at a kickoff campaign reception to “Re-elect Mirkarimi”

The JCCC sponsored its anual Kindergarten Information Night last night.

At Kindergarten Information Night, parents are invited to talk with representatives from public and private schools. I was there to represent the 2nd District PTA. Even though John Muir ES had asked to be on the mailing list for booths, we didn’t get the notice. But John Muir ES was able to get a table when one of the schools that had RSVPed didn’t show up. Our table was chaired by John Muir ES’ PTA President, Gail Baugh.

SFUSD Superintendent Garcia announced that he is rescinding teacher layoffs for the 2008-09 school year.

The District sent out layoff notices to 535 certified personnel and were required by the State Education Charter to send out the final notice by May 15.

On Tuesday, the Board passed with a 11-0 vote to authorize the use of a portion of the Rainy Day funds to SFUSD. The resolution didn’t note the amount. But reports from SFUSD is that the City will provide $18 to $19.7 million of the Rainy Day fund to SFUSD. But one supervisor, Sean Elsbernd noted that he will be looking a recommendation at cutting Prop H funds, since he felt that the District has not been willing to go through the process with the BOS to have a hearing about the use of the Rainy Day funds. President Peskin concurred with Supervisor Elsbernd’s remarks.

This Monday come support CitiApartments tenants and CitiSTOP campaign volunteers as we show the Board of Supervisors how CitiApartments mistreats their tenants and raises all our rents!

WHAT: Hearing in front of the Land Use & Economic Development Committee
WHEN: Monday May 12th at 1pm
WHERE: City Hall, Room 263 (on Polk St between McAllister and Grove)

In 2005, the City Attorney’s office filed a lawsuit against CitiApartments for unfair business practices, but today, in 2008, CitiApartments continues to buy dozens of buildings across the city, using aggressive and illegal tactics to evict long-term tenants and raise their profit margins. This is our chance to remind our lawmakers that CitiApartments is still a problem and to ask for their help in making Citi behave like a good landlord.

Joe says he ‘misspoke’ at the trans conference.

If you want to see what ‘misspeaking’ looks like, go see what he said for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_GhTiBO8Cw

HRC president apologizes for ‘misspeaking’ at transgender conference
Solmonese talks with Atlanta activists in private meeting
By DYANA BAGBY, Southern Voice | May 6, 7:37 PM
Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese met with a handful of transgender activists in Atlanta last week and apologized for “misspeaking” at last year’s Southern Comfort conference, where he promised HRC would only support an Employment Non-Discrimination Act that included gender identity, according to people attending the meeting.

We have been remiss in announcing the No on 98 rally today, at noon, at Civic Center.

The Chronicle wrote a typically terrible article about it today, repeating the canard that rent control somehow stops people from building housing. The truth is that no housing built in San Francisco in the last 29 years has been subject to rent control. So unless developers were planning on going back in time three decades to sneak in some four-unit buildings, I think the argument’s pretty damn crappy. More likely causes of the lack of rental housing are the real estate bubble, but more systematically the way building housing for sale generates short term, rather than the long-term profits of rental housing.